I actually gave a golf lesson last week.  Well, a sort of a one.  It lasted the sum total of two minutes, was given in two bits several hours apart and the pupil, whose attention span is limited, was big sister Patricia.  Very unlike when I did “proper” teaching or videos – see picture at top.

Patricia had been over staying with me and was driving me to my weekly lymphatic massage, which has become part of my armoury to defeat Long Covid, and was saying how little she had played and how dire her efforts were.  Panic was setting in as she had a couple of matches coming up.  I asked her to describe her shots to me (facts only, no opinion) and gleaned the information that her iron shots were thin.  This seemed to concern her a lot, which surprised me, as most of her golf at this time of year requires woods – and plenty of them!  This exchange took precisely 92 seconds and off I went for my massage.

Much later back at home, around the time you’re wondering if it’s too early for a first gin and tonic, we remembered we hadn’t finished the lesson.  It was now nearly dark and pouring with rain so I stood at the kitchen door and sent her out with my 7-iron for a couple of swings. It was as I expected – her old fault of hitting up from “underneath” the ball instead of delivering a sideways on blow.  This action of hitting up makes it difficult (impossible really) to get a good, online strike hence all her thin shots.  This part of the lesson took the remaining 28 seconds that made up the two minutes – more than enough for both of us!  The lesson concluded, we opened the bar.

The photograph below was taken several years ago at the height of her hitting-upward-through-the ball skills,  A new improved version will be posted once procured!

The day of Patricia’s inter-club match dawned, a home venue, with seven-a-side playing off handicap.  Sis was the anchor match – or perhaps the captain was hoping the result would be decided before it got to her.  The latter is very probable as Patricia had announced to her team before the off that she was retiring from club matches after this one as “her nerves were shot!”  Not what any captain wishes to hear before sending her troops into battle.

Anyway, as Patricia and her opponent made their way down the last the other team members were all gathered at the back of the 18th green with three matches apiece.  They nervously enquired as to the state of the match only to be informed that it had already finished on the 15th.  The two-minute lesson had done the trick and efforts to bring Patricia out of competitive match retirement have already begun!  She, however, is determined to go out at the “top”.

Now here’s something for those who do play golf nearer the top of the amateur game.  It was brought to my attention by Ken Schofield, former executive director of the European Tour (now the DP World Tour).  Ken was at the tour’s helm for almost thirty years and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2013 for his services to the game.  He is still mightily involved with the sport and has taken over as patron of Surrey golf after the death of Peter Alliss last year.

The Peter Alliss Memorial, a new mixed event, will be held at Hindhead golf club in early July and all the details are on the poster below.  Please spread the word far and wide – what an honour it would be to win the inaugural playing of the trophy that bears Peter’s name.  It promises to be a great event and will hopefully grow into one of the “majors” on the amateur circuit.

One of the questions I am frequently asked is which is the greatest golf event I have been privileged to be present at.  I haven’t been to a quarter of the number of my sister but my top events (in no particular order) would include:  Woosie winning the 1991 Masters;  Tiger’s first Masters win in 1997;  the first away win for Europe in the Solheim Cup in Colorado in 2013;  the Duel in the Sun between Watson and Nicklaus in the 1977 Open at Turnberry;  Shane’s win in 2019 at Portrush.  I could go on and on.

Whenever Patricia is asked the same question she faithfully comes back time and again to the same answer – Alison Nicholas’ historic win in the 1997 US Women’s Open at Pumpkin Ridge in Oregon, where she held off the darling of the Americans, Nancy Lopez, denying her the opportunity to win her national title – the only treasure missing from her glittering resume.  This gets Patricia’s vote every time.

I was reminded of this fact when I realised that Ali celebrated her 60th birthday last week.  I just loved this photo posted on facebook and hope it leaves you with a smile – as it did me.  Many happy returns, Big Al.

Phew, well, where to start?  That’s always the problem I suppose, especially when there’s no obvious beginning.  Unusually, I feel almost overgolfed this week, having played two days in a row, followed by a wine tasting (lady captain’s orders), so perhaps it’s hardly surprising that I’m feeling a little weary – all that fresh air and exercise…

Nerves are also exhausting even at my lowly level, more so maybe because I’m not quite sure where our new practice ground is, so every shot is a mystery – though I did take to the practice putting green for a short, desperate session after the winter foursomes trouncing.  And Mo will be giving details of my lesson with her.  The most difficult part of that, for me, was trying to remember what the ball actually did – I’m not the most forensic when it comes to my own game.  Like Peppermint Patty (above), one of Charles M Schulz’s marvellous characters in Peanuts, who is more often away with the fairies than paying attention on the fairways.

You’ll note that Patty is carrying her clubs and we at WHGC have been encouraged to carry during the winter months but honestly, it’s a lost cause, isn’t it?  I carry when I can but I only have eight clubs and a wee-ish bag and usually foist any extra gear on my long-suffering, trolley-manoeuvring playing partners.  If you’re getting on a bit (and who isn’t), you need a lot of gear, waterproofs, gloves, hand warmers, bananas, cake, flask of coffee, extra fleece in case it goes even colder, umbrella – who, bar a professional caddy, can carry that?

I used my trolley on Monday – no partner just an opponent, a very pleasant, hockey-playing person, the visiting team’s captain, who was playing her first 18 holes since November and was quite surprised to be competing in March, a muddy, claggy month at her home course.  At Whittington, by contrast, we didn’t have to go anywhere near the shoe-cleaning machine after the match.

We had a ding-dong battle, which I won, by an outwardly comfortable scoreline but it could quite easily have gone the other way and even before the match I’d decided that my competitive days were over.  Too much responsibility, a flaky putting stroke (fixable but never likely to be reliable, destined to be streaky at best, depressingly dodgy at worst) and a growing dislike of competition – except when it’s friendly…

Time to leave all that to others.

Rest assured, I’m not giving up golf, just golf where I have to think, make a real effort, worry about the result.  If I become more Zen, or rediscover The Lost Art of Putting (great book by Gary Nicol and Karl Morris, which I should re-read closely) or develop an urge to find the practice ground, I’ll be a great partner in friendlies!  Although not everybody will be able to cope with my new, ready-for-summer hat.

Talking of Zen, meditation, that sort of thing, what’s Rory thinking about these days?  From what I saw of Bay Hill he seemed at times to be channelling his inner Tyrrell – the mangling of at least one errant wedge made it big on social media.  Except that Tyrrell kept his game and his infamous temper together in fiendishly tricky conditions and finished with a 69, in a tie for second, just one shot behind Scottie Scheffler, winner of the Arnie red cardi.

Rory slipped to a share of 13th with two rounds of 76 to finish, a bit of a reverse from his first round of 65.  “I feel punch drunk,” he said.  “The weekend, it’s like crazy golf.”

It was close to mayhem on the last day, with all sorts of weird and not-so-wonderful shots on view as whipping winds and glassy greens caused havoc but I hope Rory reads the rest of what he said and has a bit of a think about it:  “Sort of the way conditions are, it makes you feel as if you’re not playing as good as you are.  Like, I’m playing good.  I’m hitting good shots.  I’m swinging the club well.  I’m chipping well.  I’m putting well.  But it can knock your confidence whenever the conditions are like this.  I’m certainly playing better than shooting eight over over the weekend.”

That’s golf Rory.  Look at the figures, they don’t lie.  And if you can’t get your head round it, you haven’t a hope of ever winning the Masters, where keeping your cool and grind, grind, grinding away is paramount.  The phrase “flat track bully”  keeps coming to mind…

Perhaps a few chats with Tiger, the ultimate grinder, wouldn’t go amiss.  He was inducted into the Hall of Fame on Wednesday evening, introduced by his daughter Sam, an ultra poised 14-year old.

In honour of Crufts, which is on in Birmingham this week, I’ll leave the last word to Snoopy, whose enthusiasm for golf usually far exceeded his skill but, like all of his us, he had his moments.