Tiger Woods was in the crosshairs as he claimed that "when Nicklaus and Palmer played, and when Hogan and Snead played, on a scale of zero, they were nine plus. Tiger Woods is not even a one plus." The world number one's haul of 12 major titles was the product of advanced technology, added O'Grady.

This is the man, who when he was coaching Seve Ballesteros in the early 1990s, recited a prayer while the Spaniard buried a box of old photos of himself swinging the club in the California desert. "I'm not really as bingo, bango, bongo as people think I am, " he said at the time.

WEAVER'S VIRGINIA DEDICATION Despite the failure of a strong Irish contingent to make any waves at the recent British Amateur Championship, there was something of a good news story from Lytham where Drew Weaver became the first American to win the title since Jay Sigel in 1979.

A student at Virginia Tech where 32 people were killed by a lone gunman last April, Weaver, who is now in line to be selected for the USA's Walker Cup team to play GB&I at Royal County Down in September, movingly dedicated his victory to the university's dead.

LA CALA SET FOR WORLD RECORD ATTEMPT The La Cala resort in southern Spain, is hoping to break the world record for the highest number of golfers to play in a single competition in the one day when it stages an event on 22 July which will raise funds for Unicef.

The format of the competition involving all three courses on the La Cala complex, will see teams of three competing with one member playing each of the courses, and the winning team will have the best combined total. It his hoped that between 600 and 800 players will take part.