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The DP World Tour, the new name for the European Tour, came in with a whimper rather than a bang for 99 percent of punters with the 225/1 success of little-known South African Thriston Lawrence - 450/1 available on betting exchange Betfair - in the weather-shortened Joburg Open but every cloud, and there were plenty of those at Randpark, has a silver lining.

The Joburg Open, the first of three in a burst of pre-Christmas South African activity, is not the strongest field of the year or even the month but it is a history-maker as it tees off the DP World Tour, the new name for the European Tour.

Not satisfied with murdering us in the Ryder Cup, the Americans are now favourites to run off with the glittering prizes that go to the winner of this week’s European Tour showdown when the DP World Tour Championship will identify who finishes top dog in the year-long Race To Dubai.

A couple of guys outfoxed the Wolff last week but in roaring back from a disastrous Saturday to snatch fifth place in Mexico, young Matt saved the day for punters who heeded the headline advice and took the 40/1.

One of the stars of the new generation, Viktor Hovland, won the last Mayakoba Classic in Mexico and I’m hoping another young buck, the exciting Matt Wolff, can do the same on his El Camaleon debut. The tournament has a new name, the World Wide Tech Championship, new sponsors until 2027 and a winner’s cheque of just under $1.3m, even more than Aussie 50/1 shot Lucas Herbert picked up in windy Bermuda on Sunday. We’re in the wrong game!

Patrick Reed is the interesting one in a multi-national line-up for the Bermuda Championship at Port Royal, the only male action on Sky this week with the HSBC Champions in Shanghai and the Indian Open both cancelled.

The Narashino Country Club in Japan could have an eternal place in golfing lore as the scene of Tiger Woods’ final, record-equalling PGA Tour victory if his busted body won’t allow him one more chapter.

It’s a bit early to start panicking but the appearance of Rasmus Hojgaard in the power-packed field for the CJ Cup in Las Vegas this week and Robert MacIntyre at Valderrama for the Andalucia Masters prompts the thought: How the hell are we going to get the Ryder Cup back in Rome in two years’ time or indeed any time this decade?

Burns’ Night, normally at the end of January, came four months early for golf punters only this one wasn’t the “wee, sleekat, cowran, tim’rous beastie” of the Scottish bard’s most famous poem but a big, bold, straight-driving Louisianan called Sam who blew his rivals away in Mississippi.

It’s asking a great deal of Sergio Garcia to make a successful defence of his Sanderson Farms Championship so quickly after the incredible lows experienced by the humbled European Ryder Cup team at Whistling Straits.

European captain Padraig Harrington is trusting his Spanish Armada Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia to put American rivals Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth to the sword when the year-late 2020 Ryder Cup finally tees off at Whistling Straits.

If the combined world rankings of the two Ryder Cup teams mean anything, this year’s long-awaited renewal of the biennial clash between Europe and the USA at Whistling Straits would be no contest. Maths was never my strongest subject, but I have Europe’s good men and true adding up to 370 to the USA’s 107, a massive difference of 263.

The first question the bookmakers are asking punters as the curtain goes up on the 2021-22 PGA golf season at the Fortinet Championship in sunny California is: Do you want to back the world No. 1 Jon Rahm at 4/1 or not? Although the field also features two other reigning Major champions in Hideki Matsuyama and the evergreen Phil Mickelson, it is far from the strongest and Rahm is the only member of the recently-announced Ryder Cup sides taking part.

What a weekend! Tipped Rasmus Hojgaard to win in Rome at 30/1 and his lesser-known twin brother Nicolai wins at double those odds - what happens if you simply write £10 each-way Hojgaard on your betting slip with no price? Is it a void bet or do you get half your winnings? If the latter, at whose odds as there’s no SP in golf?

Welcome to golf’s Grand National! The third running of the Tour Championship as a handicap will confuse punters even more than Aintree’s annual puzzle but someone out of the 30 qualifiers for this FedEx Cup finale is weighted to win it. The question is: Who?

With two of sport’s most potentially thrilling contests, the Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup, coming up in September, Europe needs as many boosts as it can get as, despite holding the trophies, they are clear outsiders for both.

Spieth, Rahm & Scott sound like a thriving firm of long-established solicitors. This week they are the thriving trio of long-established golfers who could dominate the first leg of the FedEx Cup play-offs at Liberty National, New Jersey, just a metaphorical drive and five-iron away from Manhattan.

With weekend golf winners here and in the States at 80/1, 45/1 and 66/1 it wasn’t a great week to be a punter and the lack of compelling form from the Europeans in the big WGC event in Memphis must be a worry to Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington.

There’s a brilliant line-up in Memphis for the St Jude Invitational, these days one of the $10.5m World Golf Championship bonanzas, with only world No. 1 Jon Rahm and Christiaan Bezuidenhout of the top 50 missing.

The World Invitational has a terrific ring to it as a title and it’s not one but two tournaments we are getting in County Antrim this week with both sexes playing the same courses, Galgorm Castle and Masserine, for the same prize money.

The brilliance of Collin Morikawa in winning the Open at his first attempt masked one of the most dispiriting displays by the British and Irish contingent in recent times while underlining the tremendous task facing Europe in defending the Ryder Cup.

A year late but still at ferocious Royal St George’s, the 149th Open Championship tees off on Thursday and Shane Lowry who unexpectedly has had charge of the famed Claret Jug for two years finally gets the chance to defend it.

To be sure, the Scottish is a mini-Open in itself, a parade of international talent this $8m Rolex Series bonanza can be proud of. What a cast has been assembled in North Berwick, headed by US Open champion Jon Rahm on his first British start of the year. It’s a riot of big names, six of the world’s top 11 are teeing it up.

Will it be “Rory, Rory, Hallelujah” after the Irish Open or will the Emerald Isle’s favourite golfing son let his legion of fans down as he did on his last playing visit when missing the cut in the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush?

Having roared home Jon Rahm in California and Rohaan at Royal Ascot, I’m ready to roll on the Travelers Championship in Connecticut and BMW International Open in Munich.

So indelibly inked into the fabric of Torrey Pines is the name of Tiger Woods that not having the last US Open winner there for the 121st edition of America’s most important Major is akin to watching Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.

Rahm wasn’t going to play in the new Palmetto Championship anyway but he couldn’t now as he endures the obligatory ten days of self-isolation. Not the ideal preparation for the US Open but it looks like he will just get to Torrey Pines for the third 2021 Major. Only three of the world’s top ten turn out for the Palmetto at Congaree which is a one-off stand-in for the Canadian Open which has been shelved twice because of the pandemic. The Canadian will be on the rota in Toronto next year.

This week the PGA Tour visits a new-look Muirfield Village for the Memorial tournament in Dublin, Ohio but the Muirfield Village I remember is the one where Europe pulled off their first Ryder Cup victory on American soil.

The famous Whitney Houston hit ‘There Can Be Miracles When You Believe’ came to mind as the climax of an unforgettable US PGA Championship was playing out around midnight on Sunday. While others doubted, Phil Mickelson never stopped believing and while ‘miracle’ might be a tad over the top, the greatest left-hander of all time (who incidentally signs autographs and does pretty well everything else right-handed) achieved something that was quite, quite extraordinary.

The fearsome Ocean course at Kiawah Island hosts its second US PGA Championship - Rory McIlroy won the first nine years ago by eight fat strokes - and is the only one to have been signed and sealed as a Ryder Cup venue before even being built!

The Byron Nelson, the last-chance saloon for those struggling to find their best game in time for next week’s USPGA Championship, is not its usual punter-friendly self this week as it has moved to pastures new at McKinney, a 40-minute drive from Dallas.

Watching Keegan Bradley miss two tiny putts so short when the chips were down in the Valspar Championship they would have been gimmes in a friendly match was shocking even for backers of the eventual 90-1 winner Sam Burns.

Sorry we couldn’t find another 125-1 winner like Stewart Cink for you last week but more than happy that the 40-1 headline tip Garrick Higgo did the business in the Canaries and Aussie buddies Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith scraped home in extra-time for a 12-1 triumph in the pairs tournament in New Orleans.

Congrats to all who backed Masters winner Hideki Matsuyama, the first Japanese male to win a Major. As usual, the women got there a long time ago - Chako Higuchi won the LPGA Championship back in 1977 - but this is a big, big deal in golf-crazy Japan.

It’s Masters time, spring is in the air and punters are ready for battle in the only Major that’s fought out on the same magnificent golf course every year and considering there are only 88 runners - 11 of them, three amateurs and eight of the nine ceremonial former champions, can be discounted - generous place terms are hard to resist.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you about the WGC-Dell Match Play as a betting proposition and congratulations to anybody still awake after the snoozefest which saw world No.34 Billy Horschel beating No.32 Scottie Scheffler in a turgid final which did golf no good at all.

Confession time... the WGC-Dell Match Play Championship has been in existence, in different guises, since 1999 and I’ve never tipped the winner. Or even a finalist!

Following two stupendously exciting Sundays in a row at Bay Hill and Sawgrass, the final leg of the Florida Swing, the Honda Classic, is very much After the Lord Mayor’s Show with none of the top 14 on the world rankings on the tee at PGA National.

The biggest prize fund outside the obscene sums they play for at the FedEx Cup showdown in September means it must be the Players Championship, a Major in all but name with almost certainly the best field we shall see all year.

Even Homer nods and, for once, the mighty Dustin Johnson finished out with the washing as newish kids on the block Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland and Scottie Scheffler, all under 25, strutted their stuff in the first WGC bonanza of 2021 at The Concession.