The Quick Hook

After two weeks of co-sanctioned teasing that followed nearly four months of competitive inaction, the British Masters this week marks the first fully endorsed European Tour event since the return to golf, and with all due respect to the Austrian events, the first one we're really excited to follow. It's also the first time that a majority of European Tour card holding professionals will have competed for Official World Golf Ranking points (more on this from The Quick Hook later this week) since March. The British Masters is set to begin on Wednesday, July 22, kicking off a stretch of six consecutive events to be played in England and Wales. Five courses will be used in this stretch, and it appears the selection has favoured, understandably, proximity to a major hotel over prestige and caliber of golf course. Of the six events will be played over five courses, approximately one will prompt even a half baked yearning to go and play it. Hint: it's not Celtic Manor, and it als

Austria will play host to a second successive European Tour and Challenge Tour co-sanctioned event, as professional golf in Europe moves 50 miles south to Ramsau, and Golf Club Adamstal for the third edition of the Euram Bank Open. The event will have a near identical field to the one that tee'd off at the Austrian Open last week, with Thomas Detry and Connor Syme the two notable names missing after appearing last week.  The best ranked players in the field, per the Official World Golf Rankings, will be Joost Luiten and Adri Arnaus for the second week in a row. Photo from The European Tour GC Adamstal, the host course for this event, is almost comically short for a professional event. From the back edge of every tee, it measures under 6,500 yards, and that's at a not-so-unsubstantial elevation! Ramsau is 3,700 feet above see level, which is enough for most to double-check some carry distances. Average elevation will not be the only issue this week, as there are drastic changes

If you were to cast your mind far enough back - a long way back, to the halcyon days of early March - you would recall Jorge Campillo as the last man to lift a trophy on the European Tour, after succeeding in Qatar following a five hole playoff with tour veteran David Drysdale, at what proved to be the final event on Tour before four months of inactivity.  The week before that, Sami Valimaki defeated Brandon Stone in Oman after a three hole playoff, picking up his first win in just his sixth European Tour start. The Middle Eastern Swing had thrown up some remarkable storylines in the first part of the season, but none more so - at least in the eyes of this European Golf fanatic - as subjectively remarkable as the emergence of Valimaki, and the resurgence of Campillo. Embed from Getty Images All of these names, and all of these events sound faintly reminiscent of a grand time - a happier time. They all seem so distant, yet distinct. "Has it really been four whole months?", and