Royal Birkdale never disappoints;  the Open seldom disappoints.  When the two are joined together in a hot, dry, dusty embrace reminiscent of 1976 there is always the feeling that something special might happen.  After all, forty years ago this championship and this venue introduced us to the magical, mercurial skills of one Seve Ballesteros who went on to change the face and fortune of European golf in general and the Ryder Cup in particular.

Like millions of other fans I fell in love that week with Seve, never dreaming that Patricia and her late husband, Dai, would often cross paths with him, getting the opportunity to spend some time with the great man, particularly when he was playing in the Far East during the so-called “silly season” section of the year.

Now, I’m not naive enough to think that two Seves would come along in my lifetime but last week still provided interesting storylines, seemingly at every turn.  Unbelievably, three scores of 62 were returned which equalled the lowest round in men’s major championship history.

The first was on Friday morning by one of my picks for the title, Australian Lucas Herbert.  Herbert was eight under after twelve holes and with two par fives to come in the final five holes the possibility of a sub 60 score was raising its head.  He only managed one further birdie, however, which was cancelled out by a dropped shot at the last.

The ink was barely dry on that scorecard when Sam Burns arrived into the recorder’s office with the identical score, but a very different story.  After a pleasing, but slightly ho-hum, front nine of two under Burns did as his name suggests and lit the blue touchpaper.  A mesmerising six birdies, which included three on the bounce to finish, added up to an inward nine of 30 and he went on to finish third in a championship he had no intention of playing in.

Sam’s wife was expecting baby number two on the Tuesday of Open week but their daughter arrived early and the family dispatched him across the pond.  Sometimes, big, joyous, life distractions do free up a golfer and allow a performance to flow more easily.

The third of the trio of 62s came from our eventual champion, Kiwi Ryan Fox, on Saturday.  Eight shots behind the leader going out, his 62 vaulted him into the final pairing on Sunday alongside Sam Burns whom he was trailing by two.

At this juncture I’m putting in a plea to bring back the ten-shot rule for majors – in other words, if you’re within ten shots of the leader on Friday night you should be allowed to tee it up at the weekend.  At Birkdale 78 players made the cut on one over par and were within nine of the lead.  The ten-shot rule would have allowed nineteen extra players in on plus two.  Although rare, it IS still possible to win from the cut line and I don’t feel these players should be denied that opportunity when only half the championship has been completed.  Don’t forget, Paul Lawrie was ten behind with only one round to go when he became champion golfer of the year at Carnoustie in 1999.

I know it’s a faff for the organising committees but there’s plenty of daylight and this IS the Open.  The one-tee draw and seaside breezes often throw up diverse morning and afternoon weather conditions and, as Fox proved, it’s possible to make terrific inroads up the leaderboard and, even if the Claret Jug does remain tantalisingly out of reach, there is much gold to be banked.

The final day’s play was captivating in more ways than one.  To me, Scottie Scheffler is a marvel.  We saw him missing putt after putt, chance after chance, over the four days yet there he was at the end, frightening the living daylights out of any player looking at a leaderboard.  It’s testament to the quality of the rest of his game that, operating on barely three out of his four cylinders, he finished tied fourth, three behind.  It was a stout defence of his title and what a worthy world No 1 he is.

It’s confession time now that in the Madill household we were unashamedly screaming for the Kiwi over the last few holes.  In my humble opinion he caught two bad breaks at the 15th and 17th, finding sand off the tee each time.  It struck me that potentially Fox’s greatest quality during the week was acceptance.  There wasn’t an iota of wasted energy bemoaning his luck or railing against the golfing gods.  He simply set his mind to the task at hand and boy, did he get on with it!

At the start of the round I was having some nervous texting with performance coach and mental skills guru Karl Morris who has worked for many years with Ryan.  Karl is one of the nicest people in the game and I remember bumping in to him at Delamere a few years ago when he and Ryan were doing some work together there and he introduced me to the now Open Champion.  Very quickly, not surprisingly, on that final afternoon the texting stopped – apparently Karl had other things on his mind at that exact moment.

Four days later the texting resumed with the message, “Sorry for late reply.  Been a bit mental last few days.”  The photo below accompanied the text.

It’s lovely to be reminded that the good guys do win in this game.  Their whole team will be chuffed to bits, as we all are, and if ever there were living proof that there’s no need, or advantage, to playing at a ponderous pace it was on full display last Sunday.  Youngsters, take note.  And if you want to know how to build a mental skills game that will enable you to maximise your potential – check out Karl’s “The Mind Caddie”  – it’s full of little gems and an absolute must for every golfer.  It’s uncomplicated and to the point – just like his pupil.

Fox’s playing of the final hole, one that Sky’s Wayne Riley considers the “hardest hole on any Open rota course”, was text book.  He wasn’t going to die wondering and took it all on, under the severest pressure, sending his drive down a snaking brown ribbon of fairway.  A crisp 9-iron to a smidgeon inside twelve feet set up what every player dreams of – the “this for the Open” moment.

Twenty-two seconds after Sam Burns picked his ball out of the hole and acknowledged the galleries Fox dispatched his putt.  TV and radio crews the world over were caught out.  There was no time for a big build-up before Fox was raising his arms aloft with a smile as wide as the Atlantic.  The perfectly played hole at the perfect time.

Ryan Fox joins Sir Bob Charles, who won in 1963 at Lytham, as an Open Champion.  He also joins fellow Kiwis Michael Campbell and Lydia Ko as major winners.  It’s exalted company and thoroughly deserved.

Better than any dream he ever had as a kid.

Maureen always was more diligent and much better at prep than I was/am, which made her a very good golfer, an excellent coach, an outstanding broadcaster and speaker and an ultra reliable and readable blogger:  she never shirked the homework.  I confess that when I was working, I did my best to keep up to date and tried hard to know what was going on, more or less.  Nowadays?  Random in the extreme.

For instance, yesterday, for the first time, I logged on to livgolf.com.  How many years has LIV been going now?  More than four.  How much longer will it last?  Who knows?   But surely the name will have to change now that their events have gone to 72 holes instead of 54 (hence the LIV).  How do you pronounce LXXII?  A bit like being the progeny of Elon Musk – hasn’t he given his many offspring weird, unpronounceable  names or labels, beyond the understanding of us mere mortals?

Anyhow, I looked it up because the boogie boys are just up the road from me, at the JCB Golf and Country Club, near Uttoxeter and I was wondering how they were getting on.  To quote the website:  “NOW, IT BECOMES TRADITION.  LIV Golf returns to JCB for a third straight season in 2026, and it’s going to be another party in the countryside!  DJs on the green, boogies beneath the trees and a champion field of golfers, led by hometown heroes Majesticks Golf Club.  The secret’s out:  this is the UK’s newest summer festival, and everyone’s invited.”

Well, I confess it really doesn’t sound like this old fogey’s sort of thing and if I want a festival, there’s one going on no more than 100 metres from my house this weekend.  I left the desk to have a listen, then realised it was so quiet because the music doesn’t start until today (Friday)!  Time for a lie down with a cold compress methinks.

No doubt there’ll be plenty of people going to have a look at the course itself because it’s not usually available to the hot polloi.  There are no public green fees, play being restricted to corporate members, invited guests, top clients and select employees, according to the AI Overview that came up on Google when I entered “jcb golf and country club green fees”.  Another source of info said that employees can play on a Sunday afternoon for a reasonable fee but there’s no just pitching up to play a layout that has been described as “a tour-ready contemporary masterpiece in course design”.  (Think that was its own website’s description.)

The golf?  Well, an Aussie Ripper called Lucas Herbert had a 61 on day one, followed by Bryson “De Brat” DeChambeau, one of the Crushers, with a 64.  You’ll remember them both from last week’s Open at Birkdale, Herbert for his low-scoring heroics in the second round and DeC for his brattish antics on the same day.  Tyrrell Hatton and Harold Varner III were next on 66.  We still see Tyrrell round and about but Harold took the LIV dollars – for perfectly valid, family-related reasons, no bullshitting – and disappeared into a golfing void.

Some people still pour scorn on golfers but there’s no doubting that today’s pros, male and female, are proper athletes and they need to be, to perform at the highest level, day in, day out in all sorts of conditions.  As an unfit 70-something, playing two days in a row, as I’ve done this week, is more than enough for me.  Writing that down, reading it back, makes me realise how pathetic that sounds!  But golf is not just a good walk spoiled, it’s a good walk, good exercise, full stop.  Must do more of it.

For the first time ever, I played 18 holes at Lichfield Golf and Country Club, a course that is barely a ten-minute drive from the house.  It was opened in 1991 as Seedy Mill (it’s on Seedy Mill Lane) and my only memory is being there when the clubhouse was a tiny cabin of some sort and there were nine very muddy holes, so muddy that I don’t think we even played.  It was opened by Bernard Gallacher and I think he’d be delighted to see it now, busy and thriving and very playable.  Still Seedy Mill to us oldies, though.

There’s a lot going on in Scotland at the moment:  the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open started at a bright and breezy Dundonald Links that tested the world’s best, often to distraction.   Jenny Shin and Lauren Coughlin lead on 66 but world No 1 Nelly Korda had to work her footsies off for a level par 72, as did Leona Maguire; Lottie Woad, the defending champion, had a 74;  and Charley Hull slumped to a 78, including a brutal nine at the par 5 5th, where she putted off the green, then took a while to get back onto the green – the dreaded ball-rolling-back-to-feet scenario…

We’ve all been there, however high or low we are on the golfing scale, those are the vagaries that keep us connected to the very best.

At impossibly picturesque Gleneagles, on the King’s Course, deemed too short and skittish for the big boys these days, it’s the ISPS Handa Senior Open, defending champion the inimitable Padraig Harrington.  He started with a level par 70, seven shots adrift of Cameron Percy, of Australia, whose senior career has been steady if unspectacular.  It’s an event (championship) worth watching for the views – and the peerless Ernie Els and ageless Miguel Angel Jimenez are right up there, which can’t be bad.

Finally, don’t forget to do the Big Butterfly Count if you can or that the Commonwealth Games are on in Glasgow.  It’s an event on the brink of disintegration, in danger of being squeezed out by the Olympics, World and European Championships, how expensive it is to stage and so on but there are 74 countries involved and it deserves its place.  It may be expensive to cover, perhaps the ratings won’t be stellar but it should be broadcast by the BBC, it’s a public service on a global scale, important for the smaller sports and nations.

Now, where the heck do I watch it?