The Sunningdale Foursomes is* upon us once again – I swear they play it twice a year now, but perhaps that’s just old age and anno domini talking.

First played in 1934 the tournament missed eight years because of the Second World War (1940 – 1947 inclusive) and over the ensuing decades three tournaments were cancelled, or not completed, because of snow or other adverse weather conditions.  And we mustn’t forget that the 2021 edition was a casualty of Covid, the previous year’s competition having squeaked over the line a matter of days before lockdown was enforced.  That’s a pretty decent run over the last 91 years and next Tuesday 128 intrepid pairs set off on their quest to add this illustrious title to their CVs.

To my knowledge this is the only foursomes tournament in the world where men and women and pros and amateurs can tee it up in whatever combination they like and play off the same tees with certain handicap allocations for each category of player.  Men pros play off +1, women pros off 2, with the men amateurs off scratch and the women off three handicap.

As usual there are some eye-catching players on show and this year the Solheim Cup partnership of Georgia Hall and Charley Hull must be near the top of the favourites list.  There won’t be a single hole on the Old Course they can’t reach with a maximum of two blows and I feel that may also well be the case on the more difficult New Course.  They should both be sharper than most at this time of year having already started their 2025 campaigns out in America and the fact that they are very close friends should help in this most testing of formats.

Martin Slumbers, recently retired CEO of the Royal & Ancient, is obviously putting his new-found spare time to good use by working on his game and he and Catriona Matthew, winning Curtis Cup captain at Sunningdale as recently as last August, should prove to be a formidable partnership.  They will, however, be contending with many young guns – some of them sons of very famous fathers indeed.

Jonathan Rafferty, son of Ronan, and Daniel Torrance, son of Sam, are teaming up together.  I wonder if they’ll labour in the shadow of the knowledge of what their dads have achieved in the game and the fact they both are past winners of this venerable championship?  But then, I suppose, they’ve known nothing else all their lives.  It can’t make it any easier though.  Tony Jacklin’s son, Warren, is also playing as is Paul McGinley’s son, Michael.  Same surnames in the draw as when I played with the one and only Mary McKenna, just different first names and the realisation that we’re on to the next generation and time waits for no man or woman.

If I lived closer to Sunningdale, I’d certainly be nipping along to watch.

All through my golfing career I’ve had weird and wonderful dreams.  It was the bane of Mary McKenna, my oft-travelling companion, as I would subject her to every peculiar detail the minute she opened her eyes in the morning and before the dreams slipped from me into the mists of time.  One such recurring golf dream involved my eyesight.  A long-time contact lens wearer, I would dream that I was on the first tee playing in something important – it was always something important – and huge galleries would be lining the fairways.  The trouble was that when I addressed the ball I was struggling to see it clearly and would constantly blink trying to bring the ball into sharp focus.  No one watching seemed to notice my difficulty and the more I blinked, the longer I took and I would be aware of the galleries becoming increasingly restless.  “Why doesn’t she get a move on and HIT it?”  I usually woke up before I ever did make contact.

Well, the answer, via Jenny Lee Smith, founder member of the LET and inaugural winner of the Women’s British Open, seems to have arrived, but alas, sod’s law, a little too late for my own golf.  At our latest LET reunion a few weeks ago Jenny was waxing lyrical about Jondo Sport sunglasses.  In her view they’re a cut above every other sports eyewear on the market thanks to the clarity, colour perception, lightness of weight and all sorts of other good things.

She loved the difference they made at the business end of the game – i.e. around the green:  “On the course, depth perception is vital as you can imagine – especially in putting where the golfer looks at the hole, then looks down at the ball, sometimes several times.”

She swears by these glasses, which makes it good enough for me to be comfortable passing this info onto you all.  I am unbiased and in no way connected with Jondo but I’m always on the look out to help my golfing mates.  So, if you have a moment, and you fancy it, check out https://jondosport.co.uk/

Could make all the difference if you’re just emerging onto the course again, blinking into the spring sunlight after your winter hibernation.

 

Come to think of it, I think these glasses would be a great present for the sister.  Surely the enhanced depth perception would avoid the following, which happened when she was visiting earlier this week?

Sunshine, shadow, lack of concentration and she parked (not so neatly) on my carefully tended heather rockery.  Wheel spinning meant she was completely stuck – until Brian and his motorbiking mates returned from a ride and provided the much-needed muscle power.

At least I now have a good idea what I’ll get her for her birthday!!

 

*Is it ‘is’ or is it ‘are’?  No idea. [Ed]  And I’d like a chauffeur for my birthday please.

We tend to think of ourselves as so advanced, light years ahead of all other generations, especially with all that technology rushing us towards goodness what conclusions.  Making the world a better place?  Who knows?  I haven’t yet stocked up on the Doomsday Beans but the day might not be far off.  And I’m checking to see if Bear Grylls has any spare spots coming up in his survival courses.

Why?

Well, there’s all this talk of ramping up the defence spending and when I look at the destruction in Ukraine, Gaza and far too many other places (not all of it because of wars), I realise that I’m a soft-centred wimp, thrown in to a paddy if the water is turned off for a morning or there’s a brief power cut.  Is there anybody less equipped to survive a bit of hardship?

I do remember not having central heating growing up and ice on the inside of the windows but that was a long, long time ago.  And we didn’t know what a wetsuit was when we cavorted in the sea (the chilly Atlantic) at Portstewart, where hardy rellies (relations) still bathe all year round.  Those days are long gone for me, much though I hate to admit it.  This is a woman who uses two duvets, even though the temperatures in the Midlands have soared in to double digits.

Refugee material?  I think not.  Though perhaps I’d be tougher on the inside than on the outside.  Who knows?

Our parents knew what rationing was – though I’m not sure if Northern Ireland was under the same rules as the mainland (nothing much changes there) and there was always that porous border to smuggle things across.  We had a very good friend who lived a long and mostly legal life but paid no attention whatsoever to customs rules, treated them with such disdain that I don’t think she even knew they existed.  Growing up not too far from a largely random border – as so many are – she favoured the pragmatic approach and simply ignored all governmental edicts.

That’s probably not too much of a problem for those of us at the bottom of the pecking order but it’s a recipe for chaos when it’s the attitude of those at the top.  Not least because nobody has a clue where they are.  Isn’t it a Chinese curse:  May you live in interesting times?

Ah well.  Perhaps it’s time to explain the Doomsday Beans.  It was at the height of the Cold War (look it up kids) and we were fully expecting some eejit to press the button and launch a nuclear war (nowadays we’re foolish enough to think that all bombs are smart and forget about fallout).  So an aunt and uncle who’d been through WWII (1939-1945) stocked up with a cupboard of baked beans – Heinz of course – in case the worst came to the worst.  We joked about those beans and not many of them were ever eaten.

Just as well really because Mo would have been in real trouble.  She HATES baked beans.

Is this a bit of a depressing blog?  Apologies if so but Spurs lost away in Holland and the BBC Sport report called them “flat”.  Flat?  How on earth can you be flat when you haven’t played for a week and are still going in the only competition you have any chance of winning, the cup that could save your season?  You’ve got to bust a gut, surely?

Next Thursday I’ll be trekking down/up to N17 for the second leg and if my Totspurs are flat that night, there’ll be hell to pay…They’d better be quaking in their boots and run their socks off.

It was draw night at our golf club last night (the blog was put on pause) and one lucky man, a regular attender, won £500 – you have to be in the room to win.  There weren’t too many there and numbers have been down for a while, so the draw is being put on hold for a few months.  What to do to make the joint jump again?

It’s a conundrum that is nothing new.  Looking for the answer to something else, I started perusing a volume called The Essential Henry Longhurst.  Fatal.  So compelling.  So readable.  So irresistible.  So timeless.

I was looking for something about foursomes (you’ll find out why in due course if you read Mo’s blog – or you’ll already know if you’ve read that first) and found a piece entitled “Utilize the Plant”.  It talks about how Sunningdale, “nearly on the rocks…empty throughout the week”  and not much better at weekends, worked hard to turn things around and prosper.

“It is like the parable,” Henry wrote.  “If necessary, go out in the highways and byways, but bring them in somehow.  Keep the staff occupied.  Keep the bar going.  Keep the kitchen going…

“None of this comes the easy way.  It does not just happen.  It means that even so eminent a club as Sunningdale has to realise that there is no reason for people to go there, or be a member there, if they don’t want to.  It is a buyer’s market and you have to ‘sell’ a golf club these days.  By very hard work on the part of a small number of people Sunningdale was turned from near ruin to great prosperity.

“At nearly every other club which is ‘doing well’ you will find the answer to be the same.  They utilise the plant.”

Date of that piece?  9th December 1954.  It’s nearly as old as I am and just as timeless.