I’m looking out at a dreich Cheshire morning.  The rain is spilling from the skies and I’m losing the resolve to last out till October before lighting the fire.  I’m not going to make it.

The sister is an hour up the road at Hoylake, or Royal Liverpool, to give it its proper title, home of next year’s Open Championship.  She’s playing in an AGW (Association of Golf Writers) event and when she rang from there she, too, was looking out at tumbling, relentless rain.  “I’m not going out in this if it’s like this tomorrow,” she declared.  I didn’t fancy her chances of getting to unleash her rather unorthodox action on one of our finest courses

The weather is mirrored by my lack of inspiration for a blog topic for this week and apathy and a distinct lack of action abound.  I don’t particularly want to write about the Presidents Cup and another comfortable win for the US although, in fairness, the International team made a decent fist of things after an appalling opening two days.

Leona Maguire, trooper that she is, flew from the west coast of America to play at Dromoland Castle in the west of Ireland and came up a shot shy of a play-off, all the time fighting jet-lag and shouldering the expectations of a nation.  She’s some girl.

So, there was nothing for it but to resort to the huge bowl containing little books of matches, collected from the Madill golfing travels all over the world.  For those who don’t know, this collection was started by Mum (a non-smoker) decades ago when every hotel, pub and even golf course had little books of matches scattered about for their customers’ use.  Dig your hand into the bowl, rummage around for a bit and whatever book of matches is pulled out will surely trigger a memory or yarn from times past.  It’s a real memory bowl, reminiscent of the memory pool-y type thing in Harry Potter, the name of which, true to form, I can’t remember.

The book of matches that surfaced this time was from the University Park Hotel, Gold Coast, Australia.  That was a result!  One abiding memory was instant and I could almost feel the sunshine soaking into my bones.  Again, I thought of Mum who always loved following the golf being played in far-away, hot places during our winter.

In the 1990s, in February/March time I used to go out to play two or three tournaments on the Australian tour.  The WPGA Tour Australasia is now going from strength to strength under the admirable guidance of Karen Lunn, former Women’s Open Champion and Ladies’ European Tour stalwart.  Back in the day, we had two or three main tournaments with a handful of pro-ams sprinkled in between.  It was in one of these breaks that I was persuaded to go on a little jaunt with Alison Nicholas of major championship and Solheim Cup fame.

We were staying at the University Park hotel and Ali had booked a flight to Cairns intending to go from the tournament and have two or three days scuba diving off the Great Barrier reef.  A qualified diver, she was keen to have company but none of the Aussies (who were all good divers) was free so I said I’d go with her and have a few days’ break but I would not be diving.

On the way up in the plane I was asking Ali about her training, which she’d done in the UK.  I found it really interesting and I remember asking her what on earth you did if your mask filled with water.  She demonstrated how you put the heel of your hand on a certain place on the mask and then lifted it up so the vacuum you had created would whoosh out the water gathering in the mask.  (Apologies to divers if these details are sketchy/mis-remembered/wrong, whatever.)  She’d had several training sessions in swimming pools to perfect this and many other techniques.  Ali’s enthusiasm was infectious and I was looking forward to the break, reading, soaking up the sun and exploring.

When we checked in to our hotel there was a huge notice at reception:  “Great Barrier Reef.  Hand-held dives;  Leaving tomorrow 7.30am.  No previous experience necessary.  Sign up.”  That was it – those four little words did it.  No previous experience necessary.  I signed up.

The following morning we had a three-hour trip out to the outer reef and the chance to meet our instructor.  There were only three in our group as most of the divers were Japanese and with the Japanese instructors.  The third member of our group was a guy our age and as inexperienced as I was so I felt a little more reassured.  I repeatedly said I had no experience whatsoever, had never had a wetsuit on, never mind tanks on my back and the answer came back, “Don’t worry.  This is what we do.”

Suited and booted we stood on a little pontoon at the side of the boat, had five minutes’ instruction and then, motioning to us to follow him, the instructor was off, into the deep.  Two seconds later I was on my own as the others followed suit.  This was it……did I go or stay?  I took a deep breath and went.

I was now diving in the most amazing, beautiful place in the world…..and I hated it.  I was terrified from beginning to end, severely distressed and my jaw was so tightly clenched it ached afterwards for days.  The guy in our group was taking to it all like the proverbial fish to water which served to make me feel I was inadequate and making a mountain out of a molehill.  Ali was away off exploring the wonders before us and the instructor, despite remaining at my side, seemed oblivious to how I was feeling.

Remnants of Ali’s and my conversation from the plane the previous evening came flooding back to me.  I knew you could absolutely not bolt for the surface under any circumstances, yet that was what every fibre of my being was screaming to do.  I felt my mask filling with water and tried to ignore it but it kept on.  I have no recollection of where the instructor was at this point.  It came to the bit that I had to try and clear my mask and the thought occurred to me that it was strange that it could all end down here.

I faithfully tried to reproduce what Ali had told me and lifted my mask.  I couldn’t believe it!  It worked! When I replaced my mask there was no water on the inside.  I felt euphoric but not as euphoric as when the instructor signed that we were going to start ascending.  When we got back on the pontoon I felt utterly sick to my stomach.  It was the worst forty minutes of my life and the result was that I threw up every couple of minutes for the next seven hours.  I truly know the meaning of being sick with nerves.

You’ll not be surprised to learn that Ali was on her own diving for the next couple of days.

I suppose the fact that our companion in the group had no problem made me feel that the lack was in me.  However, when we returned to the next tournament the Aussies were keen to know how we’d got on.  Rather shamefacedly I told them.  They were aghast, outraged and couldn’t believe that I was taken down there with no experience and five minutes’ instruction.  They couldn’t have been more appalled which served to make me feel a lot better.

So, it was back to tournament life and what I was used to – grinding to make the cut.  Five pars to finish and ensure playing at the weekend when you can’t hit your hat?

Pah!  Wee buns.

 

* The Wirral weather turned out better than ours and P played – and won.  Perhaps her long-suffering colleagues regretted neglecting their rain dance?

 

Apologies to those of you who are having a bad or a shitty week but I’m having a rather good week – so far.

Last Friday, the weather was kind when we played at The Northumberland Golf Club/Gosforth Park Ladies Golf Club, where the course crisscrosses Newcastle Racecourse on several occasions.  There was an evening meeting scheduled but we didn’t have to watch out for flying hooves – the bunkers gave us more than enough trouble, though I did finish with a majestic par 4 (on the green in regulation, not a regular occurrence) at the last in front of the venerable old clubhouse.

That same day in St Andrews, at 0800, quite a bit earlier than our tee time, there was a cannon start (why on earth are LIV, the ultimate big timers, still mucking about with a poxy shotgun?)  And Clive Brown, the pride of Wales, drove himself in as captain of the R and A.  Clive, capped 65 times for his country, admitted to being very nervous and there was a sizeable crowd gathered to witness one of his proudest moments.  He qualified as a chartered accountant, a breed Maureen and I hold dear to our hearts thanks to Dad and Brian and lives in Conwy, north Wales, also dear to our hearts, so we think he’s an all round good guy, a very acceptable face of the establishment.

It’ll have been a bittersweet moment because his lovely Mum Elsie died in August at the age of 98.  Among many other things she was the vice captain (not 100 per cent sure of her exact title) of the GB and I Curtis Cup team that made history at Prairie Dunes in 1986, a wonderful foil for the formidable captain Diane Bailey.  Belated condolences to Clive, his wife Christine, sons Graham and Benjamin and all the family.  Clive came close to that moment of glory when he captained the Walker Cup team that beat the Americans, including a largely ineffective Tiger Woods, at Royal Porthcawl in 1995.

On Monday, in a howling gale, I played Wallasey for the first time (shameful to take so long), where Dr Frank Stableford (on the plaque at the top of the piece) devised his eponymous system, for which we hackers remain eternally grateful. There’s another plaque on the 2nd tee, which is, apparently, where he decided that something had to be done…He’d probably run up a big number (not an inelegant phrase he’d have used, I suspect) at the 1st, lashed his drive at the 2nd into the boondocks and thought, “Sod this for a game of soldiers…”  The first Stableford comp was held at Wallasey on 16th May 1932.

By some miracle I had 32 points, well adrift of Colin Harding, who won the Ron Moseley Memorial Salver with a magnificent 38 points, one ahead of Denis Kirwan.  It was, as someone said, attritional, brutal, the sort of weather that made you realise that golfers may be mad but wind surfers are stark, raving bonkers.

On the short 12th, stroke index 18 (!!!), where there’s a plaque telling you that you are playing one of the four original greens laid out by Old Tom Morris, I hit a cracking shot but it was a fraction left and, yes, it landed in one of the many bunkers surrounding the green.  I failed to score and when you see the lie, you’ll realise why.

Wallasey is wonderful, a course as demanding as anybody could wish for, a clubhouse full of history and people as friendly and welcoming as could be.  And the great thing was that it made Hoylake, the Royal Liverpool of the mighty winds, look like a pussycat the next day – in what I reckon was a THREE-club wind.  Now, I may not be much of a golfer but I do know about playing in the wind, having grown up at Portstewart and Portrush on the north Atlantic coast of Ireland.  We know about wind in Ireland.

I did say, loudly and often, that if it was tipping down when it came to my tee time, I wouldn’t be playing at Hoylake, one of my favourite courses but it wasn’t, so I teed off, hustled by the starter, played quite well – putted beautifully for me – and ended up winning the Golf Writers’ Championship and the Fred Pignon Trophy.  For a record fifth time.  Daft.  I’m still stunned.  I had 32 points, off the black tees – the men played off the yellows.

The aforementioned Denis, who’d flown over from Ireland for the two comps, won the AGW’s Race To Royal Liverpool, to become Etiqus Golfer Of The Year, our best player overall but, I’m sorry Denis, many congrats on a magnificent effort but this is my blog and it’s my pic that’s appearing.  It could be my last chance.

There’s always luck involved in winning a title and as bad as my lie in the bunker at Wallasey was, at the 16th at Hoylake, I got really fortunate.  I hit a cracking drive but it ended up in a bunker I didn’t think I could reach.  I was dead in the water until I noticed a lovely little sign that read “Ground Under Repair”.   GUR.  Oh, happy day.  I raised my arms in triumph.  I got a free drop and that break helped me win the title.  Sorry guys.  Well, not really!

I’m running out of space, so I’m not going to rant about the new 15th at Hoylake, a vicious little SHIT of a hole that I labelled impossible until I found out that one of our number, the inestimable Neil McLeman of the Daily Mirror, had hit an 8-iron to a few feet and had a birdie TWO.  Wow.  My group scored NUL points total.

My good fortune continued when I got home and went out with the dog walkers.  I pulled my phone out of the back pocket of my waterproof trousers to take a few photos and when I got to the bakery to buy my addictive sourdough muffins, I couldn’t find my debit card.  Oops.  Was it lying in the grass in the park?  I headed for the bank (we still have several in Lichfield, thank goodness) to report the likely loss and as I was giving my details, a young woman with a spaniel walked in with my card…Wow again.  She wouldn’t even take a coffee as a thank you.

Later still, at draw night at WHGC, I won, not the draw but first prize in the raffle and £30 on my club card.

I’m going to bed now.

Very carefully.