Funny how the brain works (if it works at all, that is) and how it makes connections whether they are actually there or not.

I was supposed to go to Lichfield this past week to go with Patricia to the theatre to see Fascinating Aida.  We have seen them a couple of times in the past and their own website describes them as “Britain’s raciest and sassiest musical cabaret trio”.  They are not for the faint-hearted or those who are easily offended but they do deliver some amazingly clever, observational, musical comedy, one of my all-time favourites being their song “Cheap Flights”.  It’s a humorous rhyming rant about all the add-ons you end up paying for on a flight that’s advertised as costing 50p.

Anyway, I didn’t get to Lichfield because of a misbehaving back which has kept me housebound this last week.  This gave me ample time to keep up to date with the golf news from all arts and parts of the world.  First to catch my eye was the report in the excellent Irish Golf Desk by Brian Keogh that Joe Lyons from Galway had posted an impressive final round 67 to win the Spanish Seniors’ Amateur Championship at Real Club Sevilla Golf.  A former winner of the West of Ireland Championship and the current Irish Senior Close Champion, Lyons is extending his considerable reputation with this international win………. but the new champ was forced to go home empty handed.

Ryanair refused to allow him to bring the trophy home with him!  Doh?  What’s that all about?  And my brain immediately jumped to Fascinating Aida and their famous ditty.  The airline did relent and send the trophy on the next flight, relaying it by courier up to Galway…. but only after Joe had tweeted about his disappointment in them.  What WERE they thinking?

And what was Jake Knapp thinking, I wonder, after winning on Sunday in Mexico on the PGA Tour in only his ninth start?  The 29-year old had played extensively on the Canadian Tour in honing his craft before earning his PGA Tour card last year after finishing high in the final season standings on the Korn Ferry circuit.  Simply teeing it up in Vidanta in the Mexico Open was quite an achievement considering that less than two years ago he was working part-time as a nightclub bouncer in order to finance his golf and pay for his travel and entry fees.  Asked what he learned from that experience he succinctly replied, “I didn’t want to be a bouncer all my life”.

No danger of that now.  For a start, $1.46 million has crash-landed into his bank account, not to mention exemptions and invitations into all of this year’s majors, plus PGA tour status until the end of 2026 at the earliest.  “Life changing” is a much bandied-about term but it was never more accurate than in this case and who doesn’t love a moving story?  I certainly do.

I only had to turn my attention to the DP World Tour to find myself reaching for the paper hankies again to dab my ever moistening eyes.  The tournament was the Magical Kenya Open, the venue Muthaiga Golf Club.  Where to start?

Perhaps with the winner, 34-year old Darius van Driel from the Netherlands.  A broken hand led to him giving up golf for a number of years but he found his way into the pro ranks almost a decade ago and managed a couple of runner-up positions on the DP World Tour.  Last year saw him lose his card but he gritted it out at tour school and bounced back, scooping the ultimate reward last week with his victory.

Another heartwarming story featured the man who was joint runner-up.  He was also possibly the man who delivered your Morrison’s shopping the week before last.  Joe Dean, like van Driel, earned his card at tour school last year and this was only the 29-year old Englishman’s second ever start on the main European tour.  Not having enough funds to play every event he was supplementing his income, not by being a bouncer a la Jake Knapp, but by working for the supermarket as a delivery driver.  There should be a vacancy there now if you’re interested.  Joe has tucked away almost 200,000 euros so he won’t be needing it.

And there’s more…….

Ever heard of Ronald Rugumayo?  No, neither had I.  That’s Ronald’s picture at the top of the piece – he’s holding his lucky ball.

Last Friday Ronald stood on the 9th tee (his final hole of the day) at Muthaiga Golf Club knowing that he needed a birdie to be sure of making the cut.  He decided to change his ball from a number 4 to his favourite, a number 3.  His second shot finished just over six feet away and his putt disappeared in the right-hand side of the hole making birdie and making history.

“Happens every week in a golf tournament somewhere or other,” I hear you cry.  Er, no!  Ronald is the first player from Uganda to make the cut in a DP World event.  Truly history in the making.

It was a brilliant moment for Ronald, for Uganda, for East Africa but also, I’m sure, for the R&A whose tireless efforts to spread the game in Africa are now bearing fruit with Uganda having a home-grown role model and hero of their own.

“There are no words that I can use to express how I feel,” said Rugumayo.

“I’m so grateful for Kenyans, my fellow Ugandans who flew all the way (to watch me). Honestly, it’s not about me as a player, it’s not about Uganda, it’s about East Africa. Everything I’m doing, I’m doing for East Africa.”

This is what golf does time and time again.  Just when you’re ready to wash your hands of it completely the sport throws up people and stories that are irresistible.  It’s all making me fall back in love a little bit, well, no actually, quite a big bit, with the men’s professional game again.

It’s similar to when you are out playing a load of rubbish and you reach the last tee and, from nowhere, you stripe it down the middle.  By the time you’re in the clubhouse you’re hooked again.

It’s nearly 23 years since Annika Sorenstam, a quiet, studious Swede who became a superstar golfing brand, more or less knocked Tiger Woods off the cover of the golf magazines even though he’d just had his first win for months, beating Phil Mickelson by a single shot at the Bay Hill Invitational, Arnie’s tournament, in Orlando, Florida.

Across the country, in Phoenix, Arizona, Sorenstam managed to hog the headlines by becoming the first woman to score 59 in an official event, in the second round of the Standard Register Ping at Moon Valley.  She started with eight birdies in a row and even though there was an eight-hour time difference, I fought hard, begging and beseeching, to persuade The Times to give us top billing ahead of the men’s European Tour event.  I believe I managed it (no internet then), one of the few triumphs of my journalistic career.

It was, in fact, quite a golfing week, what with the 59, Tiger’s victory and Ireland’s own Des Smyth winning the Madeira Island Open, to become the oldest winner in European Tour history.  At 48 years 34 days old, Des was 36 days older than that sweet-swinging evergreen Neil Coles was when he won the Sanyo Open in 1982.

I’m indebted to the wonderful American weekly GolfWorld for the details – my copy, signed by Annika, is still in pristine condition and I knew exactly where to lay my hands on it because the much-delayed memorabilia sort out has begun at last.  Mind you, it’ll probably be another 23 years before that’s completed…

Annika, who started her round at the 10th, had 13 birdies and could have gone even lower because she had a 25-footer for eagle at the par 5 8th and a 9-footer, downhill as I remember, for another birdie at the 9th but two-putted both holes before leaping into the arms of her caddie Terry McNamara.  There were still 36 holes to play, though and they had to work hard to ensure that the 59 was not just a footnote, eventually winning by two shots from Se Ri Pak, the inspiration for all the South Koreans stars who flooded onto the world’s fairways in her wake.

Some more trivia from the week:  Annika’s playing partners were her sister Charlotta, the defending champion, who missed the cut and Meg Mallon, who marked the historic card;  Laura Davies, who’d won the Standard Register four years in a row from 1994, missed the cut; JoAnne Carner, a sprightly 61, made it; ESPN, who were televising the event, had no live coverage of the round because they were geared up to cover the second nine, not the first and had to scramble like mad to record their footage.

However, I’ll leave the last word to Kris Tschetter, who led the tournament after a first round of 63 and was out late on the second day:  “I didn’t think I’d be leading when I got to the golf course but I didn’t think I’d be eleven shots behind either….!”

Nobody really got close to Annika in that season of 2001 – apologies to the non-golfers but I rooted out the LPGA handbook for 2002, a weighty tome and this is what I found:  “Annika Sorenstam re-wrote the LPGA record book, tying or setting 30 LPGA records…”  Fear not, I’m not going to list all of them.  The 59 you know about.  Here are some more:  “Sorenstam went on to win eight times, establish a single-season scoring average record of 69.42 and become the first player to eclipse the $2 million mark in single-season earnings.

“The Swede won the Rolex Player of the Year, Vare Trophy (for low scoring average) and money title…Her eight wins included a string of four consecutive victories and marked the most wins in one season since LPGA Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez [NB  you can now no longer say you’ve never heard of Nancy Lopez!!] won eight tournaments in 1979.”

Enough.  Suffice it to say that Annika was herself well on the way to the Hall of Fame.

And, finally, thanks to Sarah Schmelzel, the 29-year old American who triggered this reminiscing.  She had a 68 in the first round of the HSBC Women’s World Championship at Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore, to lead by a shot from Lilia Vu, Linn Grant and Esther Henseleit and it turns out that Sorenstam’s 59 was Schmelzel’s inspiration.

She explained that her father Dennis, a golf nut, had hauled her out of school  to watch the last few holes of Annika’s history-making knock and she said, “That’s when I fell in love with the game.”

Schmelzel, who is ranked 107th in the world, has never led a tournament before, let alone one of this quality but seemed to be taking things calmly enough.  “There’s a first time for everything, I guess,” she said.  “It’s one round.  I think any of us can play really well on a given day but it’s an honour to play in this tournament.  You know when you qualify for it that it’s the best of the best in the world come to go play in one spot.  So it’s just an honour to play here.”

And one of the best things was that Annika was in Singapore too.

Happy St David’s Day everybody.