What a joy it is to welcome top-class women’s golf back to these shores.  There are a couple of huge events coming up for the women’s game starting this week with the Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies’ Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club near North Berwick.  After that, the (hopefully) securely bubbled tour will head westwards to Royal Troon for the newly named AIG Women’s Open – formerly the Women’s British Open.  I must admit I’m not a fan of the decision to drop the word “British” from the title.  I get that the R&A steadfastly protect “The Open” from having an adjective sneaked in there.  It was, after all, called exactly that from its inception in 1860, but that is not the case with the female equivalent and, to me, dropping the word “British” robs the title of some of its gravitas.  It makes me think of a club event, not one of the world’s premier women’s golf championships.  Be that as it may, I’ll be glued to my TV screen nonetheless.

The Ladies’ European Tour (LET) players are champing at the bit as the last tournament on their 2020 schedule was a whopping five months ago.  Were it not for the timely intervention of Justin and Kate Rose, supporting wholeheartedly the fledgling idea of tour player Liz Young to provide some of the LET members with competitive play, it is conceivable that none of the European Tour players would have hit a ball in anger for almost half a year.  Ring rusty doesn’t begin to describe it.

As it turned out, an amazing collective effort from event managers, sponsors, clubs, players, the tour and, of course, Justin and Kate, resulted in The Rose Ladies’ Series, an eight-week run of ten competitive rounds, each on a different course.  It seems, however, that nothing runs smoothly for the women and the final round over Wentworth’s famed Burma Road course had to be abandoned because of a wildfire that originated on Chobham Common.  The club was more than willing to conclude the golf the following day but with the blaze raging well into the night that proved impossible and reluctantly the round had to be abandoned.

As Justin Rose said, “Our mission was to serve the ladies and provide an opportunity for them to play and sharpen up for their respective seasons. So the last thing we want to do now is create a burden for them having to fit in the final round at a later date.”

Always thinking of the players, Rose is a gold medallist off the course as much as he is on it and how fortunate are we in our sport to have a supporter of his stature.  Thank you Justin.

The LPGA players on the other hand, have two full-field events under their belts – both won by Danielle Kang, a member of the defeated US Solheim Cup team on her last visit to Scotland.  No doubt she will be attempting to create happier memories on this visit to the land of the home of golf.  There is no question that she is the form horse at the moment – her last seven outings have yielded three victories, one second-place finish and two thirds and she is the highest-ranked American player at No 2 on the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings.

Major winners litter the field – Ariya Jutanugarn, Hannah Green, I K Kim, Anna Nordqvist, Lydia Ko, Morgan Pressel, Stacy Lewis, Brittany Lang, Angela Stanford, Catriona Matthew, Georgia Hall, Laura Davies and current AIG Women’s Open holder Hinako Shibuno mean this will arguably be the strongest field ever assembled for a Ladies’ Scottish Open.  All I want to do is jump in my car and hurtle up to The Renaissance Club but, alas, when Christina Kim feels the need to travel in a full hazmat suit, the world is telling me that that is definitely not a sensible thing to do.

Next week is the first time a women’s professional major will be held over one of my favourite courses, the links at Royal Troon. The club has already hosted the Open on nine occasions, most recently that thrilling tussle between Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson in 2016.  The resident pro is already warning that the course is playing much more difficult than for the men four years ago so it’s a given that the whole range of skills of these top players will be tested – another feast for those of us who love the women’s game.  And another feast through the medium of a screen as opposed to having the joy of being able to attend in person.

This will be the second of golf’s majors to be played without fans or fanfare, following in the wake of last week’s PGA Championship at Harding Park.  I don’t suppose Collin Morikawa cared a jot about the lack of atmosphere and paucity of watchers and perhaps the champion at Troon won’t either.  The winning moments will be captured for the millions of viewers worldwide and digitally enshrined for posterity.  It may well be a dream come true for someone but it won’t exactly be the picture they have nurtured and imagined in minute detail over the years.  But will that really matter?  Somehow I don’t think so, and I for one am delighted that Scotland is stepping into the spotlight for the next couple of weeks in support of the women’s game.  Nothing could be more fitting for the Home of Golf at a time like this.

You know how it is:  you look in the wardrobe and realise that you haven’t got a thing to wear.  So far, so normal.  A few years ago I read an article about a woman – a stylish Frenchwoman who lived in California – who had downsized her wardrobe to such a degree that the number of items in it scarcely reached double figures.  A sceptical fashion journalist was dispatched to interview this odd bod, fully expecting to be appalled at what she saw and was instead wowed by one of the smartest, most elegant women she’d ever met.

I longed to emulate that woman – no harm in dreaming – and did manage to reduce the number of clothes clogging up my far-from-elegant wardrobe.  That’s as far as it went, however and I fell by the wayside, lacking in key areas such as elegance, imagination and Frenchness.  I did my best to add a bit of colour and a modicum of what a generous soul might call style but recently my wearable world came crashing down, ripped asunder, left in tatters, with me sobbing in front of shelves stocked with the unacceptable.

Imagine the shock when you’re told that the things that you do have to wear are veritable abominations that are killing the planet, that every time you put them in the washing machine and switch it on, you are poisoning the oceans.  So much for the highfaluting notions of a self-styled eco warrior.  The argument that I should be doing all my washing by hand is for another day; after all, having dispensed with an iron and an ironing board, I’m not wasting energy at that end of the operation.  That’s part of the problem, of course, because a lot of those easy-care, drip-dry, non-iron, oh-happy-day, non-crease items are the killers.

And my wardrobe, such as it is, is full of them.

Acrylic, nylon and polyester abound in the form of skorts, stretchy golf shirts and tops, not to mention fleeces and the like.  All easy to pack, easy to wash, quick to dry – and lethal.  Aaaaaagh.

According to my WoolOvers catalogue and I quote verbatim:  “Every time you wash a garment, tiny microfibres are released into the water supply, less than 5mm long.  More than 4,500 fibres can be released per gram of clothing you wash.*  [*Plastic Soup Foundation, ocean conservation project co-funded by the European Union.]”

It continues, remorselessly:  “Polyester, nylon and acrylic are made from plastic.  Their microfibres do not biodegrade for many years.  Recent studies have shown that plastic microfibres have now been found in Arctic ice, Arctic snowfall and on the sea floor.  This suggests that plastic microfibres are airborne.  We are not only eating and drinking plastic, we are breathing it too.”  Aaaaaagh ad infinitum.

You can find out more at WoolOvers.com and WhatsInMyWash.org.uk.  I confess I haven’t studied either of them yet –  respectively, too pissed off with moths munching holes in my cashmere and too scared.  I did have a quick look for whatsinmywash etc, using all lower case letters and was told no such website could be found.  A casualty of the times perhaps or no longer available in the UK because of that EU funding?  Neither, as it turned out.  It just insists on capital  letters in the right place.  Pernickety or what?  In this day and age?  iau.  (I Ask You).  Or should that be wtf or lol?

Whatever.  You’ll be glad to know that Woolovers, hardly surprisingly, are fans of natural fibres like wool, cotton, linen and cashmere, which are biodegradable:  “They do not contribute to plastic pollution.  Yarns such as viscose and modal are made from the pulp of beech trees or bamboo, these also biodegrade…”

So there are things out there that we can wear with a clear conscience but what the hell are we to do with the old stuff other than wear it until it’s so rank that it walks away into the sunset of its own accord…..?

Talking of walking, Thomas Bjorn, the latest in Europe’s long line of winning Ryder Cup captains, is hot-footing it from Surrey to Wales this week.  The Dane set off from Wentworth yesterday, carrying the Ryder Cup and aims to arrive at Celtic Manor in time for the last round of The Celtic Classic this Sunday.  Then, blisters permitting, he’ll play in the ISPS Handa Wales Open next week.

Bjorn was inspired by Captain (now Sir) Tom Moore and is hoping to raise lots of money for Unicef UK’s Save Generation Covid appeal and for the Golf Foundation as part of the European Tour’s GolfforGood initiative.  Donations for the Wentworth2Wales walk can be made at https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/Wentworth2Wales.  Hashtags will come in useful too but my computer and I are getting old together and couldn’t summon up the hashtag symbol between us…..It’s probably not too late to have lessons….Good luck Thomas and safe tramping.

At least it was cool enough to play golf at WHGC yesterday – I cancelled Wednesday’s 1330 tee time for fear of heatstroke – and Mo had a good look at our latest array of diggers and assorted construction paraphernalia.  Far be it from me and Judy Two Shots to say who won the match against Mo and the redoubtable Sue M….No doubt they’ll be after a re-match when the pain subsides…

Finally, Mo and I were shocked and saddened to hear that Gordon J Brand had died, aged 65.  Our condolences and best wishes to his wife Lyn and the family.