Golf has taken me to many wonderful places and spending a week at Pebble Beach is always going to be hard to beat.  Spectacular, jaw-dropping scenery and the opportunity to commentate from inside the ropes on every single round of Brooks Koepka, world No 1, as he attempted to become only the second person to win three consecutive US Open Championships, was a privileged and unforgettable experience.  It’s not too difficult to roll out of bed in the morning when that is what constitutes your working day.

Pebble Beach – a beautiful place to watch the best players in the world.

Those of you who are members of courses that have hosted, or are about to host, a major will have some appreciation of the staggering amount of infrastructure and resource required to stage such huge events.  The overall broadcasting and media set-up alone requires the building of a mini, temporary city which becomes home to us for a week. This inaccessible, secret world, however, is unseen by the thousands of golf fans actually present at the tournament and by the millions of global television and radio listeners and watchers.  I am still somewhat surprised at finding myself part of it all.  Even after 22 years of involvement in broadcasting I sometimes feel it’s a little dream-like and I’ll wake up one day and discover I’m an accountant like Dad or my husband!  Perish the thought!

At each event we have a nerve centre from which the whole broadcast is managed.  Sometimes it’s secreted away in a portacabin in the TV compound, sometimes it’s a broadcast booth constructed out on the golf course, usually somewhere within sight of the 18th green.

SiriusXM Mission control.

Thankfully, that is not where I am closeted for the duration of the tournament.  This is the domain of the producer, the host and the analyst.  No, on arrival in the morning I beat a path from the media centre to the driving range and short game area, the office of the players for the first part of their day.  Here it is possible to witness all manner of weird and wonderful things.  All sorts of gizmos, gadgets, sticks, measuring devices and computers are pulled from the mysterious depths of huge golf bags, rather as a magician will pull a rabbit from a hat.  This signals the start of the pre-round warm up, which varies considerably from player to player.  Some are very mechanical, precise and measured in every action they take; others freewheel a little more – but they all have the same aim:  to prepare the body and mind for the best golfing performance possible for the player on that particular day.  It is a tense, watchful place.

Coach Sean Foley has everything ready for his player’s arrival on the range – Trackman, string and shaft plane angle stick.

Justin Rose starts his warm-up with one-armed swings and shots.

After watching the players in my assigned group and formulating a few opinions on how they are swinging and moving it is time for me to move to the course and hope that my own preparations may lead to some insightful and entertaining commentary.  This year I was assigned the Koepka group each of the four days – the first time ever, I believe, that I have shadowed one player for the entire week of a major.  So, I suppose I’m a bit like a legalised stalker with the added bonus after each round of getting to interview Brooks and, within reason, ask him whatever I like.

Trying to ask Brooks Koepka questions that may elicit interesting answers.

On these weeks I certainly don’t have any problem keeping up my number of steps on the ole fitness tracker but at the day’s end the media centre is always a welcome sight.  I feel a little like a ship safely making it back to harbour.  Well, what a treat was in store on one of the days that I made it safely back to base!  The USGA (United States Golf Association) had set up a display of some of the most priceless items in their museum, all relating to the history of their 119-year old national championship.  The oldest item was a club made and used by Horace Rawlins during the inaugural US Open, which he won, in 1895.  Rawlins, an assistant professional at Newport (Rhode Island) Golf Club, remains the only US Open Champion to win on a course where he was employed as a professional.  For me, however, the most eye-catching item was the 1-iron that Ben Hogan used on the 72nd hole at Merion in the 1950 edition of this championship.  It’s the club featured in the iconic picture of Hogan playing into the final green and is familiar even to today’s players because it was used for years in the promotion of Hogan golf clubs.

Hy Peskin’s iconic picture of Ben Hogan, featuring his famous 1-iron shot into Merion’s final green. The club was subsequently stolen, not resurfacing for more than thirty years.  When it did, a delighted Hogan said, “It’s good to see my old friend back.”

Hilary Cronheim, director USGA Golf Museum, handles the famous exhibit with care.

The shot Ben Hogan produced with this club on the 72nd hole of the 1950 US Open forced a play-off with Lloyd Mangrum and George Fazio.  Hogan’s subsequent victory was a seemingly impossible feat after sustaining multiple injuries in a near fatal car accident in February 1949.

Tucked away in another corner of the media centre were two large massage chairs – not the ones you sit astride while someone gets to work on massaging your back.  No, these were two huge armchairs with all-enveloping folds for each of your four limbs and every part of it whirred and vibrated, the whole performance being operated by a hand-held device like a TV channel changer.  “Just the ticket,” I thought at the end of one particularly gruelling day.  Positive this would revive me I climbed onto the chair and set the massage button to medium.  What a mistake!  It was like being eaten by a giant, aggressive amoeba and three minutes was all I lasted before finding the relevant “abort” button on the remote.  What a relief it was to be spat out of that chair!

I didn’t sit in it again.

The (wo)man-eating massage chair!  Not for me.

And so, with glorious Pebble Beach now behind us, the major season is rattling on apace and we are already three quarters of the way through the 2019 edition.  All that remains is the Open Championship to be held at the incomparable Royal Portrush.  That will be another week to savour, in so many ways.  Can’t wait.

The Brolly Dollies, featured above, barely brought their Z game to ladies’ captain’s day at Whittington Heath last Saturday but earned an honourable mention (and a wee prize) for their team name.  It was left to a team anchored by a seemingly ageless octogenarian to win the spoils and provide us youngsters (!) with the inspiration to hang on to the clubs and keep persevering.

Nil desperandum Karen!  Brought to her knees after yet another shot goes awry.  At least the rain held off until we’d finished.

There was inspiration on a different level at the US Open, where Gary Woodland kept his nerve and game intact to win his first major title and deny Brooks Koepka, who also played beautifully, his hat-trick.  It was worth staying up into the early hours to watch a competition that matched the surroundings.

A couple of days later, Maureen, not so fresh from her journey home from Pebble Beach, had caught up on Neighbours – nothing much seems to have changed on Ramsay Street, except that most people, bar Paul, who probably has a pact with the devil, are looking a wee bit older – so we had a look at the Women’s World Cup.

England against Japan was unwatchable because there was something wrong with Jonathan Pearce’s microphone and he faded in and out, outdone by the noise from what looked like a very sparse crowd.  Pearce, cruelly christened “the strangulated screamer” by Dai many years ago, was ditched in favour of Scotland versus Argentina, which turned out to be compelling stuff.

It took us a while to realise that the Sweaties were wearing the pink shirts and the Argies were the ones in the dark blue, so we had to adjust our befuddled thinking to cheer on the right team.  I confess, we are easily confused (at least Mo could use jet lag as an excuse) and know as much about the women footballers as my sisters-in-law know about women golfers – not nearly enough.

As it turned out it was a great game to watch, full of incident, controversy and good goals.  The Scots, who needed to win to have any chance of going through to the next stage, played some slick and exciting stuff and were 3-nil up with not too long to go.  It wasn’t the time to relax – goal difference might prove vital – but Scotland switched off, Argentina switched on and suddenly it was 3-2 and the Scots were twitchy.  Then, in the last minute, they conceded a penalty, awarded after seemingly endless scrutiny by VAR (video assistant referee).

Calamity.

But worse was to come.

Scotland’s goalie Lee Alexander not only saved the penalty but also blocked the follow up.  Then VAR intervened again.

It was decided that the goalie had left her line too early, so she was given a yellow card, the penalty was retaken and Argentina equalised.

The Scots, as so often, in whatever sport you care to name, had been the architects of their own downfall but there are aspects of VAR that are far from satisfactory and the tweaks to the rules make life very difficult for defenders and goalkeepers in particular.  If the position of your toes is subjected to slow-motion trial by video, penalty saves could become a thing of the past and don’t get me started on defenders having to defend with their hands tied behind their back…..

Don’t suppose Harry will have much sympathy for goalies or defenders. Thanks for the birthday card.

My football career never got beyond kicking the ball against the garage door and practising Willie Carr’s donkey kick flick in the garden – think I even managed it once.  Mo reminded me that I’d wanted to go to a women’s football get-together of some sort in Kells but Mum vetoed it and refused to take me and I didn’t have the gumption to find alternative transport.  In those far-off days, girls who wanted to play football were regarded as more than a little weird.

There was no golf on the agenda for me this week – collecting Mo from the airport on Tuesday took precedence – and preparing for yesterday’s Ascot Day took some doing, what with squeezing in a spray tan (probably a bit excessive for the Staffordshire enclosure, judging from the comments of my companions) and sorting out a shoe mix-up.  Having bought shoes to match my dress, I drove to Cheshire, took the shoes out to show my cousin and, horrors, found only one shoe in the box – and it was the wrong shoe!   From a pair I’d rejected because they didn’t fit.  Can one go barefoot in the rain at Ascot?  Is hopping allowed?

Got the dress, got the hat, pity about the shoe!

In the end, all was well because I had time to get back to the shop and collect the right shoes – two of them – but that’ll teach me to fall into chat when I should be concentrating on my purchases.  I’d include a photograph of the finished outfit but that would entail revealing the depth of my tan……

The boys entering into the spirit of the occasion.

It would be remiss not to mention the success of WHGC’s members in the handicap section of the English Senior Women’s Stroke Play Championship at the sublime St Enodoc in Cornwall earlier this week.  Jenny Smale won, Chrissie Fisher was third and Jayne Fletcher finished eighth.  Congratulations Heathens; perhaps someone will write a poem…..In the meantime, here’s a picture.

Jenny Smale (left) with her hard-earned England salver.

Finally, I must just mention that the indefatigable, irrepressible, incomparable Pat Ruddy has a new book on its way out (publication date July 1st).  It stems from “a lifetime dreaming golf holes” and is an account of Pat’s course designs and his musings on a great many golf design topics.

What’s it called?

“Holes In My Head”.

What else?

Pat Ruddy, photographed by Gerry Ruddy.