As the European side continue down a successful, choreographed path and yesterday selected captaincy favourite Darren Clarke to run the Ryder Cup team next autumn, the Americans are reaffirming why committees are to creativity what mulligans are to a legitimate score.
Stop us if you have heard this one before.
According to multiple reports, Davis Love III will be next week named as the 2016 American Ryder Cup team captain.
No, your brain did not stutter. Love, the same guy who stood at the wheel during the epic US collapse at Medinah three years ago, has been invited back for a reprise.
It is being panned as golf’s worst sequel since Caddyshack 2.
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Love is non-abrasive, did nearly everything right during the 2012 loss and was offered the gig by a new, 11-man panel formed to staunch the bleeding after the loss to Europe last September.
The committee, which included Jim Furyk, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods – who have lost more Ryder matches individually than any players in US history – did not meander beyond the walls of their meeting room in the final analysis, much less outside the proverbial box.
Picking Love not only smacks of a conflict of interest, since he is a member of the US panel, but was greeted as an uninspired choice for a side attempting to stop a desperate losing streak, during which Europe has won eight of the past 10 meetings heading into the 2016 staging at Hazeltine in Minnesota. Love is about as original as argyle.
As author PJ O’Rourke once said: “The minute somebody joins a committee, they immediately suffer from committee brain. They become wildly over-enthusiastic, over-optimistic, over-pessimistic. Committees turn people into idiots.”
If the golf shoe fits, wear it. The committee was a direct result of Mickelson’s public insurrection following the American loss at Gleneagles, when he castigated captain Tom Watson for being imperious and disconnected.
Ironically, Watson was the hand-picked choice of Ted Bishop, the deposed former president of the PGA of America, the organisation that runs the US’s portion of the event.
Bishop crawled out on a unilateral limb when he picked Watson from the retread pile, hoping to change two decades of bad luck by picking an older hand to man the helm.
Watson captained the Americans to victory in 1993, but the blowback in September was close to mutinous.
So, despite the availability of three-time Presidents Cup captain Fred Couples – who all but lobbied for the Ryder Cup job – the consensus was to hire Love, yet another retread. At least Watson’s team won in ’93.
Said The Daily Telegraph of the decision: "They [Americans] never learn, do they?"
The Love news was greeted with plenty of derision. Some aficionados hoped the committee might retool the selection template and select a female, a foreigner, college coach or a less-heralded player to run the show. Something – anything – different.
US fans wanted revisionists, but got recidivists.
No question, Love’s team played almost flawlessly in 2012 before caving in singles play as Europe staged the wildest last-day comeback in event history.
As part of the biennial exhumation of the American corpse, Love’s singles pairings were scrutinised, but with players such as Woods, Mickelson and Furyk all losing down the stretch, there was little Love could do but suffer publicly, like so many of his predecessors.
But did he deserve another crack? Author John LeCarre might have described the collective mindset best: “A committee is an animal with four back legs.”
Must make it handy when moving backward.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Liz Truss
Ministerial experience: Current Foreign Secretary.
What did she do before politics? Worked as an economist for Shell and Cable and Wireless and was then a deputy director for right-of-centre think tank Reform.
What does she say on tax? She has pledged to "start cutting taxes from day one", reversing April's rise in National Insurance and promising to keep "corporation tax competitive".
23-man shortlist for next six Hall of Fame inductees
Tony Adams, David Beckham, Dennis Bergkamp, Sol Campbell, Eric Cantona, Andrew Cole, Ashley Cole, Didier Drogba, Les Ferdinand, Rio Ferdinand, Robbie Fowler, Steven Gerrard, Roy Keane, Frank Lampard, Matt Le Tissier, Michael Owen, Peter Schmeichel, Paul Scholes, John Terry, Robin van Persie, Nemanja Vidic, Patrick Viera, Ian Wright.
