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Damien McGrane last week became the seventh first-time winner on the European Tour in what is turning out to be an unbelievable 2008 season - even better because it's Ryder Cup year. Normally by this stage of the season most of the familiar faces have bagged a trophy, or sometimes two, but not this year. We've seen guys come from nowhere and put together four solid rounds of golf to win themselves a tournament, but I wasn't surprised by McGrane's win.
He's not just the best grinder on Tour, he's the best grinder I've seen. He just hangs in there, never gives up and it's finally paid off for him. The weather on the final day in Beijing last week was awful, but for McGrane, who is from Ireland, it was like a summer's day!
This latest first-time victory is another twist in Ryder Cup year, and I think it's great. The whole race to make the European team is wide open as none of the big guns have started to do anything yet. It might act as a wake-up call for some of them.
Players like Sergio Garcia, Luke Donald and Paul Casey are flying well under the radar. And when you see Ian Poulter shanking iron shots in the Masters and some of the lesser-known guys stepping into the winners' circle, it's going to be an interesting race to see who makes the European Ryder Cup team.
The fact that we have seen so many first-time winners is down to the belief of players now. They've seen one or two guys do it and that has convinced them that they can step up and compete with the big boys over four days. The standard of golf is improving and that can only be good for the game.
The bad weather from Beijing seems to have followed us to Shanghai for the BMW Asian Open this week.
A few of the big guns are here. Henrik Stenson's looking to get the Order of Merit lead back after losing it to Trevor Immelman after his Masters win. Thomas Bjorn, Darren Clarke and David Howell are all here as well, but the way the season is going, I just don't know who is going to win.
I think we could even be in for an eighth first-time winner. Stenson hits the ball a long way, but this course at the Tomson Shanghai Pudong GC is a thinking man's course, You have to play from A to B to get to C etc, so it gives a lot of the guys a chance. And who knows, it could be us! We've had an interesting week so far. Simon had his driver broken en-route from Beijing to here so we've got a new driver in the bag.
That can be a funny thing. We now go out not really knowing what to expect and that could lead to Simon just playing his game and seeing where that gets us. Hopefully the weather will improve over the weekend and we'll see lots of birdies and not the bogeys we saw in a soggy Beijing last week.
>> Ian MacGregor is a caddie for English golfer Simon Wakefield
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