So Darren Clarke has had a pop at the Centenary course at Gleneagles which will stage the 2014 Ryder Cup matches. The venue this weekend for the Johnnie Walker Championship, the Centenary at the famous Scottish resort was designed by Jack Nicklaus but, even so, Clarke was still seriously unimpressed.

"There's been one Ryder Cup in Scotland in 1973 at Muir"eld, and then they choose a course like this. I think it's unbelievable. Gleneagles is a wonderful venue, but this is the wrong course. The Ryder Cup is steeped in history, and I just can't see it here."

Clarke's main beef apparently is that the Centenary is an "Americanstyle" course, an opinion which has echoes of an article written not so long ago by US journalist Bruce Selcraig, in which he castigated a famous Irish lay-out for being "Americanised" and "comically overpriced".

The course in question? The Arnold Palmer-designed K Club.

"Bringing Ireland's "rst Ryder Cup to the charmless Palmer course is like having Keira Knightly invite you to her bedroom . . . to move furniture. It's like going to Rome for dinner and ordering "sh and chips, " Selcraig raged.

As far as Clarke is concerned anyway, what's bad for Scotland seems to be perfectly acceptable for Ireland.

AMERICAN SELECTION SEEMS AMATEURISH

Strange decision by the USGA to announce eight of its Walker Cup team before the start of last month's US Amateur Championship. You would have thought the national championship should carry more weight both in terms of prestige and current form leading into next weekend's matches against Great Britain and Ireland at the Royal County Down but not, it seems, in the USGA's view.

Two picks were delayed until after the US Championship, however . . . both Trip Kuehne and Jonathan Moore, who were preselected, failed to qualify for the match play stages at the Olympic Club.

On top of that, Drew Weaver, who won the British Amateur Championship at Lytham earlier in the summer . . . you would presume that a links track record might count for something with one eye on the contest at County Down . . . was only named as a reserve.