In case you missed it, Anna Nordqvist was announced this week as the European Solheim Cup captain for the 2026 match, which is to be held at Bernardus Golf in the Netherlands.  It must have been one of the easiest choices for any tour ever to make.

The tall, elegant Swede has been a Solheim Cup fixture since her rookie year as a professional in 2009.  Her first professional win was in that rookie year and amazingly it was an LPGA major title she scooped, the McDonald’s LPGA Championship.  That victory served to bring her sharply to the attention of the 2009 Solheim Cup captain Alison Nicholas who asked me did I know anything about Anna.  My reply was in the negative but Alison responded saying that that didn’t really matter as far as she was concerned.  Nordqvist was a winner and that was the calibre of player she wanted in her team.  Little did we realise she’d be a fixture on the team for the next decade and a half.

And so began an impressive career for the now 37-year old.  She has played nine times in the Solheim Cup, twice as a playing vice-captain, and she has three majors in the bag as well as nine other titles and a couple of Olympic appearances.  It is fitting on every level that she should lead the Europeans next year and, who knows, perhaps she’ll be a playing captain?  That would be a formidable task indeed but I’ve no doubt she’ll make the right decisions if that is even close to becoming a reality.

Oh yes, and if my life depended on it she is absolutely the player I would choose to hole a six-footer for me.  No question.

There are a few, interesting rumblings emanating from the women’s tours about a new outline for a global tour.   Matters appear to be spearheaded by Albane Valenzuela, the Swiss Solheim Cup player who met ten days ago with Liz Moore, the interim commissioner of the LPGA and Alex Armas, boss of the Ladies’ European Tour (LET), to put her case.  Interestingly though, the fathers of two of the players have taken it upon themselves to outline their plans in a letter to the Trump Organization – but try not to let that put you off completely from the outset before you hear the crux of the idea.

First of all, the two Dads in question are Albert, Albane’s father and Rick, father and caddy of Alexa Pano, who became an LPGA winner in 2023. They feel the twelve women’s tours currently recognised in the Rolex Rankings would be better served, financially and otherwise, if they united under one umbrella with a four-tier system.

As they explained in their letter:  “No longer would players have to choose between different tours; instead, they would be competing in one unified system, with global rankings determining eligibility for the biggest events.”

The top players in the world would be eligible to play in Tier A which would offer purses of $US10 million and these would include the five majors.  Next, in Tier B, would be the next-ranked players competing in tournaments with purses from US $3 – 5 million;  Tier C would have purses of around $1 million with Tier D (a developmental level) offering prize funds of roughly $500,000.

This is broadly following the blueprint of women’s tennis but it is early days indeed and it would take some convincing to persuade the hugely successful Korean and Japanese tours to give up their autonomy when the majority of their players LIKE playing near their homes.  I’m not sure they’d support a move to a global office.  In all likelihood the realisation of this sort of tour would need Saudi money to fund it, if not completely then certainly a large proportion of it, and this is still a contentious issue in many quarters.

It’s only now we are beginning to see the extent of the wider ripple effects of the LIV/PGA Tour split and it is not a huge surprise the women are becoming discontented watching on, as they are, from the sidelines, as the money for the men reaches astronomical heights while they remain very much in the halfpenny place by comparison.  With  still no reconciliation between the factions in men’s golf perhaps the two Dads judged this to be an appropriate time for the self-proclaimed dealmaker to be enticed into the fold.

It’s obvious which side of Donald Trump they are appealing to with these remarks in their letter:  “Beyond just creating a better product, this would be a legacy-defining move, one that cements The Trump Organization as the driving force behind the transformation of women’s professional golf. It would showcase your commitment not only to the sport, but also to championing women’s athletics on a global scale.

“The time for change is now.”

Will he bite?  Perhaps.  Trump ‘s eldest granddaughter, Kai, is a 17-year old high school student who will be playing college golf for the University of Miami next autumn after her expected summer graduation.  Kai is one of those student-athletes making quite a pile of money from NIL (name/image/likeness) deals having just signed a $1.2 million contract with Taylor Made – and that’s not her only income stream from NIL.  So, perhaps there’ll be a smidgeon of family interest that may encourage the president to spare five minutes from all his other endeavours.  We shall see.

The women’s tours may have a decent structure in mind but they are courting dangerous bedfellows.  Why not sit back and wait for the dust to settle as it eventually will?

Then they might just be a position to make sounder judgements.  Watch this space.

People who sneer at golf and say it isn’t a sport, isn’t even much of an exercise, are just plain wrong.  It might not be fast – in fact, these days it’s far too slow, with players forgetting (or never knowing) that it’s a moving game, that you can make decisions on the hoof, assessing the situation as you approach the ball and not wearing yourself out with endless practice swings.  And if you’re a recreational golfer, you can talk as you walk.

Even the most decrepit of four balls could cut at least 15 minutes off a round without too much of an effort – providing they avoid the bunkers, of course; ours at WHGC are taxing enough if you have two good knees, two hips in full working order, a back in tip-top condition and great glutes; perhaps you are that person but I can’t name even one.

I played my first 18 holes of the year last week and ran out of steam before the end – unluckily for my foursomes partner.  Yes, even playing just every other shot wore me out.  We were being given quite a few shots – 15 I think – and at least we made our younger, fitter, better opponents work hard and pay attention; they won 4 and 2.  We played the last two holes in desultory fashion, so that counts as a full round in my book.

Then, this week, on Tuesday, it was the four ball better ball over 18 holes – “got to get fit for the season” our brilliant, patient handicap/competitions guru said, over the cries of anguish of those of us grown used to 13 holes or fewer.  It was a decent day – no rain and quite a lot of sun – and at the beginning some of the golf was decent but as fatigue and lack of ability crept in, the swing deteriorated and the scores soared.

Early on the thought crossed my mind that at least we (well, I) wouldn’t be last this time out and it turned out I was right – we were last but one.  Does this mean I’ve found my level at last?  At least my step count is up there with my shot count…

Perhaps it’s the same for Spurs.  After all footballers do a lot of running and quite a bit of shooting.  I nipped (!) down/up to N17 for the Wednesday league game against the once mighty Manchester City and we lost 1-nil, though we did give it a good go in the second half and were probably a tad unlucky not to score.

Admittedly, the phenom that is Erling Haaland (big, blond Norwegian who wears swanky, mega-expensive silk pyjamas in his spare time) scored his second goal in the last minute to make it 2-nil but the referee (aided and abetted by the dreaded VAR – video assistant referee) decided that it was handball and disallowed the score.  The general consensus was that if anything it was a Spurs player, perhaps two, who’d handled the ball.  Wonder how City would have reacted if we’d scored with the next move, the last one of the game, instead of heading over the bar?!

On the route march to Tottenham Hale tube station, via the back doubles used by a fair number of fans to avoid the crush on Tottenham High Road, it was fun listening to people’s opinions of the game.  The first opinions overheard reckoned that Ange should stay and we weren’t that far off being rather good; the second lot thought the complete opposite:  Ange should go immediately and the team were devoid of ideas and pretty clueless; also it was a gross error to leave our best players on the bench until the second half.  Every fan’s a successful manager and I really enjoyed the walk.

At least the game kicked off at 1930, so I was able to make it to Euston in time for the 2230 back to Birmingham International.  It took two hours but the train down/up had taken just over an hour.  Admittedly, it stopped at only one station, Coventry.  On the way home, we stopped at four stations before International.  Still, in bed well before 0200 on a football night is a result.

I’d sold my spare season ticket on ticket exchange, so I asked the person next to me how much they’d paid for the seat.  She and her partner, who’d bought the ticket, are from Dublin and he, a Spurs fan, in London on business, had forked out £95, more than a little reluctantly, given the eye-watering sum.  I received £44.50 because it’s classified as a Category A fixture.  Some are B and some are C, which I think is a bit snotty/snobby because all the teams are in the Premier League but they’re not all treated the same.

This being Thursday and blog night, I had to find something to distract me from the task in hand, so I put on a couple of episodes of the new series of Sort Your Life Out and spotted a cleaning hack that I decided to try.  It involved fiddling with the kitchen sink plug to access gunk/gunge undisturbed for goodness knows how many years.  What was I thinking?  On the telly, it was a simple screw; in my sink it was a nut that required a lot of sustained work with a pair of pliers…

And, of course, taking something apart is a lot easier than putting it back together – unless you know what you’re doing, which I don’t.  There was quite a lot of unwanted water sloshing about but it wasn’t a disaster, darling, just a warning to the handless to avoid do-it-yourself of any sort.

Sometimes the wise thing is not to push the boundaries but to accept your limitations.