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Team Spain, the reigning queens of matchplay [photo by Keith Allison, flickr] |
The LPGA debuted a new event over the weekend, the International Crown. For those who missed it, this was a team tournament with the US, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Sweden, Spain and Australia each fielding a team of their four highest-ranked players.
I wasn't particularly interested prior to the event, but it dammit if this didn't out to be some compelling TV golf. The big "2 Teams, 1 Cup" matches might be great in theory but in 2014 they might be a little too exclusionary, too 20th century, too old-world and bloodless to really fan any of the flames of rivalry, xenophobia, ugly pride and deep grudge-bearing that make inter-national team competitions in any sport so appealing.