I see Lexi Thompson got married last week.

Veteran of seven Solheim Cup matches the tall, striking American won eleven times on her home tour including one major, the 2014 Kraft Nabisco.  Renowned for her prodigious length, I remember seeing her reach the heart of the first green at Colorado Golf Club in two blows.  It was in a practice round for the Solheim Cup, her first, and the hole measured just over 600 yards.  Granted we were at altitude and the hole was very slightly downhill, but even so….  It was quite something to witness.

Her difficulties with the putter were also something to witness and in 2024 she announced she was ceasing playing full time on tour.  Lexi, who has been a professional since she was fifteen, is now thirty-one years of age and the game has given her lots in terms of fame, money and success.  It has also extracted a heavy price at times, with several enforced sabbaticals to work on her mental health.  There have also been occasional swirling rumours of inconsistent ball marking on the greens which have, at times, put her firmly in an unwanted spotlight.

She played part-time last year winning a tidy $750,000 and full playing rights for this year, which means she can pick and choose exactly where she wants to play.  No surprise, however, that we haven’t seen her yet in 2026 – she’s had her wedding to Max Provost to organise.

I don’t think we’ve lost Lexi completely from the fairways just yet.  Remember, this is a Solheim Cup year and she admits it’s still hovering on her radar.  Captain Angela Stanford made her feelings on the matter clear.

“I think if Lexi plays to her abilities, I would be crazy to leave her home.”

It’ll be fun to see if Lexi can make it eight Solheims in a row.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world from the Florida wedding Jon Rahm was making headlines of his own, chartering a private plane to take himself and several LIV colleagues from their homes in Dubai to Hong Kong for their next event.  The most nerve-wracking part of the trip was the 240-mile road trip to Oman where airspace had opened up to allow some flights to take off, Dubai airport being closed because of the ongoing threat of missile strikes.

Thankfully. all went well and the group arrived safely in Hong Kong, though with less than 24 hours to go until their tee times.  Not that that seemed to make any difference to Rahm who scooped the top individual prize of a cool $4 million.  Amazingly, that was his first individual success in eighteen months.

“Very relieving,” said Rahm, a two-time major winner. “That’s the only way I can describe it. I’ve been very ecstatic for wins in the past. This one just feels like a big weight off my shoulder. That’s all I can say.”

Even the best can wonder if they’ll win again, apparently.

Spaniards have brought much to our sport over the decades – grit, determination, magical mercurial short game skills, fierce competitiveness…….and stubborness.  All these qualities were wrapped up in our universal favourite, Seve, and they are present in Jon Rahm also.  He is refusing to agree to terms offered by the DP World tour which would lead to his acceptance back into the fold and, more importantly, assure his elegibility for next year’s Ryder Cup in Ireland.  It’s a matter of principle as far as the Spaniard is concerned and we do seem to be at an impasse.

Those of you long in the tooth like me will remember Seve having an ongoing row with the European tour over appearance money which resulted in his exclusion from the 1981 Ryder Cup team.  So, we have previous and it looks like history will repeat itself.  Looking on the bright side, however, Seve went on to become our most famous, ardent and committed Ryder Cup player of all time, so perhaps we haven’t seen the last of Jon.

I’m still out in the Canaries searching for the sun and reluctantly wearing a fleece far more often than I had bargained for but it’s been fun to follow the Six Nations rugby with all its twists and turns.  I had an ecstatic but slightly disbelieving hubby last week when Scotland put 50 points on the board against the French but diplomatic relations will no doubt be strained come next Saturday when Ireland and Scotland clash.  Whoever wins that, we’ll be united in hoping England can find a bit of form against the French in Paris.  Both sides will be smarting from last weekend’s defeats so we may well witness a dead cat bounce from one side or the other.

Sandwiched in between these two matches will be the Wales/Italy encounter with the Italians searching for an unprecedented third win in the series.  Wales may be tail-end Charlies but my favourite moment, by a mile, of the whole championship has been prop Rhys Carre’s wonderful 25 metre solo try, which he later described modestly as “a fluke.”

Finally, a piece of personal good news.  I received a letter this past week from the PGA which began as follows:-

“I am delighted to write and advise you that the Association’s Executive Committee on Tuesday, 03 March 2026, unanimously approved a proposal offered by your Regional Committee to accord you the status of Honorary Member of The Professional Golfers’ Association.”

To say I am surprised and delighted is an understatement but I’m incredibly humbled and grateful to all those who played such a big part in my career.  There are so many to whom I owe a great deal.

Thank you all so much.

 

Well!  No apologies for starting with the gift that keeps on giving:  the never-ending, ever-more-bizarre soap/rope-a-dope opera that is Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.  We are, as I may have mentioned before, beyond a shambles, providing vastly more entertainment off the field than on.

Admittedly, the people laughing the loudest are our deadly rivals Arsenal, on course to win the premier league title and, possibly, three cup competitions; West Ham, who loathe us and would love to see us relegated; Nottingham Forest – we seem to have replaced them, with their volatile Greek owner, as the top division’s top basket case; and Leeds United, who must fancy their chances of staying above us as we continue to self-destruct in spectacular style.

Style.  Ah, yes.  We pride ourselves on our style at Spurs but there’s no sign of that – or any class – at the moment.  We got rid of the unfortunate Thomas Frank and brought in Igor Tudor, a big, brooding Croat who was meant to be a quick fix, rescue merchant.  He’s been in charge for four matches, all lost and has managed to make things worse with a pall of gloom hanging all over the club.

Reasons to be cheerful?  None.  And it’s showing.

I’ll spare you all the gory goalie details from our last game, a 5-2 defeat in Madrid, against Atletico.  Suffice to say it made headlines across the world – and not in a good way, you couldn’t make it up.  If our young reserve goalkeeper, tipped for the top by some of the best but thrown in to the cauldron of the Metropolitano with barely any prep, then subbed after 17 minutes (and three goals conceded, two of them entirely his fault), recovers his equilibrium, he’ll have a long and distinguished career.  Goalies need a special resilience anyway  and if public humiliation early on in their career doesn’t give them the screaming abdabs, they’re made of the right stuff.

The teasing, nay, mockery (of the club, not the goalie who’s received a lot of sympathetic support) is relentless and some of it is very funny, particularly from the Spurs fans getting their retaliation in first.  There is one video of a guy in his car, at the start of next season, being asked by his friend where he’s off to.  “Lincoln,” sez he.

“Lovely.  Going on holiday?”

“No.”

“You’ll love Lincoln, it’s got a castle, a cathedral, it’s really mediaeval.  Beautiful.”

“I’m not going on holiday.”

“City break?”

“No, I’m going to a match.”

“Ah, Lincoln City.  One of those Cup matches, the FA Cup is it?”

“No.”

“One of those other Cups?”

“No.”

“Friendly?”

“No.  It’s a league game.”

“What!  Lincoln City are in the Premier League?”

“No.”

“Oh.  Ah……….”

There follows a long list of the places that Spurs will be going to, many of which they haven’t been to for years, nay, decades.  Then the friend, who’d pretended he wasn’t really up to speed with it all, delivered the killer line:-

“Well, at least you won’t have to take all those batterings from Arsenal and Chelsea….”

Ho. Ho.  Ho.

Igor, sadly robotic, is not spreading joy and if anything, has managed to put even more of a dampener on the proceedings.  He was brought in to get points, to save us from relegation and so far?  Nul points.  Even I could do a better job.  As somebody pointed out it’s not a coaching job, it’s a building confidence job, a generating a teensy weensy bit of optimism job, a smile here and there job.  And I’d do it for nothing.  There are still plenty of football people around to do any basic coaching.

Perhaps we could borrow Sarina Wiegman from the Lionesses until the end of the season – she’s a proper football person with tactical nous and, more important, she’s a people person too and seems to be human.  Then, to rebuild, perhaps we could tempt Robbie Keane from Ferencvaros or Kasper Hjulmand from Bayer Leverkusen.  Admittedly, he’s Danish and our last Dane didn’t fare so well but….

Hjulmand, known for being tactically astute, was in charge of Denmark at Euro 2020 when Christian Eriksen (not long left Spurs) had his cardiac arrest on the pitch and the boss handled the whole situation with great class and compassion.  His team reached the semi-finals, at Wembley, where they were narrowly beaten by England.

However, what really caught my eye when I looked him up was a quote from Simon Kjaer, the Denmark captain, who said to Hjulmand:  “You see the person before the football player and at the same time you’re insanely ambitious.”

Sounds like a formidable combination to me.

I don’t suppose he’d fancy a stint in the Championship, so we’d better try and scrape together a few points in our remaining nine league games.  We’re away at Anfield next, never a happy hunting ground for us and, alarmingly, we still have to play Forest and Leeds at home.  At our home and it’s alarming because we’ve been so appalling there that I think we season ticket holders should be given our money back.

The season ticket renewal email arrived on Wednesday and there was no mention of even a discount to compensate us for our suffering, though the price has been frozen and we were thanked for our “incredible support”.

The statement also included the following:  “We recognise the seriousness of the current league position of our men’s team and, following discussions with our Fan Advisory Board and the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust, can confirm the renewal window for 2026/27 will now remain open for an extended period until Sunday 7 June to ensure fans have full clarity on next season before renewing.”

Clarity?  A quality that seems to be distinctly lacking at the football club…

Oh well.  Apologies for all the footy folly.  COYS.