Do you ever think there are times when it’d be really lovely to be a fly on the wall?   For me, one of those times occurred a week or so back at the Irish Golf Tour Operators’ Association’s awards when they presented Wilma Erskine, club manager of Royal Portrush Golf Club, with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Wilma’s is a name that you will hear increasingly over the next eight months as she steers the club towards hosting the Open Championship next July, returning after a gap of 61 years.  This would be a huge task for anyone, but to navigate through the extremely choppy waters of the Northern Ireland troubles to what we all envisage will be a successful staging of one of the world’s greatest sporting events is nothing short of miraculous.

Wilma Erskine has been in charge at Royal Portrush for 34 years. The return of the Open Championship is an unparalleled achievement.

I remember it was early to mid-1980s when a fresh-faced Wilma turned up at the club to take over the reins.  Needless to say, my pals and I were all delighted, if not a little astounded, that a woman – a YOUNG woman – had got the job in such a male-dominated environment.  Rumbling around in the background, however, were mutterings and harrumphings about the suitability of this girl for the job.  Wilma has since told me she was very well aware that some of the older members, who were very set in their ways, subtly let it be known that they believed she couldn’t hack it and would be gone in about six months.  Well, safe to say she outlasted them all.  Looking back, however, it was a decision of outstanding foresight on the part of the then captain and council to make the appointment, especially as there had been a couple of short tenures immediately preceding Wilma.  She didn’t let them down, but it can have been far from easy in that climate.

By the time the 1990s rolled around Wilma’s vision for the club was expanding, looking ever more outwards for opportunities to put Royal Portrush on the map.  And so a new era began for the club – a decade of cutting their teeth in the arena of staging top-class golf events.  First it was the Amateur Championship, then five successive Senior British Opens.  I’m not sure at this juncture that even in Wilma’s ambitious brain there were thoughts of one day bringing the Open itself back to Northern Ireland.  Lessons were being learned, however, experience gained and, most importantly, relationships formed and forged with some of the great shakers and movers in the game.  And you have to remember that, running alongside all of this, Wilma had to juggle the not inconsiderable task of her “day job” – running the club and keeping the members happy.  Not everyone wants the upheaval of tournament golf with the attendant time-consuming activities impacting their course and their regular weekly games.

Royal Portrush – readying itself to wow everyone next July.

There’s no doubt, also, that the stars were aligning out in the professional tournament arena as regards Ireland shouldering to the front and centre of the golfing consciousness.  Padraig Harrington’s three major successes, followed by Graeme McDowell’s US Open win, Darren Clarke’s Open victory and Rory’s run of four majors gave the island nine majors in a space of seven years.  Interest in these players and Irish golf was at an all time high and every one of them used their influence to support and push the idea of the Open’s return to Portrush.  They couldn’t have delivered at a better time as regards drawing the eyes of the golfing world Irelandwards.

A vital step in the whole process was to host a really large scale event and so it was that the European Tour’s Irish Open came to Portrush in 2012.  Attendance figures smashed the all-time records for a European Tour event and the television pictures beamed around the world delivered on every front.

A great test awaits the best players next July.  What price an Irish winner?

Two years later the R&A made the announcement we could only have dreamed of – and here we are, on the cusp of staging the 148th Open Championship at Royal Portrush.  To say we’re all beyond excited is an understatement.  It has been a mammoth collective effort but there’s no doubt that at the heart of it all is Wilma Erskine, driving the process with tremendous energy, wit, diplomacy and a no-nonsense, can-do attitude.  She has quietened the doubters, harnessed the support of the global golf heavyweights, constantly acknowledged and praised her team and pulled it off.

She says she plans to retire after the Open – what a legacy she has created, because I’m absolutely sure this won’t be a one-off Open.  This is so much more than golf – the R&A tell us that the economic benefit to the host region is £100 million.  Mind-boggling stuff.  So, as you walk the fairways next July or watch on the telly, roaring on your favourites, you will be witnessing something very special indeed.

Whoever wins, you’ll be watching Wilma’s Open.

I don’t know what sort of week you’ve had but I suspect that Justin Rose, his inestimable caddy/caddie (I can never decide which I prefer) Mark Fulcher and their family and friends have had a lovely week, very contented, after Justin, the defending champion, won the Turkish Airlines Open and went back to world No 1.  He beat Li Haotong of China in a play-off, at the first extra hole.  Who knows how much Justin and Futch are worth these days but it’s lovely to see that nice guys don’t have to finish last – they can finish first too.  And second.  Li is, by all accounts, a lovely lad and he and Shanshan Feng, a former women’s world No 1 and Olympic bronze medallist are so good for golf.  They are world class, so even those who see golf as a selfish, bourgeois, imperialist non sport that is injurious to the health of the people have to hold their whist – bite their tongue.  In the meantime, more and more Chinese hear about golf and think it might be something to try.  In China, even a small percentage is a lot of people.

On top of the world:  Justin and Futch celebrate Olympic gold in Rio.  And it didn’t stop there.

Who knows how long the world No 1 will last this time – was it a week last time? – what with the logjam at the top but it’s not going to be dull keeping up with the twists and turns.  Rose won in Turkey and later that day, a few time zones back, in Las Vegas, Bryson DeChambeau, an intelligent, inventive man who has the courage of his convictions, won the Shriners Hospitals For Children Open.  It was the young American’s third win in five starts – a scarily good strike rate – and he is now No 5 in the world.

DeChambeau, he of the same length shafts, applies physics (which, I’m told, is the key to understanding the world, which is therefore destined to remain a mystery to me) to his study of the game of golf and sometimes it works.  He had a pretty poor Ryder Cup, in terms of points – nul, zilch – but don’t bet against him having worked that thing out by the next match in 2020.

You don’t have to be the world No 1 or a Ryder Cup player to make a good living out of golf but the luckiest golfers are those who just love the game and get a lot of pleasure out of it for as long as they can swing, staying more or less upright – the balance goes as you get older – and walk at least a few steps.  If you’re a member of a club, even if you no longer play, you can go up and sit in a corner with your paper and a glass of wine, watch the golf – or the cricket, or whatever – and chew the cud with your friends, putting the world and the club to rights.

Whittington Heath stalwarts Jayne Fletcher (centre) and Jenny Smale (right) entertain former US Women’s Open champion and European Solheim Cup captain Alison Nicholas at WHGC

At Whittington at the moment we’re trying to put the club to rights – not just in whispers or complaints in corners between friends – but properly, seriously, taking soundings from everyone who wants to talk or has an opinion, a complete overhaul of how we operate, to drag us into whatever century it is we’re in and set things up for the next few generations.  We’re lucky because our prime asset, our course, is playable all year, frost and snow permitting and the sainted Harry Colt had a large hand in re-designing it in the late 1920s.

We’re also lucky that we have a person who is not only willing but able to undertake the review of our modus operandi, who has the skills to do the job properly and the support of what is beginning to look like a majority of the members, not least because they’ve been asked to make their views known, to share their expertise and realise that they have a say in how the club is run.  There’ll be disagreements on details, of course – whatever you do, don’t get embroiled in dress codes or changing shoes in car parks, that’s not the object of this exercise – but, whisper it quietly, there may be a consensus………

Alison Nicholas shows Jayne Fletcher how it’s done.

Late though it is, I’ve just looked that word up in the dictionary because as I get older I realise that nothing is certain, that the things I thought I knew, the words I was sure I was using correctly, so that other people understood exactly what I meant, led, more often than not, to confusion and misunderstanding.  According to my dictionary (Chambers, 2003), consensus means “agreement of various parts; agreement in opinion; unanimity…..”  Phew.  I think that’s what I thought I meant……

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I spent two hours in a meeting being briefed on what was going on and the time whizzed by!  It’s amazing what you can learn when the right person is doing the teaching/explaining.  At university, I fell asleep in the classes that dealt with administration, how things worked; the practicalities just weren’t my thing but, of course, if the teacher had been more inspiring, even I might have perked up and appreciated that this stuff was important, not boring.  Though there’s no pretending that organisation would ever have been my forte.

I’ll never be the world’s best bridge player – even starting in the womb wouldn’t have helped – but rather to my surprise, after a false start when I thought the game was not for me, I’ve recently become hooked, helped in no small part by the right teacher and the right school, small, relaxed, a bit noisy, rude, funny.  That’s right, bridge is fun, who knew!

Whatever it is, keep persevering.

WHGC: worth looking after.