What a glorious autumn this little part of our world is enjoying in terms of female players from these shores triumphing on the LPGA tour.  Scotland’s Gemma Dryburgh (top) is the latest to become an LPGA champion (and the first Scot since Catriona Matthew in 2011) winning  the TOTO Japan Classic last weekend.  She joins Englishwomen Charley Hull and Jodi Ewart Shadoff in giving us three winners on that tour in the space of the last four weeks.  That’s a first, so let’s enjoy it and celebrate these players, not forgetting Ireland’s Leona Maguire and her win earlier in the season.

Gemma is in her fifth season on the LPGA and prior to this tournament her best finish had been a fifth place.  She smiled her way round the golf course, seemingly impervious to the relentless pressure exerted by numerous, logo-bedecked Japanese players who kept hitting hybrids in from around 200 yards and holing the putts.  Gemma just smiled and followed suit and even the thundering sight of a rampant Linn Grant in her rear view mirror, a winner six times in the last fourteen months, didn’t shake her.

Prior to this tournament the Scot’s aim was to make the season-ending CME Championship which takes place next week and for which the top 60 players on the LPGA tour qualify.  That’s nicely checked off the list now and there are a few other experiences from the week in Japan that will stand Gemma in good stead.  Playing professionally in that country for the first time, she found herself leading an LPGA event for the first time in her career.  That was late in the third round during which, by the way, she was playing with Atthaya Thitikul, the 19-year old sensation from Thailand who is the current world No 1.  Unfazed, Gemma shot 65.

The Japanese fans just adore their golf and despite understandably pulling for the home players the respect afforded to all the competitors was something the players all mentioned in their post-round interviews.  Whatever the reason, it was apparent that the Scotswoman was very comfortable out there in the heat of battle and when the pressure was at its greatest she covered the closing eight holes in five under to put the finishing touches to a superb second 65.

I asked Lawrence Farmer, Gemma’s long-time coach, if this win was out of the blue and he told me that she’d been playing very well since the end of July, had been a very solid player for quite a while, so, no, not really.  Having coached major champions, Lawrence is someone whose opinion I value and he agreed with me when I said Gemma reminded me of Cristie Kerr, the nine-time American Solheim Cup player, who was the bane of many a European Solheim Cup team.

When the celebrations die down, the Solheim Cup will now undoubtedly be on Gemma’s radar and I’m quite sure that Europe’s Solheim Cup captain Suzanne Pettersen will have been paying very close attention, particularly to the Scot’s calmness under pressure.

We’re honing in at a rate of knots on January 2023…………which means a revision of the Rules of Golf.  For years and years nothing seemed to change but in the last decade and a half or so since I did the R&A rules exam quite a lot has changed.  And when you’ve had a year like me without dusting off the clubs at all, the new rules can quite easily pass you by.

I took note therefore when the sister forwarded me an article highlighting a couple of changes and clarifications coming into play in January.  Firstly, Rule 10.2b(4).  This states that a caddie must not “deliberately stand in a location on or close to an extension of the line of play behind the ball for any reason”.  There was always the implication that a player’s partner shouldn’t crowd the line of a player either in order to see what way his own putt might break if on a similar line.  This has now been made much more explicit and is worth remembering if you play a lot of foursomes or fourballs at your club.  It’s simply not allowed and the penalty in stroke play is two shots (Rule 22.6) and in match play loss of hole (Rule 22.8).  Do read the rule for a fuller explanation.

Now, perhaps some of you recognise the putter in the picture above?  The implement, I mean, not the person.  Maybe you even have one in the bag, or perhaps in the garage?  Yes, it’s the self-standing putter – that club which enables a player to set the blade down, walk behind the putter to check the aim and then return to take his stance happy in his alignment.  From January you may no longer use the putter to aid your alignment. This is completely consistent with the rule banning caddies from lining up players.  Quite rightly too.  Aiming is a massive part of the game and psychologically removing that doubt is an enormous help to the player, taking away a large part of the skill of the game.  NB however, the actual putter is not banned, only its use as an aid to lining up.  This is similar to the broom handle putter not being banned, rather there are restrictions on how it can be used.

Finally, before I fall into the trap of moaning about the rules and how they still seem as complicated as ever, the following, doing the rounds of Whittington Heath members, served as a great reminder to me of how golf really does teach you to take the good breaks with the bad and just get on with things, no matter how difficult.

Now, any complaints about your current circumstances?….

I was going to start with an apology to those of you who found last week’s blog incomprehensible – Mo told me she’d read it twice and still couldn’t understand it – but I’ve re-read it and found large lumps of it perfectly understandable.  Admittedly, I’m probably biased and it won’t be winning any literary awards but, be warned, you read on of your own volition and, possibly, at your peril….I’d put an annoying smiley emoji in here but don’t know how to do that on this laptop, so at least you’re spared that.

This week’s blog is being written in relative comfort because the sweep came last week and I’ve got the log burner going, so the house is a lot warmer than it has been recently.  Along with most of the country, I’m trying to be parsimonious with the central heating and remember what woolly jumpers and fleeces are for.  Sadly, I’ve become very soft; hard to believe I grew up on the north Atlantic coast of Ireland with ice on the inside of the windows in the winter; our grandparents’ house, hard by the sea, was big and draughty, heated by a coal fire and the Raeburn in the kitchen – and they lived into their 80s.  No swanning about in thin blouses and tee shirts (not invented, I suspect) for them.

I’ve watched the Wim Hof stuff about ice baths, cold showers and so on but now that it really is getting colder – and perhaps because I’m getting older – my nerve and good intentions fail me and I’m in favour of warm water, not ice cold, no matter the alleged health benefits.  Wimp or what!  Perhaps that’s why I never quite know what to wear whenever I head down to Spurs to watch my team perform who knows how.  I’m either far too hot or far too cold.  And that’s the team for you too – blowing cold in the first half and then hot but perhaps not hot enough in the second.

Last Sunday, a friend and I trekked down (car to Milton Keynes, then coach) to N17 to watch Spurs v Liverpool.  She has a season ticket for Wrexham but is also a Liverpool fan, so I suppose I shouldn’t really have brought her in with me, in amongst the Spurs fans, just above the away supporters.  She behaved very well but was the only one in our section left ecstatic at the result – 2-1 to the Reds.

We were our usual passive selves in the first half, went 2-0 down (a lot of it our own work) and couldn’t quite pull it back in our hell-for-leather second half.  Being football tragics Pam and I watched Match of the Day when we got home and the analysis of our defensive deficiencies by Alan Shearer just confirmed everything that I and my fellow fans (nil international caps and goals between us) and every opponent had known for months.

Well, at least the fish and chips from across the road from the stadium were unexpectedly delicious.

It’s easy enough to keep track of Spurs and their/our up-and-down results but I wanted to watch Ireland play South Africa (rugby) and it took me quite a while to work out that it was on Amazon Prime.  Now, I don’t use Amazon (taxes, moral high ground, that sort of stuff) but I am enough of a hypocrite to make use of my brother-in-law’s AP from time to time.  However, the password didn’t work and by the time I’d contacted said b-in-law, it was too late.  At least we recorded another famous win, even though I still haven’t seen a single second.  Roll on Fiji this weekend and the wonderful Tadgh Furlong’s first time as captain.

I managed to watch a bit of golf, including the end of the first round of the LET’s Aramco Team Series – Jeddah at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club.  The featured pic (at the top of the piece, all being well technically) was snapped off the telly, when Sky’s coverage was suffering a few technical glitches.  It just tickled me that Aramco is all about energy but the lights were going out at a bit of a crucial moment, so they had to resort to a still instead of a live picture.  I wondered, idly, if too much of the Saudi dosh was being thrown at LIV and not quite enough at the women and the wherewithal to keep them on the air?

Then I read the latest LET Fans Newsletter, which gave me some good news (moral high ground aside):  “The prize money for the Ladies European Tour’s Aramco Saudi Ladies International presented by PIF will undergo a significant five-fold increase next year from US$1m to US$5m.

“The female golfers will now compete for equal prize money to the men in the PIF Saudi International powered by SoftBank Investment Advisers on the Asian Tour and the purse will be the third largest on the LET, offering a cheque for $750,000 USD to the tournament champion….”

Massive jumps are all very well but don’t they make you think that, perhaps, someone’s feeling a bit guilty about a disparity of some sort or another….?

Talking of jumps, here’s a lovely pic from Bangor-on-Dee races the other day, featuring WHGC’s much-loved Elaine Clarke (left) and her beloved Hunters Call, who finished a valiant third in his race at the age of 12 and won best-turned-out thanks to Holly Tetsill (right).  From Elaine’s Facebook page.

Nothing like finishing on a happy note.  Many congrats to all involved, including Olly Murphy Racing.