[Adder]

It was a great final. Two greats/legends Kohli and Rohit bow out.

As for Jasprit Bumrah, he has a ridiculously high skill level as a bowler and is in a class of his own in my book.

[GrumpyBaggie]

The Euro's are swallowing up all of the sporting air time, but it has been a huge 24 hours.

An impressive list, but you forgot the most important - the Tour de France set off from Floerence (yes, I know it is in Italy) yesterday.  Live and highlights on ITV4.

[Baggies]

For those who dont stand to win 3 figures from a Shane Lowry Open win, who arent watching England's closer than expected test match vs the Windies or who arent watching the London Diamond league, there is something a bit different to watch on Sunday.

After last year's first in broadcasting the All Ireland Gaelic Football final, this year, the Hurling equivilant will be broadcast from 3 30pm on BBC 2. Cork will be aiming to get a 1st title in nearly 20 years, vs a Clare side who arent serial winners themselves.

[SmethDan]

For those who dont stand to win 3 figures from a Shane Lowry Open win, who arent watching England's closer than expected test match vs the Windies or who arent watching the London Diamond league, there is something a bit different to watch on Sunday.

After last year's first in broadcasting the All Ireland Gaelic Football final, this year, the Hurling equivilant will be broadcast from 3 30pm on BBC 2. Cork will be aiming to get a 1st title in nearly 20 years, vs a Clare side who arent serial winners themselves.

Might have a watch of that. My mom used to love the Gaelic Football, Camogie and Hurling. I had a mate years back who played for Carrigtwohill as a youth. Got his nose spread right across his face with a hurley. I like to think it improved his looks  .

[Baggies]

Seeing as somebody no longer stands a chance of 3 figures on Lowry for the Open (thanks Shane), there will likely be 2 of us.

Have been tempted to go and see Warwickshire in the hurling in Solihull - they play a couple of the Irish counties early in the year in the NHL.

[Baggies]

A begrudging congrats to Xander Schauffele, twelve "Top 10's" in Majors dating back to 2017 before he finally won at this years PGA champ, now the seal in broken and he makes it two in one year. Top 10's in every major this year, the only playee than can rival Scottie Scheffler for consitency.

A shame for Justin Rose, 44 next week, started the day in contention, shoots a 4 under par round (the second best round of the day) but still cant take it home due to Xander being unstoppable. He will likely retire with only one major win, but he really did deserve more (four 2nd place finishes, including a masters play off loss when i had money on him).

Entered a golf majors prediction competition at the start of the year, were it not for a last minute change of heart, I had Scheffler, Xander and DeChambeau all to win one this year (albeit got them the wrong way around). Fingers crossed for a European major winner next year. Still got the olympics to come.

[Baggies]

Two bits of news about British sports club sales.

Yesterday, it was announced that London Lions - the successful but now financially threatened Basketball team was being purchased by the owners of Zalgiris (the European basketball power house from Lithuania).

Today, it seems Dehli Capitals owners also agrred the deal to buy Hampshire CCC/Southern Brave. Another step closer to the IPL running world cricket. Get ready for the two month test window in less than a decades time.

[Baggies]

Good weekend of sport, always helps if Albion win.

Bad England cricket loss to the Aussies, but the netball side went down under to get a surprise win in Sydney.

Argentina beat South Africa in the Rugby Championship, putting them second in the Championship and meaning they have beat all 3 of the big southern hemisphere sides this year.

Englishman Lando Norris won the Singapore Grand Prix to edge closer to a still unlikely Formula 1 title.

My own highlight was the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, Surrey. It doesn’t quite get the same depth of field as the pre major, Scottish Open, or the the same prize money and kudos as the Dubai event that ends the season, but the BMW is still the flagship event for the European tour. The field included 6 golfers with PGA tour wins this season (McIlroy, Horschel, Rai, Pavon, Malnati and Macintyre), an additional 6 Ryder cup 2023 Europeans (Straka, Fitzpatrick, Rose, Hojgaard, Lowry, Fleetwood) and 3 of next weeks Presidents cup golfers (An, Kim and Scott), plus a raft of Europeans playing on the PGA tour. The Black Country’s own Aaron Rai very nearly won it before fading at the end, while former youth prodigy Matteo Mannasero nearly capped a whirlwind 2 years by taking the crown for a second time. Instead, it went to a 3 man playoff, with the West Ham supporting Billy Horschel beating Rory McIlroy and South African Thriston Lawrence.

The one negative I suppose is that the top 4 positions contained 3 golfers who primarily play the PGA tour. This was Horschel’s 2nd win at Wentworth in 4 years, he has only won 2 PGA tour events in that time despite playing there week in, week out. It exposes the gap between the two tours now that LIV and the PGA tour are taking the cream on an annual basis.

[gazberg]

Luke Littler on fire against MVG in the final at the moment!


EDIT  Littler winning 4 sets to 0, this is brilliant play.

[gazberg]

Littler wins the world championship 7-3, incredible, can't believe he's only 17

[SmethDan]

Littler wins the world championship 7-3, incredible, can't believe he's only 17

Fair play and good arrows, especially given the likely hardship of that paper round of his. Clearly added years to him.

[BaggieBoy04]

MVG was absolutely Awful, but Littler was class he was toying with MVG he could have finished those 170's easily but he always let MVG try and then finished it when MVG missed it. He was cruising and could afford to play about

[Baggies]

The Golf season has started with the  PGA tour Sentry over in Kapalua, Hawaii. At a course known to have a link to Augusta, it was a former green jacket winner in Hideki Matsuyama who bagged the first tournament win of the year. Keep an eye on him for the majors, maybe even a 2nd masters title. Ludvig Aberg also ticking along nicely after injury.

It's the European Tours turn this week with the Team event - Continental Europe vs Britain and Ireland. A pre curser to this years Ryder cup, Team Europe will be lead by Francesco Molinari while Europe have Justin Rose. The Hojgaard brothers Nicolai and Rasmus are the 2 with the best claims to get spots in this years Ryder cup team, alongside Frenchman Matthieu Pavon who has a string of good results the last 15 months. There are 4 Danes in total - Neergaard-Peterson and particularly Norgaard are worth watching out for.

For GB, Tommy Fleetwood and interestingly - LIV's Tyrrell Hatton are the big names. Watch out for Northern Ireland's Tom McKibbin who will have a duel PGA tour card this year. The Black Country's Aaron Rai and Matt Wallace will also want strong showings to finally break into the Ryder Cup team.

[Baggies]

The Ryder Cup prep event was a bit of a mixed bag, with the English heavy GB and I side beating Continental Europe 17-8 in a one sided weekend, which threatened to get even more embarrassing for the Europeans at one point this morning, before a late fight back rescued a bit of face.

Luke Donald has said it was a very good weekend for his Ryder cup planning, but I’m not sure Team Europe will be that happy. Before they had even teed off on the first day, the news had filtered through that the sole Non-Englishman on our side, Northern Ireland’s Tom McKibbin, will be almost certainly joining LIV golf (interesting timing for the news to break, the week of this event and 1 week before the season starting Dubai desert classic). It means LIV will have 2 of the best 3 young Europeans on their books in David Puig and McKibbin, a difficult situation for the European Ryder Cup side given the qualification remit.

Team GB&I named a much stronger side than Europe in hindsight, with lots of PGA tour experience. After Nicolas Hojgaard had to pull out with illness, Matthieu Pavon was the sole European who currently plays at the top level (discounting F Molinari who is a secondary level PGA tour player now). A shame not to see somebody like Jesper Svensson, Stephan Jäger, Bincent Norman or Thomas Detry in the squad - Jäger in particular looks like he is capable of making the squad but his tournament selection the last 12 months don’t suggest he has much interest of proactively qualifying.

Bad week:

The Hojgaard brothers -Nicolai getting sick, Rasmus having a horrible weekend with just 1 half point to show for it, albeit that did come after a gritty fight back vs Aaron Rai in the singles (somebody else who looked like he was going to have a solid week, only to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory and ended up being upstaged by a number of lesser lights).

Matt Wallace - has based his schedule around qualifying this year having missed out a few times now, ended up having a poor week compared to the rest of the GB squad. A real shame given his commitment. Hope he can write this weekend off.


Good week:

Not going to discuss Tommy Fleetwood or Tyrell Hatton who are almost nailed on places anyway, they we’re a class above as expected.

Matthieu Pavon - he has had a sensational 15 months, playing the best golf of his life, only point dropped was in the singles vs Tommy Fleetwood, who won every game and is a bit of a specialist at this format anyway. Probably did more for his case than any other player this weekend.

Norgaard, Waring, Canter, Langasque- tour lesser lights all had great weekends, putting themselves into contention if they can get close enough in the rankings this season. Norgaard in particular might suit US conditions, with his huge drive.