John Huggan

Chatting it up about golf
September 10, 2006

John Huggan is the European correspondent for both Golf Digest and Golf World. He is also the golf columnist for Scotland on Sunday. He lives in Dunbar, Scotland, where he hits many very bad half-wedge shots from around 75-yards or so.

Today Huggan chats it up about the beauty of playing on the European Tour.

- GolfObserver editors

Life on the European Tour

Over the course of what is now an almost 12-month long season, the European Tour's aptly named 'International' schedule will this year visit an amazing 25 different countries on five different continents. Such a multi-lingual treadmill represents a lot of miles, a lot of hotels and, inevitably, a wide range of golf courses.

Sometimes, the scenery isn't too bad either. In what passes for a 'workplace,' your correspondent is typing away while sitting near the 7th tee at Crans-sur-Sierre on the eve of the Omega European Masters. It's a tough existence, but the view more than makes up for the enormous sacrifices I routinely make on behalf of Golfobserver readers. Gazing down the Val d'Anniviers, one can take in the snow-capped beauty of the Weisshorn, the Zinalrothorn, the Dent Blanche and the Dent d'Hereins, to name but four of the Alpine peaks that peer down on a course that is itself 5000 feet above sea level.

"This is certainly the most beautiful venue on our tour," says Mark Roe, a 21-year European Tour veteran. "It is breathtaking. And worth coming back to. It's a tribute to Crans that so many players return year after year to a course that is no better than average by tournament standards. We all come back for the ambience of the village and magnificent views."

Roe speaks the truth. Even on a circuit blessed with such a diversity of language, culture and courses, the annual trip to Switzerland is special indeed. Where a two-hour train journey after landing would normally produce howls of protest from an increasingly pampered band of touring professionals, here there is nothing but contentment as all concerned gaze out at the almost peerless scenery and the majesty of Lake Geneva. It really is a week for chilling out.

Photo: © Andrew Redington/Getty Images Seve Ballesteros hitting his second shot to the 12th green at Crans-sur-Sierre.

"It is stunning here," agrees former Ryder Cup player Andrew Coltart. "The scenery is literally breathtaking. On almost every hole you can stop for a few seconds just to take in the beauty of your surroundings. I can't think of many places where you can do that.

"It's a big factor in making me come back every year. It isn't the golf course, which Seve Ballestros' re-design has made, in some respects, almost unplayable. But it is what it is. I come back for the atmosphere and the enjoyment I get from the atmosphere on and off the course. I don't want to take anything away from the tournament - it's a great event and has had many great winners - but the number of family groups you see here is a bit of a giveaway. It's just a wonderful place to come."

Which hardly makes it unique on a European Tour that is increasingly failing to live up to its name. 'World Tour minus America' would be more appropriate.

"One of my favourite places to go is Russia," continues Coltart. "The Le Meridien course just outside Moscow is brilliant and I just get a kick out of going to a place I never thought I would see. I'm old enough to remember the old Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, so going there is a great experience.

Photo: © Stephen Munday /Allsport Beauty from the Alps is everywhere at Crans-sur-Sierre

"I could say the same about China. It is staggering to see the majesty of the Great Wall and Tianammen Square and the Forbidden City. It is amazing too, to watch the social change that is taking place there; they are embracing capitalism in a way that looked impossible only a decade ago. It's a privilege to see up-close cultural change on that scale.

"Perhaps the best thing about this tour is that it makes you think. When you are arriving in places like South Africa, you look out of the aeroplane window at the most appalling slums and deprivation. It's the same in Thailand. The first few times you see poverty on that sort of scale it is shocking. Things just aren't as sanitised as they are in the US. You realise how lucky you are and it is a great learning experience for all of us."

That aspect of European Tour life is true on the course as well as off. Unlike the sameness that is, with few exceptions, a general feature of the PGA Tour, diversity is encouraged and flourishes elsewhere.

"In a year on the European Tour you can see so many different things and places," confirms Roe, who has represented England in three World Cups. "It isn't like that in America, I know. Everything is so manufactured and there isn't a lot of charm to the PGA Tour. I watch the US golf on television when I can and I never know what I am looking at. Most weeks look the same to me. Every course is green and over-watered. This is a generalisation, but while the standard of living may be higher in America, the quality of life is much higher on our tour. The only reason to go over there is the money.

"A lot of the great players have come through the European Tour. And that has helped make them more rounded and more adaptable as both players and people. They learn a wider range of shot making on our tour. In terms of your growth and development as a golfer, it is great to have that diversity. You learn how to play different shots on different courses and in different conditions. For me it has been an amazing journey and I wouldn't swap one second of it."

Coltart is another fan of the need for players to adapt to their surroundings.

Photo: © Stephen Munday /Allsport The European Tour is a new adventure each week on beauty and golf.

"This is a tour of constant change and for that reason it is hard to get bored out here. And that diversity carries over onto the golf courses. You learn to be adaptable. I have always loved the people in the Far East. They are just so welcoming. I feel lucky to have experienced that.

"It is easy to lose sight of the fact that we are incredibly insulated on tour. But the real world is never far away. Many times I have seen people living in what are not much more than shacks very close to the luxurious country club where we are playing that particular week. It is sobering at times to see how others live.

"Playing on this tour also makes you a more versatile player. I believe that. You just have so many different shots to play. We have links golf in its finest form at the Dunhill every year. There's invariably wind and rain all sorts of stuff going on up there. Then you go to somewhere like Malaysia and you have to hit the ball as high as you can and they have that thick rough around the greens. Those are two very different extremes."

Still, on a tour that routinely produces winning Ryder Cup sides rightly applauded for the closeness of the players, the inherent family atmosphere and general ambience is hard to beat. Strolling through the adjacent villages of Crans and Montana this week one is constantly struck by how lucky everyone in the European Tour 'family' is to be part of it all.

Which isn't to say that everything is perfect. Even those, like Roe and Coltart, who are aware of the opportunities for personal growth away from the links have regrets.

"The European Tour has changed so much since I started," says Roe. "We used to kick off in April and be done by October. Then we had to scramble around on the Sunshine Tour in South Africa or the Safari Tour. Now we have a yearlong circuit that takes us to every corner of the world. All of which affords us the opportunity to see all kinds of cultures and courses.

"One of my great sadnesses is that I haven't seen more of the places I have been to. For most of us it is all airports, hotels, restaurants and courses. But I've done my best. I remember going to see the Colosseum in Rome. And I've checked out Paris and Madrid in my time, too.

"It's difficult though. I'm at tournaments to work and it is hard to justify too much sight seeing when everyone else is on the range. We are driven by what everyone else does. So if you're off looking at paintings in the Louvre, you feel like you are falling behind your competition and not working on your game. If I am to be honest, in over two decades on the tour I haven't seen nearly as much as I could and should have."

Still, it isn't as if either man is gazing across the Atlantic wondering what might have been.

"Early in my career I was friendly with an American called John Moss," recalls Coltart. "He played in Europe. The last time I saw him was at Congressional during the 1997 US Open. By then he was at the stage that he was ready to try something else. He had played everywhere. But he was just so bored with tour life in the States. He told me that he barely knew where he was from one week to the next. The malls were the same. The hotels were the same. And the courses were generally the same, too. Saturated with water, they played the same way almost every week. And John was fed up with that.

"I'm the same. I look at the PGA Tour on the television and every course looks the same. They are green; there are trees seemingly everywhere; and there has to be a water-hazard every couple of holes. Yes, they are difficult, but it is the same difficulty all the time.

"There is little variety to it all, especially around the greens. If I see another flop shot from long grass I'll scream. Surely it has to be more entertaining to see players hitting lots of different little pitches and chips with different clubs, a bit like Seve used to do when I was a kid. Bring some imagination back into the game."

As technological advances in clubs and balls make golf more and more scientific and less and less artistic, the Scot's closing message is one that needs to be translated into every language. We'll start by discussing it over a pint though. I know a lovely little bar just down the street from my hotel. Sitting outside, you get a great view of the Alps too. Then again, we could wait until next week in Madrid.

What a life.