There hasn’t exactly been a dearth of exciting golf in the lead up to next week’s Ryder Cup.  Last week was the women’s fifth and final major of the year, the Evian Championship, and this week there’s the climax of the PGATOUR season at East Lake golf club in Atlanta.  There, on Sunday, the Tour Championship winner will be crowned as well as the Fed-Ex Cup champion – a bit like crowning the winners of the Premiership title alongside the winners of the FA Cup.  The celebrations can get a little muddied and muddled.  To whom does the moment belong?

No muddy waters in sight at Evian where American Angela Stanford, in her 18th year on Tour, finally won her first major a couple of months shy of her 41st birthday.   As she herself said, she wasn’t really looking like pulling it off on this occasion.  She started the final round five shots behind leader Amy Olson and for much of the day she hung around a couple back.  That all changed on the 15th hole, however, when a brilliant 7-wood second shot set up an eagle three and she was tied for the lead.  And then she struck a chord with most of us watching.  We saw her react to the realisation that this was as close to a major title as she had been in 15 years – and she instantly double-bogeyed, dropping back to the slightly more comfortable position of being two behind.  But this is where we mere mortals cease to be able to identify with her.  She dug oh-so-deep, birdied the 17th and hit two stunning shots into the 18th, the most difficult hole on the course.  How her putt failed to drop is a mystery and she sank to her knees thinking this was a script she knew only too well.  But it wasn’t.  Thirty minutes later she was a major champion with Olson, still leading on the last by one, taking 6, and so missing out on a play-off.  Neither Mo Martin nor Sei Young Kim could birdie the last to match Stanford’s 12 under total.

The floodgates opened for the new champion as the intensity of her focus during competition dropped away and she realised that all those years and years of endeavour had culminated in one of golf’s greatest prizes.  Her backstory is revealing too.  Nine years ago her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and Angela and the family supported her through the worst, thrilled to see her return to full health.  However, earlier this year the bad news came that the cancer had returned and spread to the bones.  Only a couple of weeks ago her Mum was out at a tournament with Angela as she battles through the latest treatment.  Things are tough.

So, in light of all this, I was really, really annoyed with the great god that is television that they didn’t even afford Angela a minute or two to gather herself together before springing a live, winner’s interview on her.  I know that TV had possibly overrun their coverage and needed to get off air – but, come on!  This was thoughtless in the extreme and does anyone really want to see a person heaving with sobs and with an inability to form words or answer questions at that moment?  Two minutes would have been all she needed to get past that first rush of overwhelming can’t speak/can’t breathe moment and, articulate a person as Angela is, she could then have given so much more.  I found it insensitive, unnecessary and a very uncomfortable watch – certainly not the joyous interview that we all wanted.  But what a championship and what a winner!

My own Ryder Cup preparations are well underway – not sure about Patricia’s.  We are having a sisters’ week in Paris intending to take in a bit of shopping and a bit of sightseeing as well, of course, as three days of tramping around Le Golf National, a stone’s throw from Versailles.  We have bought a Ryder Cup travel pass each for 40 euros that for seven days allows us to hop on any bus, tram or train in and around Paris – it even works from as far out as Charles de Gaulle airport.  It is for this reason we are going sans voiture and therefore I needed an in-between-sized wheelie suitcase – bigger than a weekend one but smaller than my US travel luggage.  I found an ideal one in a multitude of colour options, finally plumping for the raspberry one, my thinking being I’d be less likely to leave it behind anywhere if it were brightly coloured.

This Ryder Cup is a work-free zone for us both – pretty blissful from my point of view when I consider that I have attended seven out of the last eight matches and have had some sort of working commitment at all of them.  Don’t get me wrong – I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every one of them.  The prospect of a week in Paris, however, without the stress of driving (and getting lost) round the Peripherique and without any responsibility to any broadcaster is very exciting.  As I see it, I only have three things to accomplish the whole week:-

1  Cheer Europe to victory.

2   Bring my shiny new raspberry case home with me.

3   Don’t lose Patricia.

Can’t be hard, can it?  Answers on a postcard………..

The spare bedroom, which will be in use in a few days’ time, has become my packing ground as I prepare for the Ryder Cup in Paris – and panic is already setting in, not least because there’s a danger of a semblance of organisation ruling in the Davies household.

The last time I took this much care over my packing I was nearly arrested.  Dai and I were going to Australia and environs for eight weeks, so I took a week to decide what I was taking with me, operating on Dai’s principle that you only needed to pack for a week however long the trip was.  I was chuffed with the results – 12.5 kilos in a not-even-full bright yellow Kipling bag.  That’s right 12.5 kilos including the bag.  Brill, I thought as I checked in.  How long did you say you were going for the check-in woman said.  Eight weeks I said, proudly, oblivious to the disbelieving, nay, suspicious look on her face.

Later, as I presented my boarding card, I was taken to one side by a couple of men with stern expressions.  Special Branch?  Who knows, something similar anyway.  Having Belfast as my place of birth probably didn’t help but I was a bit, as my mother would NEVER have said, affronted.  It’s taken me years of practice as well as a week of assiduous mixing and matching to get to this point I protested.  Plus a much-travelled husband with his 7-day rule.  In the end, they laughed and let me go.

The bag weighed a lot more coming back.

Packing for Paris always does my head in – or it used to until I caught myself on.  It’s Paris, for God’s sake Patricia, you haven’t a hope; it’s full of Parisians, elegant, stylish creatures since they emerged from the womb – or wherever babies come from these days; you’ll never be mistaken for a French person, let alone a Parisian woman of lots more than a certain age, so STOP WORRYING!  Phew.  Great pep talk.  I can relax and pack the waterproofs and the bobbly purple fleece from the 2011 Solheim Cup.

It’ll be chilly in the mornings, though Mo tells me it’ll be warm for the match days next weekend, with no rain forecast.  Huh.  I’ll believe that when the first of October comes and my waterproofs are packed away dry – apart from the odd damp patch from Europe’s celebratory champagne spray!!? – ready for the flight home.

The last two home Ryder Cups I was at I lived in my waterproofs.  To my horror, I realised they were way back in 2006 and 2010.  The K Club was wet, wet, wet, not just from torrential rain but awash with tears as everyone tried to cope with the death of Heather Clarke, Darren’s wife, far too young, from cancer.

Funnily enough, I scarcely remember the rain and mud, though I know that the waterproofs – bright red (well Woosie, claimed by Wales, was the captain) – went on first thing in the morning and didn’t come off until we got home at night.  Every day.  It was much the same at Celtic Manor four years later when my very expensive Dubarry boots proved themselves worth every penny within 24 hours.  Trainers and anything ankle length were liable to be sucked off into the mud, so knee high was the way to go.  Mo wore the Dubarrys at Gleneagles and I’m thinking I might need them in Paris, fair forecast or not.  Cost per wearing after all these years of service?  Minuscule.  Let’s hope Europe don’t need bad weather to win.

There was torrential rain here today, with our friendly match against Sutton Coldfield cancelled, the course flooding and the American Circus big top in Beacon Park, near me, being battered by audience-deterring downpours.  It seemed to be sunny at the Portugal Masters in Vilamoura, with players in their shirt sleeves as they enjoyed a low-scoring day on the Dom Pedro Victoria Golf Course.  Sergio, who might not have made my team for the Ryder Cup circus at Le Golf National, had a 66, five under par, three shots behind the leader Lucas Herbert, an Australian.  Thorbjorn Olesen, the Dane who’ll make his Ryder Cup debut next week, started with a 68.  Fingers crossed he and Sergio will be at the top of their game when it really matters….

One woman who was on top form in testing conditions at Crail, in Fife, was Laura Webb (nee Bolton), who’s just won the Women’s Senior Amateur Championship for the second time in three years.  She had rounds of 67 and 73 for a 4 under par total of 140, nine shots ahead of Sale’s Catherine Rawthore.  Webb now plays out of East Berkshire but she grew up at Cairndhu in Larne and also played a lot of her golf at Royal Portrush, so she knows about bad weather.  Well done Laura, class is permanent.

I hate to finish on a sad note and this could not be sadder but I can’t not mention the tragic death of Celia Barquin Arozamena (1996-2018), who was murdered on a golf course not far from the Iowa State University campus where she was finishing her degree in civil engineering.  The Spaniard, who had been named Iowa State’s Female Athlete of the Year, also won the European Ladies’ Amateur Championship in Slovakia in July.  There are plenty of words that come to mind – heartbreaking, sickening, senseless – but at the moment they’re all inadequate.  Love and hugs to Celia’s family and friends.

 

I’ll leave the last word to Meg Mallon, former US Women’s Open champion, US Solheim Cup captain and one of golf’s great people, who posted this tweet