This year it will change – surely?
Because, as a sport, golf has something of a grudge about the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.
Common wisdom has it that the game suffers from being consistently snubbed by the Beeb.
Before we look at the five golfers who surprisingly didn’t win the big gong, let’s take a look at other evidence of golf being nudged into the wings.
Let’s start, in fact, with Ian Poulter’s explosive reaction when Matt Fitzpatrick didn’t make the shortlist in 2022 despite winning the US Open.
“Sorry but complete disregard for @MattFitz94 makes this event a continued farce and joke,” he cried on X. “I experienced first hand how much of a joke this was 10 years ago. Promised myself then I’d never waste time attending or watching again.”
What had happened 10 years earlier?
It was 2012, the year that Europe’s team won the Ryder Cup in the Miracle of Medinah and Poulter said: “They asked several times if I’d fly over as Ryder Cup Team Europe were looking strong to win it in 2012. So, I forked out to go for 48 hours only for the committee to overrule and give it to Team GB Olympics when it states in rules they can’t win.”
International golfers have fared well in the BBC’s Spots Review of the Year with nine wins in the World Sport Star of the Year, most recently Francesco Molinari in 2018, and Severiano Ballesteros won the Lifetime Achievement not once but twice (in 1997 and 2009).
The coach award was initiated in 1999 and Colin Montgomerie, in 2010, and Paul McGinley, in 2014, won it for their Ryder Cup captaincy – Luke Donald must stand a fine chance of winning it this year.
The Team award has been controversial, however, even beyond the Poulter Affair in 2012.
The GB&I team won it in 1969 when tying the Ryder Cup. And the great 1985 and 1987 Ryder Cup teams won it again. As did the 1995, 2002 and 2010 teams.
But no Solheim Cup team has won it and the Ryder Cup team lost out to England netball in 2018 and Manchester City in 2023.
But, back to the main award – the SPOTY.
Dai Rees, the Welsh captain of GB&I’s winning Ryder Cup team in 1957, won it and so did Nick Faldo in 1989, but that’s poor pickings.
Let’s take a look at the five golfers who might have joined Rees and Faldo with the trophy in their hands.
1. Tony Jacklin
It’s hard for modern sports fans to get a grip on what a significant figure in British sport Jacklin was because in the late 1960s and 1970s British sport impacted world sport a lot less than it does now – and British golf was struggling.
Then, in 1969, Jacklin became the first British winner of a major since 1951 at the Open. Later that year he helped GB&I tie the Ryder Cup and in the summer of 1970 he won the US Open – the first British winner of it since 1925.
He was feted across the land, took an open top tour of his home town Scunthorpe in a Lincoln Cadillac, made an LP of easy listening tunes, and appeared on This is Your Life.
But in 1969 the tennis player Ann Jones pushed him into second place in the SPOTY and a year later the boxer Henry Cooper did so.
2. Sandy Lyle
Between Jacklin in 1970 and 1985 there was a decade and a half of British major golf drought – and then the Scot Sandy Lyle won the Open.
The BBC did celebrate his effort in style – the 18th green at Royal St George’s, where Lyle had won, was recreated in the studio and he was given the chance to replay his duffed chip there.
It was a classic of its time – a toe curling attempt at humour.
It didn’t sway the vote. Lyle was up against quality opposition and the 1-2-3 was Barry McGuigan, Ian Botham and Steve Cram.
Two years later Lyle won the Masters and finished third in SPOTY behind Steve Davis and Adrian Moorhouse.
3. Ian Woosnam
Because of the British fondness for a gallant loser you’d half suspect Woosie came closest to winning SPOTY in 2001 when he almost won the Open but his caddie had left an extra club in the bag and he got a two shot penalty.
In actual fact he was third behind Fatima Whitbread and Steve Davis in 1987, the year he won the World Cup for Wales and was a key figure in Europe winning the Ryder Cup.
4. Darren Clarke
The Northern Irishman was twice second in SPOTY.
The first time was in 2006 (behind Zara Phillips) when he earned the emotional vote having played the Ryder Cup just weeks after the death of his wife Heather amid remarkable scenes in Ireland.
Five years later he won the Open and was beaten to the SPOTY trophy by Mark Cavendish.
5. Rory McIlroy?
Can the Northern Irishman go one better than in 2014 when he finished second to Lewis Hamilton?
There’s a chance, of course, that another F1 driver will beat him to the crown because Lando Norris will have a significant voting campaign behind him.
In 2014 McIlroy won both the Open and the PGA Championship. In-between he claimed the WGC Bridgestone Invitational. He also won the BMW PGA Championship and he helped Europe retain the Ryder Cup. It was a very, very good year.
Why might this year be different? He won the Masters and with it he also won the Career Grand Slam. He also helped Europe win the Ryder Cup amid astonishing scenes in New York.
Memories (and footage) of his collapse on the final green at Augusta National and his furious stomps around the greens at Bethpage Black will win it for him this year.
Surely?!?!?!?!
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