I’m still in the recovery position after last week’s tortuously exhilarating career-grand-slam-dunk of Rory McIlroy’s in winning the Masters.

I crawled to bed about 2.30 in the morning – I defy anyone to come down to a normal heartrate quickly with so much adrenalin rushing around through the ole system.  Rather to my surprise, and really before I was truly awake, I found myself in a challenging exercise class, some seven hours later, attempting to lift each of my legs over a pillar the size of the Eiffel Tower.  I hadn’t remembered the tower being so tall in previous classes, but neither was each leg weighed down by a couple of bottles of red wine.  It was not a pretty sight – and not a pleasant experience.

After that, it was on to pick up a friend and treat her to her 85th birthday lunch.  No, perhaps I’ve got that wrong – I was treating a friend to lunch to celebrate her 85th birthday.  There is a difference, I’m sure.

Next on the agenda was a trip to Delamere Forest golf club to help the ladies’ section prepare for the surfeit of matchplay they would be facing in the approaching season’s team matches.  I had promised the lady captain Maria that I’d endeavour to impart a few words of wisdom but when I arrived I had lost 90% of my voice and was only able to croak out a couple of  “pearls”.  Perhaps that’s why they seemed to enjoy it so much but something worked because the girls won their opening team match two days later with a bit to spare.

That was the Monday after THE Sunday.  Since then I’ve been lying relatively low, recovering both my voice and my sanity, and I have watched NOT A SINGLE SHOT OF GOLF the entire week.  It’s been bliss.

Apologies, therefore, and congratulations to Justin Thomas, who won at Hilton Head, bringing to an end his three-year absence from the winners’ circle.  The same goes for the Swedish rookie Ingrid Lindblad, who won in her third start as an LPGA member.  Garrick Higgo and Ashun Wu also had weeks they’ll never forget but this blogger doesn’t have the bandwidth at the moment to take all that on board – but well done, one and all.

By the time you read this I’ll be back in the wee north (of Ireland) for a few days visiting family and friends and for a wee golfing ceremony, more of which next week.  I’m looking forward to being back at Portstewart and Portrush again and having the sister with me means we can indulge ourselves with reminiscing over our early lives in this magical place where the golf courses, beaches and long summer holidays stand out in my memory.

This is the first year since lockdown that I’ve had the pleasure of a diary filled with trips.  Sure, I’ve had a couple of work commentary outings booked in over the last couple of seasons, but there was always a degree of angst lurking as to whether I’d be well enough to manage the travel and do a decent job.  Sometimes I was and sometimes I wasn’t.

It was my task to book our flights, which I did quite a while ago, along with lots of other travel I had coming up.  As expected, a reminder email thudded in the other morning telling me I could now check us in – just go to “manage my booking” and take it from there.  Sounds easy, should be easy, IS easy, but when following the instructions it became apparent I was the only one on the booking – no sign of Mrs Patricia Davies whatsover.

Too soon to panic, I enquired of Patricia had she booked her own flight.  To describe her response as “vague” would imbue her answer with a tad too much urgency.  Basically, she had no idea but said it had been my job.  Deep down I knew she was right and continued to search for any sign of her on the booking.  There was none.

Next a mad scramble to see if I could now get her seats on my flight but the clunky website wouldn’t let me book a return for some reason.  I had to book two singles and my session kept getting timed out.  By this time I was ready to hurl the laptop out of the window but passed it instead to my better half, who smoothly did what was asked of him and booked Patricia on to the same flights as me.

Phew!  Crisis averted.  Something, however, was niggling away in the recesses of my very small brain and I eventually delved back a few months through the finances to see what payments had been made – and there it was, two separate outgoings to the airline in question.  I HAD bought two tickets and now we had three, two apparently in Patricia’s name.  At this rate she’d be able to lie down both ways.

Then it came back to me as to why exactly we weren’t on the one booking.  We had decided to share a suitcase that would go in the hold and that meant we needed one ticket with that requirement and another that was essentially a ticket with no luggage at all and for some reason that I cannot now recall we couldn’t easily put that on one booking.

By this stage my hubby was urged to take over and hurriedly cancelled the flights we had just bought, all of course carrying a hefty penalty.

This whole debacle took up a morning and boy, does it put you in bad humour.  And then I remembered that special Sunday, and I remembered Rory………..and I smiled.  It didn’t matter.

And so, to Ireland.  I’m sure we’ll pick up a celebratory party or two back home – they’re still going on apparently.

 

In a highly unusual move, this bit of the blog is starting with golf.  It’s not golf that has anything at all to do with me – except in a roundabout family heritage sort of a way – but it was irresistible and many thanks to Brian Keogh’s indispensable Irish Golf Desk for providing the details and to Ben Brady of Inpho for the photos; can’t have been easy keeping the camera lenses fit for purpose, as you’ll see.

In this neck of the fairways we’re always interested in the West of Ireland Championship (sponsored these days by the Connolly Motor Group) because Dad grew up playing at Rosses Point – officially known as The County Sligo Golf Club and one of the world’s great courses (no bias here).  God’s Own Country it was called at home and the weather was always glorious, sun beaming down on Ben Bulben and never a cloud in sight and never a gale to make standing upright well-nigh impossible.  No mention of the home internationals there when the wee bit of a breeze nearly ripped the car door off its hinges…

Well, I had to laugh – and read on – when the report of this year’s final a few days ago started:  “Schoolboy Dylan Holmes overcame APOCALYPTIC [my captials] weather conditions and a spirited comeback from the battle-hardened Colm Campbell to become the youngest winner….since a 16-year old Rory McIlroy [whatever became of him!] in 2006.”

Dylan, tousle-haired but dry in the clubhouse with the precious trophy, is 18 and a member at Greystones GC and posted a series of firsts with his 2 and 1 victory over his seasoned Warrenpoint opponent:  it was his first men’s championship, so his first West and he became the first Greystones member to win the title.  “It’s incredible,” he said.  “I didn’t really have any expectations coming in this weekend.  I am just so happy.

“That was a brilliant match.  I was really nervous coming down the stretch there.  I am so happy it’s over.”

The youngster was 4 under par and 4 up after 11 before the weather deteriorated and “heavy rain and 50 kmph gusts lashed the finalists from the south-east for the final six holes of a memorable final that will only add to the lore of  ‘The West’.”  Campbell, a veteran of 37, fought back to set Greystones nerves jangling before succumbing on the 17th.

In years to come, they’ll all probably struggle to remember the rain – or perhaps their memories will remain sharper than mine.  Every morning of the Ryder Cup at the K Club, I got dressed and put on my waterproofs and didn’t take them off until we got back home at night;  but it’s not the rain that I remember, it’s the emotion and the excitement and then, oh yes, I think it was a wee bit wet…

Talking of rain, that brings to mind mud, mud, glorious mud and a wee item spotted in the easyJet Traveller mag on the flight over to Belfast – flying from Liverpool you’re just about up in the air long enough to flick through a few pages.  It was about an exhibition at the London Museum Docklands called Secrets of the Thames and it’s about mudlarking and the treasures unearthed at low tide over the centuries.  Wonder when they’ll find the original Henry Cotton Salver, flung into the river in a bin bag many moons ago…It was solid silver so will probably be melted down not put on display.

Anyway, the exhibition is on until March 2026, so there’s plenty of time to book ourselves in, though remember:  Time and Tide wait for no man – or woman.

The salver is undoubtedly lost for ever but another iconic piece of golfing silverware was on display at Portrush recently, reminding everybody that the Open Championship will be back in Antrim this July.  We can’t wait.

I haven’t been a devotee of previous iterations of Race Across The World, not sure why but had to tune in from the start this time around because Brian Mole, a member of Whittington Heath, is competing alongside his brother Melvyn against four other couples.  They started from the Great Wall of China, just north of Beijing and are heading for the southern tip of India, cash and maps (paper) in hand but no mobiles and no credit cards.  It’s quite an undertaking  – don’t know how people get chosen – and Brian and Mel weren’t last to reach the first checkpoint, despite deciding on an interesting, inland route that provided brilliant, never-to-be-repeated family snaps.  Brian admitted to being used to a 5-star lifestyle and Melvyn had opted for a wheeled suitcase instead of a rucksack but they got stuck in and ended up laughing like drains together.  Fantastic. I’m now addicted.  It’s on BBC1 and iPlayer.

Finally, I can’t resist using this fantastic photograph by Michael Dunn, who was a finalist in the sports’ section of a recent comp.  It was liberated from the Sunday Times mag by a friend and is just brilliant.  The caption reads:  “Martha and Teresa, maintenance workers at La Paz Golf Club in Bolivia, spend their Mondays off in traditional ‘chola’ clothing and get a round in at one of the world’s highest golf courses.”