The “Activity Rings” on my fitness app aren’t registering too highly at the moment, most of my activity being of the thumb-exercising variety while changing channel from one sport to the other on the remote control.  And, of course, temperatures in the mid to high thirties aren’t conducive to much more than staying indoors, out of the heat, curtains drawn, fan on, with copious bottles of cold water in the fridge.  Curiously, G’nT hour IS active – creeping earlier and earlier from 6pm to something nearer 4.30pm.  Ah, well – summer’s here.

There’s always a feast of golf on at this time of year, from professional majors to elite amateur events to club championships to captains’ days the length and breadth of every country.  One happy chappie will be the, now double, US Open champ Wyndham Clark who triumphed last weekend at shiny Shinnecock.

Vilified for his behaviour at last year’s event at Oakmont where he vented his frustrations by murdering a century-old locker, Clark was most definitely not the fan favourite.  Cries of “get in the bunker” and the cheering of poor outcomes of some of his shots led to the eviction of several members of the gallery who made it clear that Scottie Scheffler was their guy.

Contrary to the widely-held belief that the fans were against him because of last year’s behaviour I suspect there are two other factors at play here.  The New York fans, for reasons best known to themselves, revel in and love the tag of being the toughest crowd in sport.  For them that seems to unilaterally open the door to boorish, loud-mouthed, off-putting behaviour that is inevitably fuelled by a huge alcoholic intake.  Their own mothers would disown them and it’s disgusting that we are moving towards acceptance of this in our sport.

It’s not a one-off either – remember the Ryder Cup?  And the mild-mannered Scheffler suffered some final round abuse last year at the Open at Portrush.  It broke my heart to hear that and I felt ashamed.

Who wants to be a favourite of those sort of fans?

The second item on my radar and one I think may prove a dangerous catalyst for increasingly unsporting behaviour is the proliferation of betting on golf.  Back to the US Open for a minute.  I’m sure many fans had money on Scottie to win and were therefore cheering him on and I also wonder how many had hefty wagers on him to complete the career grand slam?  This surely led to more anti-Clark behaviour.  The opportunity for a carefully timed shout or comment to alter the result in golf is massive and I fear an outside intervention, somewhere, sometime is inevitable.  If we don’t want that to happen we need to do something – perhaps the banning of the sale and consumption of alcohol would be a good start.

On this occasion, however, Wyndham Clark stood strong, like a sea wall, repelling all those who attempted to whittle away at his six-shot lead entering the final round.  In the end he won by a shot from Sam Burns and Scheffler slipped down to tied fourth, on level par, thus sparing us a load of syrupy commentary on the Texan completing the career grand slam on his 30th birthday and on Father’s Day to boot – as if Scottie is the only one in the world who has, or is, a Dad.  Moving on………

In the group a single shot behind Scheffler was Joaquin Niemann of Chile.

A good performance, you may say, but remember, this is the player who momentarily thought he was up in Braemar at the Highland Games and tossed his club a good fifty yards as he was making a horlicks of the 6th hole (his 15th of the day) in the first round.  Arriving on that tee level par for the championship he watched in dismay as his first two tee shots sailed out of bounds and his third came to rest in a tangle of stuff which prompted him to seek relief from a potential fire-ant nest.  This was declined and he hacked his wedge back on to the fairway having played six.

At this juncture darkness caused a suspension of play but not before Niemann had launched his club as far as he could, although he sensibly ensured there were no spectators in the vicinity.  He returned the following morning and finished the hole in three more shots pencilling in a nine.  And that, he thought, was that.

Not so fast.  That 9 turned into an 11 after he was informed he was being penalised two shots for violating the tournament’s code of conduct.  It all added up to an opening 78, fourteen shots adrift of first round leader and ultimate champion Clark.

My initial reaction to this yarn was that this was all a little harsh but on reflection, I think the players should indeed be held to a high standard of behaviour.  There are many more youngsters in the game today than there have ever been – thanks to monumental efforts from governing bodies, junior organisers at golf clubs and pros going in to schools and spreading the word.  We don’t want these boys and girls learning that this behaviour is all ok.

Niemann himself said,”I mean, it’s their decision, and I feel like, yeah, I wouldn’t be happy seeing players throwing clubs and behaving that way, so yeah, I mean, I agree.”

In the 2019 rules revision, committees were granted the authority to penalise players for unbecoming conduct.  This year, however, is the first time that the organisers of the four majors – the Augusta National Golf Club, the PGA of America, the USPGA and the R&A – have agreed upon implementing a code of conduct.  I applaud them but am uncertain as to how they will implement this in a fair and equable way.  Who will police the behaviour and issue the penalties?  Multiple referees may lead to multiple standards.

Niemann’s closing three rounds of 65/72/66 eclipsed anyone else’s and the Chilean says he has learned his lesson.  I suspect we are attempting to stuff the genie back into the bottle, however, as the professional tours will not be quick to follow the lead of the other organisations.  In my opinion this is a shame – especially when we are demanding better behaviour from those outside the ropes.

Golf continues to be in a tricky place.

Who can resist a black lab puppy with a mouthful of flowers?  An adorable image adorning one of my birthday cards, from the British Heart Foundation.  The bonus is that on the back there’s a QR code, which you can scan to teach yourself CPR in fifteen minutes apparently.  “All you need is your mobile and a cushion.”

The blurb also tells us that most cardiac arrests in the UK happen at home, so learning CPR – cardiopulmonary resuscitation – can be a lifesaver.

I had to double-check just exactly what the initials stood for – Canadian Pacific Railway, Central Policy Review were easily ruled out – and then resist the temptation to browse the dictionary.  “Crabbit” caught my eye because this heat is indeed inclining me towards irritable, if not downright bad-tempered, as well as hot, sweaty and devoid of ideas!

It could also be an age thing, given that I had a birthday in mid-week, sharing it with luminaries like Lionel Messi, footballer extraordinaire who’s now 39 and still lighting up the World Cup and Robert Reich, who has packed a lot into his 80 years.

I got a lot of great cards that made me laugh but it was probably the simplest one that made me laugh the most.

Another card gave me food for thought, almost literally and is bound to resonate with all the inveterate gadget collectors out there.  I’m a recent convert to the air fryer revolution but not yet a day-in-day-out user, so there’s a little niggling doubt at the back of my mind that it might not always have a place in the kitchen…

Just in case you can’t make out the caption, the kettle’s saying:  “He’s all smug now but believe me, this time next year he’ll be in the garage with the bread maker!”

I do rely heavily on my kettle and my toaster – which is kept neatly in a cupboard, allowing other stuff to clutter up my precious (and limited) worktop space – but what are the essentials these days.  The cocky kettle could be on its way to extinction, elbowed out by the Quooker tap that “does it all”, according to the ads.  Mind you, a friend has one and it scared the life out of me, so much so that my tea intake was vastly reduced as I did my best to avoid it; it was a joy to get home to my old-fashioned, much-loved, much-used kettle.

Most of my birthday was spent skulking inside with the curtains closed and a fan whirring, very effectively keeping the temperature feeling manageable on the UK’s hottest day ever.  Said fan was supplied by Maureen but she took it back home with her and that’s when I realised that it could become the latest household essential as we endured a succession of record-breaking “hottest days ever”.

The friend who sent me this, via WhatsApp, wondered if we’re now less resilient than we were fifty years ago but perhaps we’re just more clued up, less naive?  Or perhaps we’ve just mislaid our sense of perspective?  Answers on a postcard please.  Or a birthday card.

The highlight of the big day was not Scotland’s match against Brazil in Miami, where thousands of Scots, many of them in kilts (do they do a summer tartan?) braved heat and humidity unknown in their homeland; and you’re right, to rework the Flower of Scotland anthem, they’ve been sent homewards “tae think again” after a 3-nil defeat.

Apologies for the digression, extreme heat and old age (?) play havoc with the remaining brain cells.  Where was I?  Ah, yes, the highlight of my big day.

It was undoubtedly the party a friend hosted for a few of us, firing up her bespoke outdoor pizza oven in defiance of the sizzling temperatures that closed schools, shut down businesses and turned places into ghost towns.  She is, of course, Irish and undaunted by the irrational.  She managed the whole thing with her usual aplomb, helped by the fact that her seating area was in the shade at just the right time.  Thank goodness for trees  and many thanks to Liz, Imad, Sophy and Ronny (the dog) for being the perfect hosts.

For me it’s been far too hot for golf  but there are tales to tell:  Lottie Woad’s near miss at the Meijer LPGA Classic; County Louth’s Stuart Grehan winning the Amateur Championship at Hoylake; the Women’s Amateur at Muirfield for the first time; the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and its record purse at Hazeltine; the Club Championships at WHGC; the list goes on.

However, I’m going to finish with a first for me:  a sighting of a hedgehog in the wild.  Well, by my front door.  Very late on, after the party and the footy, I went out to get a breath of cool air and saw this dim lump, like a wee rock, a few feet from the step.  I wasn’t wearing my specs and it was quite dark, so I got a torch and confirmed my first thought:  it was a real, live hedgehog.

Before it could scuttle off, I scuttled inside and grabbed the phone to grab a snap.  Chuffed is not the word.