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1 shares 0 View comments Where have all the Ryder Cup players gone? Four months into the new season, it was becoming a rather worrying lament, as the Medinah miracle-makers who dominated the game from August to December appeared to be suffering from a collective hangover. Rory McIlroy’s travails are well-documented, but he was hardly alone. Up to and including the  Masters, the vast majority must have been looking at their early-season form and giving it a C-minus grade or below. Happily, everything changed in that traditional post-Augusta delight, the RBC Heritage tournament played alongside the tranquil shores of the Calibogue Sound in South Carolina, where the instigator proved to be the quiet assassin  himself, Graeme McDowell. Well plaid: Graeme McDowell shows off his new plaid jacket after winning the RBC Heritage on Sunday On a Harbour Town course that is all about strategy and a cool head, who better to call upon than the 33-year-old Northern Irishman

2 shares 1 View comments What was your golf-loving 14-year-old up to last week? Mine spent most of the time being  persuaded by his mother to work hard on his French GCSE.  Over the weekend he went hiking up Moel Famau in Wales as part of the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme. Wouldn’t that be typical for someone his age living in the western world? Perhaps you will understand, therefore, why my deep sense of admiration at 14-year-old Tianlang Guan’s latest wondrous achievement in New Orleans last week  was accompanied by an equal sense of unease. Child's play: Fourteen-year-old Guan Tianlang made the cut in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans last week Proud parent: Guan talks with his mother, Liu Hongyu (left) in New Orleans on Saturday     More from Derek Lawrenson...   DEREK LAWRENSON: Plucky Pepperell is well

11 shares 0 View comments Robert Rock would never have got to beat Tiger Woods down the stretch in Abu Dhabi last year if there had been the current dearth of top-class professional tournaments in England when he was growing up. So perhaps it is not surprising to see him put his weight behind the English Tour, a series of 16 two-day events for young, up-and-coming players that begins life at beautiful West Lancs on Wednesday and will take in some of the best courses in England over the next few months. Eye on the future: Robert Rock is putting his weight behind the English Tour for up-and-coming talents Coaching career: Rock passes on some tips to our man Derek Lawrenson at his academy in Lichfield     More from Derek Lawrenson...   DEREK LAWRENSON: Plucky Pepperell is well worth his salt after stellar show at We

9 shares 7 View comments Tiger Woods’s stirring victory at the Players Championship was another significant signpost on his way to winning majors again. His comeback from the depths of 58th in the world began just over a year ago with a victory in a regular tour event. In March he stepped it up by winning a WGC tournament and now he has claimed the most important title in the game outside the four big ones. This is how majors are won, one step at a time, and he will rightly start as a prohibitive favourite to land his first for five years and 15th in all at the United States Open at Merion next month. What was significant about  Sunday’s success was that it came on a less than happy hunting ground. Step by step: Tiger Woods won on his 300th appearance on the PGA Tour, as he did on his 100th and 200th We saw his obvious discomfort with certain aspects of Sawgrass when he tossed away a two-stroke lead with five holes to play with a careless double bogey at the 14th

0 shares 21 View comments The fear factor – fear of Wembley, fear of England’s fighting spirit – is being eroded. Not only game by game but, as it was in Podgorica, half by half. Montenegro were visibly nervous in the first 45 minutes, paralysed as they were by the importance of the occasion and the crushing expectations of that volatile crowd. The interval came with a wake-up call in the dressing room, one which played into a chronic England weakness Too many England players – in their wealth and celebrity – are amounting to a one-half team. Scroll down for video Falling to pieces: The recriminations begin in Montenegro after Dejan Damjanovic's 77th-minute leveller Smoked out: England flagged after the break and were shown up by an increasingly confident Montenegro in front of a partisan crowd If they start like an express train, as they did in the Balkans, they begin believing they are as wonderful as their agents, sponsors and bank ma

9 shares 22 View comments David Price’s decision to take a working man’s rematch with Tony Thompson rather than a high profile fight against Dereck Chisora does little for his bank balance but a great deal for his integrity as a prospective world heavyweight champion. The Liverpool giant is going down the road of honour followed by the contenders of old. Seeking to avenge a rare defeat used to be one of the ring’s best-observed traditions. Price feels the need to do the same and by going straight back into the firing line against the American veteran who inflicted a shock KO and first defeat on his record he stands to enhance his title credentials. Shock: David Price (left) was knocked out by Tony Thompson in Liverpool but will get the chance of revenge   Of course there is a risk involved. Not only that but it is costing him financially. Thompson comes much more expensively to Liverpool on July 6 than he was paid for his first visit to the Echo Arena, while a

26 shares 31 View comments After Beckham mania, Beckham madness. Football men of otherwise sound mind are campaigning for dear old Golden Balls to be recalled by England. Yes, seriously, These guys kicked off the lunacy the day after April 1 so the joke is on them. They base this nonsense on their rose-tinted view of David Beckham’s 70-minute outing for Paris Saint-Germain in Tuesday’s Champions League match against Barcelona. Scroll down for video Not up to the challenge: Beckham struggled against Andres Iniesta and Barca, despite what his cheerleaders may have said Never mind that the game largely by-passed his sentry-like posting at the base of midfield, rather like the M6 going round Birmingham. Not to worry that he could hardly run, let alone tackle. Nor that he gave the ball away for Barcelona’s opening goal and couldn’t have closed down a leaky radiator, let alone an opponent. Beckham is as much a cult now as a brand and some of his most slavish followers