European Tour Insider: Celebrity, Karlsson sightings

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Robert Karlsson, last year's Order of Merit winner, will try to defend the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in his first stroke-play event since returning from a severe eye problem.

What do Hugh Grant, Greg Kinnear, Huey Lewis, Maury Povich, Kyle MacLachlan and Tim Henman have to do with the European Tour?

This week they're all showing varying degrees of expertise alongside professional golfers at Europe's equivalent of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. And in place of the iconic Pebble Beach insert the magnetism of the Home of Golf: the Old Course at St Andrews, as well as the formidable links at Carnoustie and Kingsbarns.

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The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship is staged over all three courses with the teams playing each one in turn before the best performers congregate at St Andrews on Sunday.

The event's to be applauded for bringing something different, another change of pace like last week's Vivendi Trophy.

However, Scotland's discerning golf aficionados tend to wait until the meat of the action before showing their patronage. Most elect not to try spotting a celebrity hidden under bobble hat and waterproofs on a rain-swept East Coast day. In the bars and restaurants of the university town of a night though, star-spotting is de rigueur.

There are a few grumbles about six-hours-plus rounds, but most pros appreciate the event's novelty, and the amateurs revel in the occasion, most having paid through the nose to be part of the event.

KARLSSON DEFENDS

Make no mistake, the Dunhill Links is important ... and lucrative.

Recent winners Colin Montgomerie, Padraig Harrington and defending champion Robert Karlsson have all gone on to claim the Order of Merit a few weeks later, and there's no doubt the winner this time will leap in the Race To Dubai.

Karlsson made his return to action at St. Nom La Breteche as part of Thomas Bjorn's vanquished Continental Europe team in the Vivendi Trophy. His absence from competition since May because of a severe eye problem had taken its toll. This was not the same bulletproof Karlsson who'd become Europe's No. 1 for 2008. But for all the ragged shots, there were countless gems, and but for a misfiring putter, his results could have been different.

Karlsson's partner for two sessions, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano was impressed: "It's amazing after being so long away from competition. I mean he just started practicing two weeks ago. Great shots he hit in, and really he's been very unlucky: he had seven lip outs. His putting was very good, but the ball didn't want to go in."

European Tour Podcast

Robert Lee and John Hawksworth reflect on the 2009 Vivendi Trophy presented by Seve Ballesteros, where Great Britain and Ireland beat Continental Europe to take the title; discuss Phil Mickelson's win at the 2009 TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola, where Tiger Woods won his second FedExCup; and offer a golf tip from former Portuguese Open champion Warren Humphreys. Click to listen

Few would expect the tall Swede to repeat last year's success, but he's a proud man and a polished performer who applies himself well and will benefit from having had the week on course.

Karlsson's captain was impressed, too.

"He's like a little child at the moment," Thomas Bjorn said. "He just wants to play so much. I was glad he was there."

CAPTAINCY CAN WAIT

Both Bjorn and Paul McGinley look set to make excellent Ryder Cup captains in the future. But those last three words are important to each of them. They are both determined to let their clubs do the talking and show their value as players before they consider following in the footsteps of Colin Montgomerie. Both are back in action in Scotland this week.

McGinley, who was the winning Great Britain & Ireland captain, won praise from all quarters.

Monty, for one, was very taken with his leadership: "He's been very, very thorough. His team meetings have been exceptional." Monty would love to have McGinley and Bjorn as vice-captains at Celtic Manor next year and has learned that he needs four assistants. He'll have to wait on how Ryder Cup qualification plays out, though.

ROCKIN' SEVE

McGinley has called Seve Ballesteros the "Elvis Presley of golf." The Irishman said, "He brought rock and roll to golf. He was the start of this evolution now of sexiness in golf."

The great man could not travel to the event he founded, but rang McGinley to congratulate him on victory, and had called two or three other times too during the week.

Seve passed on general messages before and after the event: "I wish I could have been there, but I don't have enough strength at the moment as my radiotherapy treatment finished last week, and I am suffering its consequences."

TALINN TITLE

As a consequence of an Omega World Cup qualifier in Estonia, Canada's Graham Delaet can book a return trip to Mission Hills in China in November. He was there with Wes Heffernan last year, and now Delaet and Stuart Anderson have won the event outside of Talinn, securing their trip East along with Welsh duo Stephen Dodd and Jamie Donaldson, and the Scotland team of Alastair Forsyth and David Drysdale.

The latter two will hope to show their form again at home this week while Delaet gets a sponsor's invitation to play at St. Andrews, breaking up his journey home to Boise, Idaho.

The Boise State graduate writes a regular blog for the Canadian Professional Golfers' Association. Of his time in Eastern Europe, he writes: "Before I left for Estonia, I had to look on a map to even see where it was. It is actually a great country. I went to a museum the first day I got there. It was a display of medieval torture methods and the apparatuses they used for the tortures. It was crazy! It is a country I would have never thought I would ever visit, but would go back to in a heartbeat."

I gather he's never before been to play in Scotland. He's eager to take in the history of St. Andrews, too -- with or without torture chambers.