Golf is heading into Open season again and our prospects could not be greater.

With the US Open at Bethpage starting next week in Long Island, New York, and The Open coming shortly afterwards at Turnberry,  ISM representation will be bigger than ever.

We will have a record nine golfers for the year's second major and we are 13 and still counting for The Open in July, three and four players respectively more than our largest previous entries.

It's a measure of the strength in depth that we have.  A further indication came in Wales where we had no fewer than four players in the top 10.

Gary Lockerbie was our principal performer collecting his biggest ever professional cheque, €95,000, for his fourth place, closely followed by Simon Dyson, Jeev Milkha Singh and Chris Wood.   Gary has obviously benefited from working with a life coach, whose connections with the SAS mean that he has worked with some more complex characters than the northerner.

Paul McGinley showed flashes of previous inspiration at Celtic Manor to finish 15th with Mark Foster not far behind.

Congratulations go to Branden Grace for qualifying for The Open at Sunningdale and to Charl Schwartzel and James Kamte, who stayed on after The Memorial in Columbus, Ohio, to qualify for The US Open.

Back at Memorial, Ernie Els showed that his form is on track just in time for his tilt at a third US Open title.

Finally, a warm welcome back to competitive action to Freddie Flintoff.  Why wasn't I surprised that with only his second ball, six-and-a-half weeks after a knee operation, he was celebrating a wicket for Lancashire against Durham.  That's good news for everybody... apart from Australia.