“I’m looking forward to seeing Samantha.” His two-year-old daughter will have no trouble keeping her father’s feet on the ground for the next few weeks. This week Els can stay at home in Orlando for the Bay Hill Invitational. Next week it is only a three-hour drive to Sawgrass for The Players Championship.Els will then have two weeks off before the first major of the year, the Masters. He has not won a major since his second US Open win in 1997.”The real build-up starts now,” he said “I am in form and that’s what I wanted when I play I want to feel I want to play and have a chance to win That’s how it is working out this year. I shall be going to Augusta with a good chance, but so will a few others.”It will be a remodelled Augusta National that awaits the players this year and Els has already seen the changes “It’s going to be a driver’s golf course It is a long hitter’s dream. You have got to hit your driver a long way to attack the par-fives and some of the par-fours, like the first and 18th, you will be hitting in mid-irons rather than wedges. You are going to have to keep it in play.”Another man eagerly awaiting Augusta is Michael Hoey.

The 23-year-old from Shandon Park in Belfast is the Amateur champion, which guaranteed him a place in the Masters, after which he will turn professional. A member of the Walker Cup-winning side against the Americans at Sea Island last August, Hoey finished 12th in Dubai despite going into the event after six weeks at home when he was unable to play.Hoey was a shot behind Darren Clarke and a shot ahead of Padraig Harrington. It was a place behind his best result in the Scottish Open last July when his final-round 64 was the best score of the day by two strokes.”Considering I had no preparation, it’s been a great week,” Hoey said. “I made 20 birdies so that shows I am hitting it long enough and holing the putts I just need to get more experience. I have been working with a sports scientist on an exercise routine which is helping me with my concentration over the round.”Hoey will play in the second event of the Middle Eastern swing in Qatar this week while his warm-up for Augusta includes a match against the US Amateur champion, Bubba Dickerson, at the Golf Club of Georgia in Atlanta.John Daly will tee up alongside the defending champion, Tiger Woods, in the Deutsche Bank SAP Open at St Leon-Rot, near Heidelberg, on 17-20 May. Daly won the BMW International in Munich last year and will be playing in the Benson and Hedges International at The Belfry the previous week Also playing will be 17-year-old Ty Tryon.

The youngster won his US Tour card last December but has only been allowed to play on invitations until he turns 18 in June.Matt Kuchar’s first US Tour victory in his 17th professional event has brought the 23-year-old an unexpected bonus – a place in the Masters next month. Kuchar, who hit a closing 66 to win the Honda Classic in Florida, moved up from 149th to 50th in the world rankings – on the day Augusta extended an invitation to the world’s top 50. Daly and the South African Rory Sabbatini were the others to take advantage, the other 47 having already earned exemptions.. The League strugglers, Bath and Harlequins, and second-placed Gloucester face the possibility of losing precious Premiership points or being fined after incurring the wrath of Twickenham’s performance director, Chris Spice, yesterday. “One of the problems has been that we had verbal agreements in place with directors of rugby only to see three of them replaced in the last week,” Spice explained, “which meant we had to renegotiate”.Harry Ellis, the Leicester scrum-half, tweaked a hamstring against Bath at the weekend and has withdrawn from the party, while both the Sanderson brothers, Alex and Pat, picked up knocks at the weekend.. There was an unequivocal response from the International Rugby Board yesterday as the row between Australia and New Zealand over the staging of next year’s World Cup escalated. On the day the New Zealand government intervened, the IRB spokesman Chris Rea, who had arrived in Australia with the board chairman, Vernon Pugh, uttered seven terse words: “There is nothing more to be said.”

There was an unequivocal response from the International Rugby Board yesterday as the row between Australia and New Zealand over the staging of next year’s World Cup escalated.