Colin Montgomerie doesn't seem to care whether he makes this year's European Ryder Cup team or not. By opting to sit out of the next two tournaments and to play only in the Johnny Walkier Championship, the final event of the Ryder Cup qualifying competition, he has seriously jeopardized his chance of making the team. He is now most unlikely to qualify with a top-10 place in the Ryder Cup Points race and despite his outstanding Ryder Cup record, he was so dreadful at Oakland Hills, he is going to make it very difficult for Nick Faldo to give him one of the two wild cards unless he produces something really dramatic in the Jonnie Walker

I see Michelle Wie, with enormous delusions of gradeur, is at it again. Trying to play with the men. After the way it has destroyed her confidence I can't wonder why? How foolish can you get?

My opponents in our fourball refused to give me a free drop when I landed it on what was clearly a pile of greenkeeper's rubble (trimmings from bushes and grass cuttings) on the 17th hole. I knew they were wrong, but I was in the running to win our club's monthly medal and didn't want to lose a shot by taking a drop, so I angrily tried to play the ball where it lay, hit it fat a few yards and ended up getting a double bogey on our easiest par five. No medal and lots of frustration! Afterwards I was told by friends that what I should have done is played two balls (one off the pile of rubble) and one off a free drop and got an official ruling from the club afterwards on which one scored. Is that correct?

I'm amazed that no one, but no one, seems to have mentioned Adam Scott as a possible winner. The World No 3 has everything it takes to win a major and I believe this will be his first. Clearly he is lying low and enjoying the lack of pressure that goes with being invisable. By the way dpearce33, amateurs are allowed to have caddies and get advise from them - if they can afford them! They are also allowed to get advise from their partners in betterball games

Australians lead the first round of this week's tournaments on the world's three leading Tours - Matthew Goggin at the US PGA's Memorial Tournament, Scott Strange at the European Tour's Wales Open and Karrie Webb at the LPGA's Ginn Tribute. But it's not altogether surprising coming from one of the world's greatest sporting nations. Few can boast of producing as many champions in a wide variety of sports as they can - and incredibly they are able to do it with not many more than 20 million people. We are going to see more and more of them in golf.

Golf shirts that feed your skin with vitamin C, laser putters that guide your ball to the hole and GPS equipment that tells exactly how far the green and its guarding bunkers are from you are all great aids, to be sure, but ideally what I would pay a fortune for is a computer I can link via wireless to a chip implanted in my brain that would take control of my erratic swing. It's job would be to take all the conditions into account (wind, rain, a hard dry surface, even the level of my fitness etc) and then have my brain guide me through the perfect swing. What a pleasure it would be to be whacking the ball down the centre of every fairway and then clubbing a wedge to within inches of the hole - at least for a while.

A word of warning to Sergio Garcia: winning The Players Championship is a big feat, to be sure, but it doesn't guarantee he'll ever win a major. Just look at Adam Scott, another player in his 20s who has won The Players, but has never looked like winning a major as yet. As the first European golfer to win in 20 years, I hope, however, that Sergio, one of our best Ryder Cup players over the past few years, does go on to win a major.

I couldn't believe my eyes. Here, thousands of us are sitting up, well after midnight, waiting for the big moment when Trevor Immelman wins South Africa's first Masters in something like 30 years, when some incredibly stupid M-Net TV programmer decides we've had enough of the golf and it's time to switch to some corny little Movie. Yes, this when there were just two holes to play and Immelman was leading by three shots from Tiger Woods! Immelman's triumph is in a similar category to SA winning the World Rugby or Cricket Cup or one of its athletes claiming a Golf Medal at the Olympics. Someome needs a big kick in the pants.

Rosco, I think you misunderstood me. I certainly wasn't making a case for Monty's inclusion. With a World ranking in the sixties, he doesn't deserve his place. Rather I was agreeing with his view that TV revenue should not determine who qualifies for a place in the Masters, which, with all it's invitees, tends to have the weakest field of all the majors. Only the world's best players based on strict qualification rules should play in the majors. The field should not be on the whim of Augusta's 'good ol boys' who seem to think they are a law unto themselves and have no need to conform to international norms.

Monty's right. Majors should not be open to golfers on the basis of TV rights alone. And this should be made clear to the good ol' boys of Augusta National who seem to think they are above everything and can do as they please. They should be told that unless the Masters is run like a major it could lose it's major status.

It's good to see Phil Mickelson and Annika Sorenstam back on top with the trophies. Both of them have charisma and skill and are good for the game. I've never heard of Filipe Aguilar, the European Tour winner, but he looks a nice enough chap - and his record at home clearly indicates that he knows how to win.

Personally I like to see the big name golfers beat the guys the media politely refer to as 'unheralded journeymen'. It's easier to identify with the stars and feel for them because you know so much more about them.

I cant agree with your blogger, Matt Freemantle when he decries SA golfers for making a lot of news, but producing very little in the way of results. He seems to have forgotten about Durban-born Rory Sabbatini who made a lot of noise this past season, but put his money where his mouth was by earning $4,550,000 on the US PGA Tour via one win, two seconds, three thirds and 10 top ten finishes. Not too bad, especially when you consider that Tiger Woods was the man who stopped him getting at least two more victories

Weezageeza, I haven't see the Torrance ad you mention, perhaps because I live in South Africa. Tell me more

Sorry Mr Editor but Justin Rose is going to have to win a few more tournaments to convince me that he's not a choker. I mean he did it again on Sunday with a closing 73, didn't he? He was lucky he had started out with a four-shot lead!

What's with Sam Torrance and Bernard Gallacher? The two ex-Ryder Cup captain's have certainly got the knives out for Nick Faldo, Britain's most successful Ryder Cup golfer of all time. They're doing exactly the same thing they accuse him of doing - e.g. running to the press instead of quietly going to him with their criticism of his behaviour. I wouldn't accuse them of doing so intentionally, but their actions could create the impression that they are trying to sabotage his chances of leading Europe to victory in next year's Ryder Cup, Torrance especially.

Drug testing had to come, I suppose, if only to prove that golf is a pretty drug-free sport when compared with things like weight lifting, shot putting and sprinting. But personally I feel it's going to be pretty much of a waste of time - at least until such time as a special muscle memory drug can be created that helps you produce the same perfect, repeating swing evertime you pick up a club

I have to back Tiger Woods, Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson in their stand against this year's US PGA Tour and their unrealistic tour schedule. With the back-to-back PGA Championship and the Bridgestone Invitational separated from the four straight "FedEx play-off" tournaments by just one week, the end of season schedule, quite frankly, puts a ridiculous amount of physical and mental stress on the game's top guns for whom the so-called golden egg at the end of the FedEx rainbow is hardly something they are going to lose their senses over and go chase after like chickens with their heads cut off. And this especially so now that they have come to feel that to some extent they have been conned when they find out that the so called R10million bonanza due to the FedEx Cup winner will only be paid to him as part of his retirement package when he turns 45 and not immediately as many of them had been made to believe - including Woods, Mickelson and Els, acceding to an interview given by Els this week

I agree with the editor when he says that something is wrong with the FedEx Cup when the No 1 seed can "put his feet up" and take a break during the first of the four play-off tournaments this week knowing his rivals cannot win enough points to catch him. Do Away with the seedings, I say, and let everyone start on the same playing field with zilch points as the LPGA women do for their season-closing ADSL Championship.That would make for a much more compelling FedEx Cup series and put a lot more pressure on the rich and famous fat-cats who march through life picking and chosing the tournaments that pamper them most and the courses that suit them best

Tiger will be up there all the way to the end, but you know what? For once he's going to be pipped by either Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose or someone you've hardly ever heard of like Rich Beam was when he beat Tiger in the PGA a couple of years back.

I see 90-Degree Slice has got his wish, with dark horse Angel Cabrera beating Tiger Woods at the US Open. I hope the big fella will go on to win more events, though. To my mind one-off winners like Shaun Micheel are less disreable major champions than any of the big guns, for as fanatastic as it may be for them and their family, their winning of a major and never featuring on the winners podium again tends only to cheapen the title, not enhance it.

I see Jim Furyk winning at Oakmont with Ernie Els second. My winning score? 3-under

The top finishing non-America will be Adam Scott . His winning total will be minus 2

Tiger Woods is the big favourite on your poll to win the US Open, and I can see why. He's won three tournaments already this year, including the WGC-Ca and the Wachovia Championships, and finished second at the Masters, but my money's going to be on the new Phil Mickelson-Butch Harmon team which looked pretty formidable at 'The Fifth Major', the Players championship. Perhaps the Memorial at Muirfield Village this week will tell us more?

I don't know what the Australian A team of Appleby and Allenby are going on about. The storms that delayed his take-off and made him late for the EDS Byron Nelson Championship Pro-Am are quite acceptable extenuating circumstances. It' s a a very different thing from oversleeping after a party as Retief Goosen did when he was disqualified. The Aussie squealers should get off his back because there are a host of people who would rather see him than them in a memorial tournament that has sadly been snubbed by too many of the World's Top 10 players, Tiger Woods among them

It won't be Ernie. although with his talent, he is certainly due for another win sometime soon. He seems to have lost the winning culture. Phil Mickelson, whose form has slumped dramatically in the past month isn't a good bet either. I'd say it's more likely that Tiger's closest competion will come from outside of the obvious favourites, from golfers like the current front runnersw Justin Rose and Brett Wetterich, and from one of the Howells, Charles and David or from David Toms.

At least 51 per cent of your readers polled so far pick Tiger Woods to win the Masters, but I don't go along with them - and for one important reason. With everything going on around him as your editor says, he's lost some of that laser focus that has made him unbeatable at various stages of his career and this has been shown by the way he has faded in the final rounds of his last two events. I reckon that if any of his rivals can string together four sub-par rounds they are going to beat him

Charity starts at home, I always say so I hope our Mr Liang Wen-chong is fully satisfied with the way his family is being taken care of before he gives away all of that $183,330 in purse money to golf!

After ten consecutive years of having to go back to Q School, Mark Wilson must be a truly honourable guy to have called a two-shot penalty on himself when her was in the running to win the Honda Classic - and for a really minor infringement made by his caddy who unwittingly told Wilson's opponent's caddy what club he (Wilson) had used. Very few golfers, amateur or professional, will have done that, especially if they had as much to lose as he had. And in any case, the law he infringed is a load of rubbish. I don't understand why there should be a law against it at all. Surely it should be up to the player himself to decide whether or not club information should be passed on?

Way to go Henrik. What a big weekend! Win a WGC event, earn more than a million dollars and make all kinds of Swedish history like being the country's first WGC winner and it's highest-ever World Ranked player at No 5. Can he go to the top and win a major, you ask? Damn sure he can. His brave opponent Geoff Ogilvy, already a US Open winner, made that clear when he said of the Swede: "He can do anything he wants to" or something along those lines. His caddy? Has Fanny made a difference? I'm sure her great experience at the very highest level while carrying Faldo's bag is invaluable, but in the end Stenson has to make the decisions and play the shots and a shouldn't have to share his acclaim. Tiger certainly won't allow it. He's already fired one famous caddy for trying to grab too much of the spotlight.

I hope the seedings for the WGC-Accenture Match Play championship have been strictly set according to World Golf Ranking positions for if not, it makes you wonder why so many European golfers have been put up against their fellow countryman in the first round. The Brits in the draw are David Howell who plays South Africa's Rory Sabbatini, Luke Donald who is up against Spanish veteran Miguel Angel Jimenez, Justin Rose who plays New Zealand's Michael Campbell, Darren Clarke, who faces Ryder Cup team-mate Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter who plays American Brad Bryant, Colin Montgomery, who is up against Sweden's Johan Edfors, Lee Westwood, who takes on another Ryder Cup team-mate in Padraig Harrington of Ireland, Paul Casey, who plays Canada's Mike Weir and Bradley Dredge who is drawn against Ernie Els That's 13 in all at the start of round one, but after eliminating each other in four of the matches, no more than nine at the most have a chance of going through to the second round - and that's providing that players like Dredge and Rose can pull off victories over the likes of HSBC World Match play winners Els and Campbell.

Golf is an ongoing source of amazement and is forever evoking the comment, "this sure is a funny game". For a while I presumed this only applied to us middle-of-the-road club golfers who go out and shoot a best-ever round on one day and then come back a day or two later all pumped up and range-prepared only to have a horrible day. But no the pros are equally at the mercy of this confounding game that never stops biting you bum and bringing you back to earth just when you get too arrogant or sends you soaring to glory for no apparent reason when your are at your wits end about your game. Phil Mickelson must have felt like that after missing the cut last week, but then just look at what he did at Pebble Beach this week. After being unable to finish better than 40th in his last three events, he closed with a 66 to win by five shots. Yes I know he worked hard at his putting in the previous week etc etc, but in truth there is a lot more to it than hard work. If there wasn't, Vijay Singh would win every week and my 11-handicap friend Bob B would be the club champion.

To me Sunday (Jan 28) was a great day. There are some who punt the underdog (normally the underdogs of life themselves, if you ask me) but sports lovers need heroes and in general like nothing better than to see their heroes winning, setting records and, all in all, performing brilliantly.

My Christmas wish is that Tiger stirs up some additional excitement next year by adding five more consecutive PGA Tour strokeplay victories to his six last year to match the 11 in-a-row of the late, great Byron Nelson. But after that I'd like to see Ernie Els start to reel him in by winning some more US, WGC and European Tour titles as well as a major or two. Tiger needs some competition!

You guys at Golf 365 can rail all you like about the fruitless exercise of playing Michelle Wie in men's events. Yes it is getting boring beyond belief and yes it is also destroying her confidence and is even getting to the stage where it might even destroy her career. But she is not going to stop playing in men's events for one simple reason. She and her family are having a great time getting rich on fat appearance fees. It's actually up to the sponsors to stop the rot. They, after all, are the ones who issue her with sponsors exemptions.

We have been told the Volvo Masters won by Jeev Milkha Singh closed the European Tour season with Padraig Harrington being crowned the European No 1 for 2006 and that the US PGA Tour came to an end with Adam Scott winning the Tour Championship and Tiger Woods topping the money list. Fine. We are also told that this week's HSBC Champions Tournament is the opening event on the European Tour's 2007 Tour schedule. So where does this leave the WGC (World Golf Champion) World Cup in Barbados on November 7? Is it no longer part of any Tour? And are there any World Ranking points at stake? I am confused. Can you help me clear things up on this rather puzzling question

I agree with Tim Finchem, the US PGA Tour's commish. Tiger Woods should see it as a non-negotiable commitment to golf and to his large body of loyal supporters to play in the season-closing Tour Championship. Sure his presence has helped elevate the tour and attract more money, more TV and more spectators, but just look what it's done for him! Tiger's got many good points, but selflessness in the cause of a game that will one day make him a billionaire - if it hasn't already - is not one of them.

Playing on a windy day in a betterball medal competition at my club recently, one of my opposing players had his ball blown off the green by a sudden gust while he was walking to putt it for par. It had been only four feet from the hole, but after the gust and a long roll down the slope at the back of the green, he found himself some 35 feet away. When I told him he would have to play the ball as it lay and said no to his request to replace it in it's original position and putt out, he became angry and accused me of not knowing the rules and an argument ensued which resulted in him refusing to join me in a drink afterwards. Can you confirm that I was right and he would only have been able to replace his ball on the green if it had been knocked off by another ball or by an opponent or his caddy?

I don't agree with Neville leck that the brand names of sports event sponsors (eg Johnnie Walker) should not be included in bans on liquor or tobacco advertising. I say ban the whole shebang. It's ridiculous that these two evils which are as addictive as many banned drugs, can be legally sold, let alone promoted openly to our children.

Justin Rose hasn't won since his inspiring father died. He's lost none of his a talent, but he did seem to lose the ability to put four good rounds together and win. Some tough years on the USA Tour have matured and hardened him, though, and he might just be on the brink of a career breakthrough at last.