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Christmas had me clearing through my old junior golf bag. Lying at the bottom of a pocket lay a pristine wrapped golf ball.

Gripped by nostalgia for the favourite dimpled sphere of my childhood, I couldn't resist tearing away the paper, only to reveal a ball made of crystal, stamped with the numbers 2-0-1-2.

Gazing at this extraordinary find, this is what I saw...

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How appropriate it was that UK golfers could eke out one more weekend of glory before this astonishing golfing year came to a close.

and recorded outstanding wins in Australia and Thailand respectively to put even more gloss on 2011, a year of rare vintage for home golfers.

Darren Clarke will settle down this Christmas but so many of our leading players can reflect on the season of their lives.

For some, like Clarke at the Open, it has been for a superb individual week. For world number one Luke Donald, it is the relentless year-long consistency.

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As the dust settles on a vintage and Luke Donald celebrates his Tour officials must feel equally satisfied having secured the future of the Race to Dubai.

Donald dominates the headlines with his achievement but my bosses ban me from reflecting on it in too much detail for fear of unduly influencing the voting for .

But the fact that the world number one knows he has the chance to defend the title next year is noteworthy enough in the current difficult economic times.

Last Sunday, Tour chief executive, George O’Grady, announced a three-year extension to the deal that has made Dubai the end-of-season destination for the Tour since 2009.

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Some could be forgiven for wanting this extraordinary golf season to go on forever rather than end with this week's .

There has been a conveyor belt of excitement relentlessly rolling through the 2011 season – and last week’s tournaments were entirely in keeping.

Rory McIlroy enjoyed a ; Lee Westwood carded one of the rounds of his life on his way to victory in Sun City, South Africa, while Tiger Woods rediscovered his winning touch for the first time in more than two years.

McIlroy and Westwood play in the Middle East this week, with the former having kept alive his hopes of overhauling Luke Donald in the European Tour’s Race to Dubai – formerly the Order of Merit.

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