It’s been a different sort of week with a quick little trip back to the homeland, – not for golf-related things, but to attend the North West 200, one of the world’s great motorbike road races.  I haven’t been to the North West, as it is called, since my student days and the race course is slightly different from then but it’s as thrilling and bonkers as ever.  My better half was, of course, in seventh heaven, albeit a little cross with me that it has taken me twenty-plus years to organise this trip. All other jaunts were heavily weighted in the direction of golf, you see – and well, the dates never really suited.

Despite forecasts of rain the weather was predominantly sunny, but chillingly cold, rarely staggering up to double figures Centigrade.  With the bikes reaching speeds of up to 212mph there’s no earthly use positioning yourself on a straight bit of the circuit, so we sensibly tucked ourselves in at selected hairpins and got a first-class view.  Only then could you begin to appreciate the incredible skill level of the riders – and their fearlessness.  It’s a potent mix to witness.

I did manage to pop in to Portstewart golf club, my old stomping ground and found the members relieved and pleased that recent renovations to the two courses are coming to an end.  There’s still some work on the practice ground to be completed but it looks like it’s well on the way.  The 16th hole on the Strand course has been altered and the distinctive plateau that gave the hole its name is no more, therefore a request has gone out for suggestions for a new name.  I decided I’d put in my two pennies worth.

My suggestion for the new name is “Red Sails” as in the “Red Sails in the Sunset” song.

The well-known Irish lyricist Jimmy Kennedy was inspired by the sight of the yacht “Kitty of Coleraine” with her red sails out in the bay off Portstewart strand and penned the words to the famous song.  You can just see a portion of the bay in the poster to the left of the clubhouse.   The song has subsequently been covered by numerous well known artists including Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Fats Domino and Dean Martin.  You can see this bay as you play up towards the green.

So, that’s my modest submission but I did rather like the idea of another member – “Thank God, we’re almost finished.”  Possibly a tad too long and potentially tricky for the printing of the scorecards, I fear.  It’s a pity Patricia wasn’t with us – she has a great knack for coming up with just the right name or phrase on these occasions.

We got back home on Sunday just in time for me to settle down to see if the Alex Fitzpatrick fairy tale was set to continue.  He had a one stroke lead going into the final round of the Truist Championship at Quail Hollow in Charlotte but lots of contenders were snapping and snarling at his heels.

He fought hard but a late double bogey at the 17th ultimately put paid to his chances and he finished solo fourth, “settling” for a cheque of $960,000.  As he left the final green his Mum and Dad were there to congratulate him with sage advice – “Don’t forget to sign your card.”  Can’t imagine they’d have felt the need to say that to older brother, Matt.

The last twelve rounds of golf have yielded Alex a tad over $2.8 million and it’s fair to say his life has changed beyond recognition.  He now has a two-year exemption on the PGA tour, he’s eligible for the limited field, big money events and he’s teeing it up this week at Aronimink in the men’s second major, the PGA Championship.

The only time I’ve met Alex was when in the company of former Curtis Cup player Maureen Richmond (nee Walker).  The week before the 2023 Open Championship Mo and I had arranged to walk the course at Hoylake.  I was on commentating duty and Mo, a long-time member was kindly giving me the benefit of her extensive inside knowledge.

Alex and his caddy arrived on the first tee at exactly the same time as us and Mo and Alex soon renewed their acquaintance from the 2019 Walker Cup which had been held at the club to celebrate its 15oth year.  Mo had been lady captain and Alex was making the first of his two appearances for the GB&I Walker Cup team.  He was outgoing, friendly and charming and here he was, four years later, back at Hoylake to tee it up in his first major.  I’ll be watching him closely this week in this, his second major, as he rides this incredible streak of results – and I will be hoping he doesn’t wake up any time soon.

Kudos, too, to Kristoffer Reitan (picture at top), from Oslo who won the Truist Championship, a signature event, on his 15th start on the PGA tour.  Eighteen months ago he was on the HotelPlanner tour, the second tier of the DP World tour.  Now the world is his oyster as he follows in the footsteps of close friend Viktor Hovland in becoming the second Norwegian to win on the toughest tour in the world.

Like Fitzpatrick he will be making his debut this week in the PGA Championship and thus will complete the goal of teeing it up in all four majors.  He made his Masters debut last month and his first appearance at the Open was in 2025 but you’ve to go all the way back to 2018 when he was still an amateur to find his name on the start sheet for a US Open.  He qualified at Walton Heath and so became the first Norwegian to play in that championship – one of the few times he’s beaten Viktor to anything.

It’ll be interesting watching how these young Europeans fare this week, but don’t forget we’re on Grand Slam watch with Jordan Spieth who “only” needs this title to complete the set.

Oh, and, of course, there’s Rory, Xander, Scottie, Tommy, Cam, Rosey, Bobby Mac et al………….

Should be quite a watch.

A few days ago, I was pondering the state of the world, something even a would-be ostrich like me feels obliged to do from time to time, unutterably depressing as it often seems to be.  After all, there’s little joy or relief to be found in my golf – unable to break 100 on my last outing – or my football team – unable to scrape a win at home on their last outing and still deeply mired in the relegation swamp.

It is, as Sir Alex Ferguson once put it, accurately if inelegantly:  Squeaky Bum Time.

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine things being any worse but then I realise that I’m a bit of an ancient and can vaguely remember (or have I just read about it?) the Bay of Pigs; worries about nuclear obliteration (long-range ballistic missiles); the three-day week (sharing a bath every now and again); famines, famines everywhere.  If this is the worst of times, it’s also the best of times.  We’re lucky to be here, we just have to remind ourselves of that, whatever it looks like.

I haven’t mentioned football much recently, for obvious reasons  but I decided I’d have to plough on and go to the last two home matches.  The penultimate game was against the mighty whites aka Leeds United at the unsympathetic time of 2000 on Monday.  Ah, the joys of Monday Night Football – on the telly, not in person.  It’s a bugger to get home – and when the ref conjures up a mind-boggling thirteen minutes of added time, well that’s the 2300 train off the agenda.  Good thing I was booked on the 2330 on a cheap-as-chips advance single with senior railcard!

You can’t get back to Lichfield at that time, so I park the car at Birmingham International and get back home at just after 0200.  There are always other Spurs eejits/tragics/fans on the train.  The two guys near me were lucky enough to be getting off at Rugby, though when we reached Milton Keynes Central, the first stop, I heard one of them say to the other:  “I wish I lived in Milton Keynes.”

“No, you don’t,” said his mate.  “You just want to go to bed.”

And, of course, we were travelling home in a state of high uncertainty, if not anxiety.  The last relegation spot is between us and West Ham United, everybody else is safe.  It’s still in our hands – or feet – I think but only just.  Speculation is rife but futile – que sera sera.

My train down (up?) to London cost next to nothing but it called everywhere and was very slow, so I decided to take a book to help pass the time.  Ideally it had to be a slim volume and easy to read, not too demanding.  I ruled out Autocracy Inc. by Anne Applebaum, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, with the subtitle The Dictators Who Want To Run The World.  Hmm.  Slim, brilliant but too serious and close to home.

I settled for something a little older, just as brilliant but a different animal:  James Thurber’s My Life and Hard Times.  His  self-deprecating “Preface To A Life” concentrates on “writers of light pieces running from a thousand to two thousand words”….

“Your showpiece writer’s time is not…..Professor Einstein’s time.  It is his own personal time, circumscribed by the short boundaries of his pain and embarrassment, in which what happens to his digestion, the rear axle of his car, and the confused flow of his relationships with six or eight persons and two or three buildings is of greater importance than what goes on in the nation or in the universe.  He knows that the nation is not much good any more; he has read that the crust of the earth is shrinking alarmingly and that the universe is growing steadily colder [global warming now]…..

“He is aware that billions of dollars are stolen every year by bankers and politicians, and that thousands of people are out of work, but these conditions do not worry him a tenth as much as the conviction that he has wasted three months on a stupid psychoanalyst or the suspicion that a piece he has been working on for two long days was done much better and probably more quickly by Robert Benchley in 1924…”

Plus ça change.

We all have our priorities and one of mine is now to re-read every bit of Thurber I can get my hands on.  He was from Columbus, Ohio and one of my few claims to fame is that I introduced him to Jack Nicklaus, another famous son of Columbus…Well, more accurately, I introduced Jack to the work of James, filling in a gaping hole left by the school system in their home state…

I’m struggling near the bottom of the AGW PYP (Pick Your Pro) table but I have hopes of soaring up the rankings after this week’s PGA Championship at Aronimink. You get three choices in a major and I, praise be, have Scottie Scheffler, the defending champion, Patrick Reed and Harris English.  My sole ambition really is to have my pick actually playing in the event and that’s never a given because it’s hard to gauge in January who’s going to be playing where then, let alone later in the year.

I sympathise with the person who found that their choice for the tournament in Qatar was, in fact, playing in Phoenix, Arizona, that week, a mere 8,299 miles away.  That led to another colleague, renowned for his speed, accuracy and knowledge, admitting that he’d once told the world that Stephen Bennett was leading a tournament in Spain, only to take a phone call from him:  “I think you’ll find it’s Jeremy Bennett who’s leading.  I’m at home in Grimsby…”

Sometimes players are not where you want them to be and things aren’t quite how you want them to be.