I’m a “lists” person – partly to aid a balky memory, but also my list acts as a safety net for me and gives structure to my day.  I’m never without an ongoing list and some items manage to hang around for years and some even for decades.  There is one such item that I reckon has been inhabiting my list for well nigh fifteen years and I have fingers and toes crossed that I may shortly be able to put a big fat tick in the “done” column.

It’s all about a blind, you see.  A picture blind, a golfing picture blind.  It started with me having a brainwave to explore getting a vista of Dad’s beloved Rosses Point on a blind for his bathroom.  It was to be a surprise but back in those days the world hadn’t graduated to taking pictures on your phone and the easy transfer of photos from one device to another.  So, despite a skirmish of early investigations I made no headway at all and parked the idea……for the moment….or, as it turned out, for a very long time indeed.

A couple of years later, quite by chance in conversation, a photographer friend of mine mentioned he was in the process of working out how to manufacture golf umbrellas adorned with photographs of clubhouses and courses.  The idea was that each club could have their own bespoke brolly with a photograph of their own course on it.  When questioned he thought it should be “fairly straightforward” for me to achieve my ambition of the Rosses Point blind.  “Blind picture” re-entered my list at the very top.

With technology moving onwards I now found it easier to locate companies capable of doing what I wanted, but at a cost that made my eyes water.  So, once again the blind picture idea was shelved.  Slow forward several years and about five years ago we were having quite a bit of work done to the house, including turning one room into an exercise room, which with a bit of creative thinking could be turned into an overflow bedroom for busy times when lots of family were visiting. This little room has no windows (hold on – not as bad as it sounds!) but is oblong in shape and has a set of  double patio doors at each narrow end.  And so, I wondered if this would be a better canvas for my golfing blind – admittedly a much, much larger canvas than originally intended at an approximate 6 feet by 7.5 feet.

It’s at this point that the whole project took a sudden spurt forward.  Hubby came home one day from a motorbike track day with an action picture of his good self taken by a professional photographer and that’s when I decided this sports/exercise room of ours could easily cope with two distinct and separate blinds.  He decided on his motorbike one and, with poor Dad now playing only a heavenly Rosses Point, I decided to switch my focus to where I grew up, namely Portstewart, and its world famous view from the clubhouse and first tee area.

But, would it actually work?  The first test was the biking pic.  Company found, instructions followed, file uploaded, money paid.  Bingo, a blind we were both thrilled with and easy to put up.  Now, all I had to do was get exactly the photograph I wanted for the golfing end of the exercise room.

By this stage we were in the early stages of lockdown in 2020 and unable to travel anywhere so I rang Michael Moss, erstwhile manager of Portstewart Golf Club and tasked him with sourcing the picture that would help me put this project to bed once and for all.  Moss-y boy sallied out with his ipad and phone, took copious pictures and sent them over.  Excited beyond all imagining I selected one and sent it off to the blind people.

Abject failure.  The pic didn’t have the underlying required technical details to “grow” the picture up to the required size without going all out of focus.  I realised an ipad wouldn’t cut it so after shilly-shallying back and forward for the Covid years, Mr Moss was dismissed without a reference.

Enter, stage left, the blog’s favourite photographer, Mary McKenna, who, by the summer of 2022 was travelling around again and had a trip planned to the wee North.  Forsaking her friends at Portrush, McKenna took up residence on the first tee at Portstewart snapping away, all the time warning me that she doubted her technical know-how was up to the task.  Meanwhile, my own learning curve was continuing and the penny had finally dropped that the lovely, panoramic view I was envisaging was never going to translate onto a narrow, tall blind.  Eek!  The longer the project continued the further away the finishing line appeared to be.  Mac’s pictures were lovely – but rejected by the blind people – and she followed Michael Moss out the door.

All this palaver took us up to the summer of last year and I was resigning myself to forever having one room in the house with only one blind when I had (yet another) brainwave.  Good friend, renowned historian and Lady President of Royal Portrush, Kath Stewart-Moore was a photographer of some note, wasn’t she?  One phone call later and Kath (who saw me coming) had swiftly moved me on to Barbara Stewart with the assurance that Barbara would be more than up to the task.

Dear Reader, if you’ve managed to stick with this tortuous tale thus far, I assure you we are almost finished.  Barbara took up her mission with alacrity and several trips to the golf club at Portstewart ensued over the winter and spring, checking the light, working out the angles and drinking copious cups of coffee.  She visited in all weathers and then last week sent through her submission.

I absolutely love it!

The blind order has been placed, the proof has come back and we are all systems go.  I’ll have the completed blind in a fortnight.  Fingers crossed I won’t take too long to getting round to putting it up!

Fifteen years in the gestation – what a pity Dad isn’t here to see it.

Now, what’s next on my list?

 

 

June already.  Can you believe it?  I did the old “white rabbits” incantation first thing yesterday, the 1st of the month – why on earth or where it comes from I have no idea – and turned over the calendar to reveal the magnificent peacock in all his glory.  Another Mary McKenna spectacular that’ll cheer up the next few weeks no end.

On Tuesday, I got my wires crossed so instead of playing in the competition I slotted into a gap and played a few holes on my own.  No card, no pencil, no pressure.  Nul points but lots of fun despite being a bit chilly for shorts.  I made myself hit clubs that usually remain in the bag, tried shots that aren’t part of my armoury – and discovered why!  I wish I could say that I found a putting stroke that will prove infallible – but that wouldn’t be true.  Some things never change.

Practice may make better but never perfect and these ageing bones steadfastly refuse to creak into any sort of shape vaguely recognisable as a golf swing.  You have to be fitter than I am to make a decent fist of hitting the ball consistently well and ten minutes on the practice ground would be about my lot.  Though the hot bath and massage afterwards hold a certain appeal.

Rooting through a pile of my never-diminishing stack of papers, I came across a VISION54 aide-memoire of Essential Playing Skills and wondered which ones I could practise in a small garden.  Emotional resilience perhaps; tension awareness and decision & commitment possibly; but I decided to try balance.  Not by standing on one leg but by hanging up a rug and beating it without falling back.  Hmmm.  More work needed.

Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott are the inspiring coaches behind this holistic approach and by pure chance I opened their book Play Your Best Golf Now (written with Ron Sirak) in the middle of the chapter called Find Your Balance.  I had to double check how to spell the authors’ names – one ‘s’ or two; double ‘r’; an ‘e’ on the end?  Daren’t get it wrong after all these years! – and you can’t pick up a book without opening it, can you?

“Balance is like fresh produce,” I read.  “It can go bad very easily.  It also changes from day to day…We are dynamic, changing human beings, and we will swing well more often if we do regular balance exercises as maintenance…

“For the sake of your golf, it’s very important that you are able to transfer stationary balance to rotational balance.  That is what you need for your golf swing.  We see many players who are able to stand on one leg with their eyes closed for thirty seconds [not me], but then when we ask them to rotate at the same time, they fall over right away…”

Did you hear the crash?  That was me falling over as I failed to master the dynamics right away.  Let me pick up the table, the lamp, the book, my glasses and mug and check that the laptop is still operational…

By all means try this at home – you’re all consenting adults after all – but my advice is not to attempt any of it without a lot of careful thought and plenty of support.  Very soft furnishings are recommended.

Talking of furnishings, my spring/summer cleaning is progressing and I’m beaming, halo gleaming as I contemplate the corners – now hidden again behind chairs, sofas, chests, whatever – that I know are clear of cobwebs, corpses (mostly slaters who can infiltrate anywhere at will) and dust.  It won’t last of course but there’ll be no early morning inspection to wipe the smile off my face.

It’s amazing what you come across under the sofa besides fluff, admittedly no coins of any sort or long-lost watches, nothing remotely useful but a photocopy of an old newspaper, date unknown.  Goodness knows why it was there but it appealed to the nerd in me as I read that “Miss Agnes B. Honeyman (Blairgowrie) and Miss Joyce Wethered (Royal Dornoch) will be unable to take part in the first round of the Girls’ Open Championship at Stoke Poges to-day.  Their places will be taken by Miss Nancy Griffiths (Sunningdale) and Miss Nancy Paull (Walton Heath), the former of whom is only 12 years of age.”

Why, I wonder, was Joyce, who became one of the game’s greatest, most celebrated players, entered from Dornoch?   Why did she and Agnes have to withdraw?  And did either Nancy train on?

By the way, don’t forget that the Vagliano Trophy match between the women amateurs  of GB and I and Europe is at Royal Dornoch at the end of this month and the AIG Women’s Open is at Walton Heath in August.

Finally, many congratulations to John Huggan, a Scot of an iconoclastic bent, who has been writing knowledgeably and trenchantly about golf for several decades, on being honoured at The Memorial Tournament, Jack Nicklaus’s event in Columbus, Ohio, this week.  Well deserved.