The Loop
Alex Noren third European golfer in world top 20 not on the Euro Ryder Cup team
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Alex Noren of Sweden won the British Masters on Sunday, his third victory of the year, providing yet another painful reminder of what might have been for the European Ryder Cup team.
“Darren Clarke might be well advised to keep away from the world rankings tomorrow morning. Because in the top 20, there will feature a third European who was not on his beaten Ryder Cup team two weeks ago.
“But then, Alex Noren has come along with a fair rattle in the last three months and is a different case to Russell Knox and Paul Casey, who both undoubtedly had the pedigree to play at Hazeltine, but for separate reasons were not included in the 12-strong squad,” James Corrigan of the Telegraph writes.
The ‘Cruds’ biannual trip to Myrtle Beach in its 50th year
Twice a year — once in the spring, once in the fall — for 50 years, a group of golfers from the Durham, N.C., area trek to Myrtle Beach for a three-day weekend of golf. The group is called the Cruds.
“The late George Toms, who went on the first trip in the spring of '67, was inviting [Whit] Cobb on the second trip when his wife chimed in, asking who else was going on the trip. After Toms ran through some of the names, [Russell] Barringer said she responded, ‘My husband is not going off with that bunch of cruds,’” Alan Blondin of the Sun News in Myrtle Beach writes.
“‘That’s where the name came from and we've had the name ever since,’ Barringer said…
“Nineteen of the living Cruds were born in the 1920s or 30s, so many are in their 80s. Former Wells Fargo Bank CEO Harald Hansen is the oldest on this trip at 85. He isn’t playing golf this week because of health issues, but he was planning to attend the Saturday banquet at The Dunes Club.
“‘We’re at the age now, I drove a hearse down here to be sure if somebody dies, we can put them on ice and bring them back on Sunday,’ joked Joe Lee III, who is one of the newbies with just 10 trips under his belt.”