Friday 21 February 2020 07:44, UK
Paul McGinley reacts to Brooks Koepka's 'sandcastle' comments about Patrick Reed and looks at some of the players set to impress at the WGC-Mexico Championship.
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I was interested, like everybody else, to hear what Koepka had to say about Reed and hear him being so forward with his points. Integrity has been such an important part of our game and is one of the things we're most proud of in golf, so we should do everything we can to protect it.
I personally don't think we've got a big issue with cheating in golf and that this was an isolated incident, but it's something that we should stamp out with very strong authority when it crops up like this.
In the Reed instance, I think that if he had showed a little bit more humility in his interviews afterwards then people would have judged him less harshly than he has been. There has been a body of things coming up against Reed now that's putting him in a bad light, which doesn't reflect well on him or the game.
He could have easily said 'I didn't try to cheat and it wasn't my intention to cheat, but I see it looks bad and I've got to be very careful going forward', but he didn't do that. You can't say the 'cheat' word and you can't say he definitely did it because we don't have 100 per cent proof, so it's a grey area in that sense, but when you see the replays it doesn't look great.
McIlroy to star in Mexico?
I know Rory McIlroy didn't win a major last year but in terms of his consistency and his underlying statistics, he has never been better and is in the form of his life.
His putting has improved from somewhere around 150th on the PGA Tour over the past two years up to 24th, which has been a big catalyst in his form and his work with Brad Faxon has been a big part of that.
I think McIlroy has really got his competitive edge back again and he's the guy to beat this week with the bookies making him favourite, but there are a number of guys coming in with a lot of form.
Tommy Fleetwood has been playing a bit in Europe and has been fabulous over there, including a win. Jon Rahm has been playing great, Justin Thomas has got a superb record in Mexico and Dustin Johnson has won twice around here.
Johnson beat McIlroy in a head-to-head last year and it was a very big win for him. He has won six World Golf Championships now but only one major, which is a poor reflection of the player he is.
In 20 years' time, when we look back at their careers, we're going to gauge players by their performances in majors and these big WGC events, so Johnson needs to win some more majors to make it the stellar CV that he should have.
Johnson has been the real dominant player in the three years that it has been played in Mexico with the high altitude, so maybe having a simple idea about playing here and not over-complicating the altitude is the key.
Watch the WGC-Mexico Championship throughout the week live on Sky Sports. Live coverage begins on Thursday with Featured Groups from 5pm on Sky Sports Golf and Sky Sports Main Event.
