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Missing Links: 'Will people still be interested' in golf post-Tiger? Will Euros be over-confident in Ryder Cup?

August 18, 2014

Stories of interest you might have missed...

"Let's see if people watch it," Paul Azinger, in this New York Post story by Brett Cyrgolis, said regarding a post-Tiger Woods era. "Tiger brought more people to the game than ever before," Azinger said. "As that era slips away, in his absence, will people still be interested?"

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Will the European Ryder Cup team trip itself up with over-confidence, the way it did in 2008 with Nick Faldo as captain? Not likely, James Corrigan says in this story in the Telegraph. "The team of underdogs prevailed and Faldo was leashed by his lethargy...So beware Europe — do not dare be too big for your spikes. Except a few things are different this time around. [Captain Paul] McGinley is not Faldo and [Rory] McIlroy is not [Padraig] Harrington. The former is as likely to take anything for granted as the latter is to take a measly half-point from four matches."

Next up for Rory McIlroy is the Barclays this week. "The world's No. 1 player is bringing his surging game and meteoric profile to Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus [N.J.]," writes columnist Tara Sullivan in the Record. "For a sport in need of new faces, McIlroy is making his case as the first Woods replacement in years. He won't ever match Woods' mass appeal and cross­over popularity, but for the golf purist and traditional fan, he's a very welcome sight."

"As the final group on the final day of the final LPGA tournament scheduled for Rochester walked up the 18th fairway, the applause grew for Brittany Lincicome and Suzann Pettersen. And in these final emotional moments, nearly four decades of history and tradition seemed to be marching with them." Leo Roth of the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle writes about the end of an era, 38 years of LPGA tournaments in Rochester.

Gunn Yang's victory in the U.S. Amateur on Sunday was this unexpected: "So steep and sudden was Yang's rise from the depths of amateur golf he should have had at least a small nose bleed while accepting the Havemeyer Trophy Sunday evening," Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Steve Hummer writes.