fWhen we were in North Carolina last month the locals were complaining bitterly about the weather.  More precisely, they were bemoaning a prolonged and unbearable heatwave which saw temperatures hit the mid-nineties day after day after day.  Normal temps are early 80s Fahrenheit for the second half of June.  Since our return to these shores we find the locals here are also complaining about the weather –  and just as bitterly.  Day after day of grey skies, relentless rain and very cool temperatures have left most of our friends and neighbours uncharacteristically downbeat.  One couple, who escaped to France in search of elusive sunshine, reported in an anguished WhatsApp, “It’s raining here too!”  followed, of course, by the relevant emoji.

It’s well, therefore, that we all have lots of sport on the box to keep us occupied and we can let ourselves be transported to a world away from the greyness outside our windows.  I’ve been following the European football, Wimbledon, the rugby from the southern hemisphere, the Tour de France, Formula One and various Olympic trials for various hopefuls.  Oh yes, and the golf.

It may surprise you that I don’t always feel like following the golf but oh, how I enjoyed Leona Maguire’s win at the Centurion Club in the Aramco Team Series presented by PIF-London last Sunday (see pic above).  She’s partial to a grandstand finish, isn’t she?  Holing from ten feet or so for an eagle on the last to snatch a one-shot victory over Maria Hernandez was reason enough to match the roar from the gallery with one of her own.  It was brave, it was gutsy and it was historic, because in rolling that putt home she became the first Irish player to win on the Ladies’ European Tour.

Away some 150 miles to the north-west of that final green I was also roaring with delight and happily exclaiming, “At last!”  Some 35 years after my last runner-up position on the tour a player from the Emerald Isle had ascended the top of the podium.  Happy, happy days.  Talented players from my home shores  – think Lillian Behan, Yvonne McQuillan, Debbie Hannah and Lynn McCool among others – had all done their best but we’d come up short.  No need to feel sorry for us – we had a grand time trying but with a bit of luck the floodgates will now open.

Well done to Leona – to be the first to do anything is pretty special and I look forward, sooner rather than later, I hope, to saluting her first major victory.  Why not start this week at The Amundi Evian Championship?  This is a course that does not require long-hitting, rather guile, patience and an exquisite short game – all qualities Leona has in abundance.  And if that doesn’t work out, there’s always a gold medal to target a couple of weeks later in Paris.

Here’s to more firsts.

A couple of important appointments were announced this week.  Martin Slumbers’ successor as CEO of the R&A is Mark Darbon, a veritable youngster of 45 years, which should lower the average age of the ruling body somewhat.  He’s a product of numerous different sporting worlds (the latest with Northampton Saints rugby) and recipient of universal approbation from the corporate sector.  We will no doubt become better acquainted with him as he gets closer to taking over towards the end of the year but he has declined interviews so far, seemingly wishing to remain, for now, in the background.

Bounding into the foreground, however, is Keegan Bradley who has just accepted the PGA of America’s invitation to captain the 2025 United States Ryder Cup team.  It’s taken a few months for Tiger Woods formally to decline the captaincy and Keegan has been given the nod.

I do not wish to be a purveyor of doom and gloom but I feel this may be something of a poisoned chalice for both Bradley and the European captain Luke Donald.  I have huge misgivings about the choice of venue for next year’s contest – namely Bethpage Black in New York.  I attended the 2019 PGA Championship at Bethpage (won by Brooks Koepka) and experiencing the New York crowd was quite an eye-opener.  I can’t say the loud, raucous, aggressive, challenging attitude of the fans was enjoyable.

Remember, that was an individual major – goodness knows what a Ryder Cup vibe will bring.  Having attended the last two home-based contests, in Paris and Rome, there is definitely an increasing lack of sportsmanship on the part of the fans and ugly, boorish behaviour is more prevalent.  One of my American colleagues asked me a couple of months back if I really would consider going to Bethpage Black.  My response?

“Not in a million years.”

I really do fear that the 2025 Ryder Cup may herald an all-time low for our sport – unless the powers-that-be take the sensible action of putting a time limit on alcohol sales.  More drastic action would be to ban alcohol altogether but the enticement to the organising bodies to fill their coffers will be too strong, I fear.

I shall watch from the safety of my living room and pray fervently that I’m wrong.

That’s all for another day, however, so we’ll turn our eyes to this week and the women’s fourth major in beautiful Evian and Rory McIlroy’s defence of his Scottish title at the equally, but differently, scenic Renaissance Club in North Berwick.  And after that, there’s nothing separating us from the big one at Troon – the Open.

Please, please may the weather play ball.

 

 

There really is no excuse for leaving it until after midnight to finish this blog because here in the Midlands of England it’s not a day for being out and doing – unless you’re testing waterproofs or wellies or installing water butts.  I don’t even have to go out and tend to my ailing plants because the weather is doing its best for me.

By some miracle or meteorological quirk it’s not raining at Lord’s, so I’ve got the cricket on the telly, wondering whether to switch to Wimbledon or the Tour de France or have a wee look at the golf in Scotland (not raining when I flicked in!).  Telly-watching works well with blog-writing, which is a stop-start, intermittent activity for me with lots of tea breaks, stretches and staring in to space.  It’s also fun to watch people who are really good at something doing it really well.

These days I try to be an equable, even-keeled sort of soul but try as I might little things still irritate me.  For instance, I thought I’d better  double check if there was an apostrophe in Lord’s – there is; hallelujah, they still exist here and there, though I’ve resolved to give them up, it’s less stressful in this day and age – and I thought the easiest way was to go to BBC Sport and check the app.  So I did.  And nearly screamed.

It really, really annoys me when you go to check a score, find it, even find out who’s playing who(m), then wonder where they’re playing…and it’s not there.  Why won’t you tell me where it is?  Why isn’t it automatically there?  Right at the top?  Not some sort of afterthought.  It doesn’t take up too much room to put in the venue and not everyone is so keen/well-informed/on it that they know where every match is on any given day/week.  Just include that detail as a sine qua non, something indispensable, vital, not to be excluded.  Please!!!

That’s part of the trouble with today’s (blimey! another apostrophe, though one with a different job) websites, they’re obsessed with wee videos and things that move and seem to have no interest in the basics like what? where? when? who? and how?  They are, in short, bloody annoying for those who just want to know the basics:  what was it? where was it? who was playing? who won? by how much?

It reminds me a bit of my treasured letter from Tom Clarke, sports editor of The Times (and earlier the Daily Mail) for many years.  I sent in a bit of an arty-farty piece from a pretty ordinary tournament in Portugal on a pretty dull day and the subs (probably rightly) chopped it to bits.  I complained and got a written reply from the sports ed which I still have, framed.  Dai said the sports editor was always right…

Whatever the indulgent demerits of my piece, I’m willing to bet that right at the beginning I said what it was, where it was, when it was and who was involved.  My word allowance was usually minimal – a very good discipline for a loquacious bod – but I worked hard not to be too boring or predictable and to make it as difficult as possible for the long-suffering sub-editors to cut out the good bits (well, what I fondly imagined were the good bits).  If this blog had a good sub, you’d have finished reading ages ago.  Perhaps you already have!

Last Saturday, at WHGC, it was ladies’ captain’s day (more apostrophes! didn’t somebody just declare them redundant or extinct or both?)  It’s men’s captain’s day this Saturday but I bet there’ll be a lot less pink in evidence.  The LC’s charity, which I’ve mentioned before, is Molly Ollys, a small charity that helps support children with life-threatening illnesses and their families.  Its main colour is a vibrant pink and their slogan is “Making The Dark Days Brighter”.  So we were all happy to be decked out in pink on a morning, miraculously, without rain.  Some poor souls did get soaked by a late downpour but we all survived more or less intact.

My partners and I played decently but weren’t anywhere near winning, though I cleaned up at the raffle, with such an embarrassingly large haul that I had to get a carrier bag from the car to take everything home.  Mo said I should play the lottery but those odds aren’t really in anybody’s favour.

After a card-free three weeks or so in America, it was back to bridge and the feeling that the time off had set me back quite a lot.  I’ve given up hoping that Maureen and Brian will take to the game but perhaps I should have taken one of my beginner’s bridge books and a pack of cards with me and spent a bit of time reading and revising…Although, in my defence, sometimes the cards don’t help, whatever your level.  Where’s Andrew Robson when you need him?