european tours

By Camilla Mancini

The PGA Championship or the "Glory's last shot" as it is also known, took part last week at the Medinah Country Club in Chicago. This official money event on both the PGA TOUR and the European Tour, offered this year a purse of $6.8 million and for all the golf fans, we got some of the best golf players in the world showing us what they're made of.

For most golf followers, the PGA Champion ended up being the Ali of golf. But for some of the fans that followed the tournament these four days, golfers Mike Weir and Luke Donald seemed to be on a roll for the first place.

If Eldrick T. Woods wouldn't have been in the tournament I also would've expected one of this two to be the winners, especially after a 72 on Thursday, a 67 on Friday and the astounding 65 on Saturday Weir was an excellent opponent and of course Luke was another favorite since he tied with Tiger.

The first pairing of Tiger Woods and Luke Donald, on Sunday, caught all the attention, event that helped Weir. The 4- and 5- under round of Mike's gave the impression that he had a plus of having a second major victory on his career.

But on the other hand Woods was 11-0, leading after 54 holes, tied with Donald and with a two-stroke advantage. This showed us how hard was for any other player to steal the victory from the master Tiger Woods; a victory that also escaped from Weir during the 99's tournament.

Tiger had complete control during the game, began with a birdie and shot a 4- under 68. He just had a bogey at the No.17th hole, when it was already obvious that he was the winner. Meanwhile Weir made a bogey on the 11th hole, finishing the day at 11 under, leaving fans perplexed for the change on his course.

Luke Donald and his fans were also expecting a different result and they all had the hope of watching Tiger make a couple of bogeys that would've given Donald the chance to take the leading title from his opponent.

This 51st PGA Championship was Tiger's third consecutive victory. With which he also tied the record, 18-under, with Bob May for the PGA Tour. The first winner of a PGA Championship, Jim Barnes, received $500 in 1916, while Tiger Woods received $1.224 million last Sunday.

When you know how much preparation and love Woods had during his life for golf, is comprehensive how can he be so great at it. This 31-year-old amazing player always had the passion for this sport, since he was six-month-old he used to mimic his father.

Even many of his opponents had accepted to feel useless to play in a tournament with Tiger after watching him play. I hope we get to see more of him for more time, because when he is on the field for sure we'll see the best of every player that join him.


If you are considering a European tour, why not visit the island of Sardinia, a region of southern Italy? Depending on your particular interests, this beautiful area can be an ideal vacation spot. You can get classic Italian food, and wash it down with fine local wine. Some parts of Sardinia remain undiscovered by tourists, while other sites are favorites of Italian and international jet setters and are priced accordingly. This article presents central Sardinia. Companion articles present northern Sardinia and southern Sardinia. Before we give you our itinerary you must realize that central Sardinia is hardly flatland. Sometimes to get from point A to point B you must pass by point C; the actual distance traveled may be much further than your initial estimate. Enjoy the trip, and drive carefully (or even better let the pros drive you.)

We start our tour of central Sardinia at the interior city of Su Nuraxi. Then we head to the city of Giari di Gesturi to its north. We next go southwest to the main road and then north past Oristano near the coast. Then we proceed north and west to the coastal city of Tharros (can you believe an Italian city whose name does not end in a vowel?). From Tharros we go to nearby San Salvatore, and then travel northeast to Nuoro and finally south to Fonni.

Su Nuraxi, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, lies near the village of Barumini. It is the finest and most complete example of a nearly four thousand year old stone defensive structure called nuraghe that are found only in Sardinia. Nuraghe are typically shaped like a beehive, built with huge square blocks of stone, but with no foundations or cement. Yet they stand and have stood for millennia. Their name comes from the Sardinian word nurra that means both mound and cavity. They are mounds containing a cavity which has been transformed into one or more rooms and perhaps a courtyard. Each structure may be over sixty feet (twenty meters) high. Some complexes include enough towers to englobe and protect a small village.

Sardinia is home to more than 8,000 nuraghe, all that remains of the original 30,000 plus. Few nuraghe have been studied scientifically and we are far from understanding their full meaning. But for an unforgettable experience go to Su Nuraxi and explore the nuraghe and the ruins of the surrounding Bronze-Age village.

Giari di Gesturi is a 28 square mile (45 square kilometer) basalt plateau. It's home to dwarf wild horses and wild sheep with beautiful curved horns that have turned them into an endangered species. See these magnificent animals while there is still time.

Tharros was first inhabited by the Proto-Sardinians, then by the Phoenicians before the Romans got there. Its setting Capo San Marco (Cape St. Mark) is beautiful, lying between the sea to the west and the Gulf of Oristano to the east. Tharros was first excavated during the Nineteenth Century. A lot of its artifacts were exported to the British Museum of London and the Borely Museum in Marseille. You can see some artifacts in the Archaeological Museum in Sardinia's capital Cagliari and others in the mainland town of Cabras about six miles (ten kilometers) east. The site itself contains some ancient Roman columns, baths, and mosaics.

You're not far from the little town of San Salvatore, the location for filming many spaghetti westerns in decades gone by. The first Saturday of September it hosts the Festa di San Salvatore (Festival of San Salvatore) in which hundreds of barefoot runners, each carrying an image of the Saviour, run five miles (eight kilometers) to commemorate saving the Cabras Church of Santa Maria Assunta's statue of San Salvatore from Saracen raids. This church was built on an ancient Nuragic underground temple.

Nuoro, population about thirty-five thousand, overlooks the mountains. In the eyes of many the real Sardinia is found here, and not in the coastal resorts. Natives of this remote area feel a special pride that neither the Romans, nor Carthage, nor any other foreigner has ever conquered them. Traditions are very much part of the local daily life. You can see the traditional clothing during the numerous festivals and to some extent day to day in the villages.

Rural Sardinia's traditional lifestyle seems to agree with people. Relatively many of its residents are centenarians or even supercentarians (those who live to age 110). Antionio Todde from the village of Tiana about twenty miles (thirty kilometers) southwest of Nuoro made it to three weeks short of age 113. His diet was pasta and soup with some pork or lamb each day and a glass and a half of red wine. The first time he saw television was in 1954 at age 65. Every night he would cycle thirty miles (forty-five kilometers) to see fuzzy images of dancing girls on the tiny screen. Antonio was wounded in World War I and died as the world's oldest proven combat veteran.

Nuoro is proud of its captivating landscapes, walking and riding paths along old shepherd's trails, and extravagantly romantic places with rare species of birds. If you're interested in archaeological finds or in fascinating folklore and legends, you won't be disappointed with Nuoro. Yet the city is far from an intellectual wasteland. In fact it has been called "the Sardinian Athens" because of its large number of poets, writers, and intellectuals including Grazia Deledda, the second woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature (1926), born and raised in Nuoro.