To say the blog is back by popular demand is stretching it a bit but a handful of people have said they’d like us to keep going, so here goes.

Maureen, who’s just had a much-needed break in Gran Canaria, is hanging fire for a little longer as she recovers her mojo and works out how to fit blogging in with blood-bike controlling.  I’ve always been in awe of her discipline and organisational skills and when I saw what being a controller entailed, I reeled away to lie down in the darkened room.  It’s always wise to recognise your limitations…

Many years ago, when I thought I was smart, I rather fancied being foreign secretary or a diplomat but the diplomatic corps didn’t want me (wise decision – a friend nearly passed out laughing at the thought;  “you’re the least diplomatic person I know,” she said) and I never trained on in the other regard.  Just as well, really.  You think the world is in a state now?…

Fortunately, my delusions of grandeur are long gone and I even thought long and hard about continuing with this weekly guff, some of it golfing – be patient, golfers – most of it random ramblings.  Truth is, even though I enjoyed all those non-thinking Thursdays, I enjoy chatting away to my friends more.  When you all stop reading and responding, we (Mo and I) will stop writing.

If you would, please keep an ear and an eye out for the dread phrase, “It is what it is.”  Aaaaagh.  My first hearing/sighting of the year was from Patrick Reed in Dubai, talking about his spat with Rory (no need for the McIlroy in this company, surely?).  If you’re not a devotee of twitter and the like, you may be baffled but because I was baffled and had no clue what everybody was wittering on about, I had a look and, lo, all was more or less revealed.

There was Patrick wandering over to Rory on the range, shaking hands with Harry Diamond, Rory’s caddy but being ignored by Rory, who was fiddling with his bag and didn’t look up.  Patrick took the hint and walked away but semi tossed a tee peg (LIV variety, apparently) in the vague direction of Rory, one of LIV’s sternest critics, who remained oblivious.  It was all grist to the preview mill, ahead of the Hero Dubai Desert Classic and led to enjoyably nonsensical items like “23 questions about the Rory-Reed feud, answered in 23 one-sentence responses”.  That’s from the supposedly respectable (am I so old that that just means ignoring the bollocks?) Golf Digest.  I suppose 24/7 online stuff makes fools of us all.

Anyway, it turns out that on Christmas Eve somebody had turned up on Rory’s doorstep (well, presumably there were a few gates to go through first) and issued him with a subpoena (roughly, more or less, ignoring the precise legal niceties, related to Reed and LIV versus the PGA Tour).  So Rory wasn’t inclined to say hail fellow, well met when Patrick ambled over in Dubai.  “If roles were reversed and I’d thrown that tee at him, I’d be expecting a lawsuit,” he said, perhaps not entirely flippantly.

The phrase “immature little child” popped up somewhere.  Which one would that be, do you think?  Why, Rory of course – according to Patrick. The blog couldn’t possibly comment – but only because one of its resolutions is to moderate its language…

Back in the real golfing world, down at the original, amateur level, it’s the centenary year of The Staffordshire Union of Golf Clubs (men) and the culmination of years of planning and hard work.  There are lots of competitions and celebrations in the diary and Andrew Dathan, a member of Whittington Heath who has been involved in Staffordshire golf for nearly 60 years, is the centenary president.  Many congratulations to him – and to the committee that worked so hard to organise everything in plenty of time, not an easy task.

However, the blog would like to pay tribute to and cheer and roar its approval of and admiration for the person who laboured long and hard to produce the centenary book, a woman no less.  Pippa Dathan, please stand up and take a well-deserved bow.

I know how tricky these centenary books are and my admiration knows no bounds.  The Staffordshire Union of Golf Clubs could not have found a better, more qualified chronicler, diligent, knowledgeable and steeped in the subject and its characters.  A dentist by profession, with a scientist’s attention to detail, Pippa was a decent golfer and having been married to Andrew for more than half a century, there’s not much she didn’t know about Staffordshire golf.  Now, after all her research, there’s nothing she doesn’t know!

Here’s to a memorable centenary and some good times in 2023 and to those of our family and friends who’ve had a shitty (no other word for it) start to the year, our hearts are with you.  Bonne chance and bon courage.

No drenchings on the golf course so far this week but it’s been murky and foggy and not particularly pleasant; time to root out the mittens and hand warmers and the hair-crushing bobble hats.  Fingers crossed for a bit of blue sky for today’s Friday Frolics Christmas Bash (Secret Santa included).

I thought I had it tough when I had to give 16 shots in a Round Robin match last week but Sue Spencer, one of our best golfers, an England international (senior division) and a sweet swinger, had to give an eye-watering 31 shots.  Claire Hicks, her opponent, hasn’t been playing long but is proving a quick learner, hits the ball miles and uses a distance device, not for show but because she already knows how far she hits each club, a skill that still eludes some of us.  Against Spenny she recorded her first gross eagle – a three on the par 5 2nd – and won 5 and 4.

Claire was a bit more wayward next time out and lost to the redoubtable Jenny Smale, who was only giving a shot a hole (!!) and  admitted that she played damned near her very best.  That’s one of the good things about the RR:  you have to play well to win a match; it keeps the best players on their mettle.

There was some sad news earlier in the week when the PGA announced that Sandy Jones, their former chief executive, had died at the age of 74.  Sandy, a Scot from Gartcosh, had a long and distinguished career in golf administration and was a fair player too.  He never looked back after finding his mother’s old clubs stashed in a cupboard at home.

Dai and I played quite a lot with him and his – and our – great pal Bob Cantin.  Every game they played was competitive and their long-running bet, with attendant bragging rights, lasted many years.  I know the inestimable Pat Ruddy says there’s no such thing as a bad golf course but we were playing a particularly ghastly desert creation in Arizona and Sandy summed it up succinctly as “a waste of a perfectly good desert”.  That still makes me smile.  Condolences to his wife Chris and family and friends.

In between watching World Cup matches and marvelling at some amazing results, not least Japan beating both Germany and Spain and England managing a draw with the United States, I flicked over to the golf and drooled over the pictures from the ISPS HANDA Australian Open.  The men and women are playing on Kingston Heath and Victoria, two of the glorious courses that are part of Melbourne’s famed sandbelt.

Cameron Smith, the Open champion, now a LIVer, who won his national PGA title in Queensland last week, is the star attraction but admitted that his golf was “pretty shitty”.  He had a 71, one over par, in tricky, blustery conditions, to be eight shots behind leader David Micheluzzi, a local who is starting to find his form after struggling with performance anxiety when he first turned professional.  If he’s still ahead of Smith come Sunday, he could well be holding up the trophy.

Admittedly, I’m paying more attention to the surroundings than the players, enjoying seeing proper golf courses that require a lot of imagination and variety in the shot-making.  It’s a positive joy after the dreary diet of smash and gouge that makes up so much of day-to-day televised golf.  And how lovely to see natural-looking bunkers instead of traps.  Blissful.  (And being thousands of miles away, in a different hemisphere, I’m in no danger of having to play out of them.)

The sublime, world-class courses are one of the reasons that there have been so many outstanding Australian golfers over the years, whatever the state of the track they started on.  There’s a lot of competition, of course and heroes to emulate, so the Aussies have always more than held their own on the fairways of the world.

Dai and I loved our trips to Australia and he used to say that if he’d discovered the place when he was 19 or 20, he’d have been an Australian.  Here he is at one of our favourite places, Historic Court Barns in Tanunda, in the heart of the Barossa wine country, not far from Adelaide.  He’s wearing shoes, so Elvis, the tame, wing-clipped galah, who preferred pecking at bare toes, has to make do with nipping fingers.

That pic reminds me that I’ve been neglecting my Australian friends, so I’ll root out the address book and make a real effort to send them all a Christmas card and thank them for all their kindness and hospitality over the years.

And thanks to everybody for reading Mo’s and my blogs throughout the year and encouraging us to keep going.  Now that we’ve hit December, we’re signing off for the year and hope to be back in 2023, fit and firing.  I’m off to wrap up my secret Santa and unwrap the Christmas decorations.

 

 

 

I wasn’t going to start with golf but I’ve played twice this week and only got drenched the once.  Even then we nearly made it – the serious rain started about four holes from home and didn’t become torrential until we were leaving the 16th and making the trek to our monstrous 17th.

I say monstrous because for those of us of moderate hitting ability, it is a long, long way, especially coming where it does.  The card says it’s a relatively modest 441 yards from the red tees, one yard shorter than the 18th, which is a completely different animal.  If it was the 5th, say, or the 9th, it wouldn’t have such a psychological effect, it wouldn’t seem so long or so daunting.  As the second last, uphill, into the lashing rain (no exaggeration, I’ve got the sodden gear to prove it) and a wind that even Dad would have conceded was a mite stronger than a zephyr and on the official Beaufort scale would register at least as a strong breeze (umbrellas used with difficulty, among other things)….In short, it’s a brute.

Several holes earlier my partner and I looked around and wondered where everybody was; it looked as though we were the only people left on the golf course, bar the fourball behind us; what was it that we didn’t know?  Was the foul weather forecast sending them heading for cover, taking no chances?  Were we bonkers to be still ploughing on, nipping and tucking, never more than one hole between us?  It would seem that the answer was “Yes”!

When I got home, I put comfort before economics and switched on the heating several hours early.  Then it was off to Specsavers to order some new glasses as a matter of urgency – rather belatedly admittedly.  The updated prescription was written in January but I stuck with the old specs until I had no choice.  And thereby hangs a tale.

My main pair disappeared a few weeks ago, presumed missing in the North Sea or buried deep on Warkworth beach, Northumberland way, so I was reduced to my reserve pair.  They were ok, if a bit flimsy but as it turned out a wonderfully effective camouflage colour – green and brown frames, impossible to spot, by me anyway.  The house has been turned upside down and still no sign of the buggers.  I’ve looked under the sofas, chairs, bed, in the hotpress, the fridge, every cupboard, the rubbish bag, every pocket of every jacket/coat, everywhere I can think of – and still no sign.

Of course, now that I’ve chosen and ordered my new specs, the old ones are bound to turn up.  Until then, I’m doing most things specless.  Not so long ago, in a fit of decluttering, I rounded up my old glasses and handed them over to charity, so, apart from a pair of reading glasses, that’s it.  Fortunately, my sun specs have an insert that allows me to drive without peering and at night I’m cadging lifts with friends who can see – or whose squinting is closer to 20-20 than mine.

Many years ago Gary Wolstenholme, much capped by England and GB and I, a man who has always marched to the beat of his own drum, talked about biorhythms, to the bafflement of most of his listeners.  If he played badly, it was often down to the old biorhythms being out of synch or out of kilter or, simply, out of rhythm.  Everybody has days – or, in my case, sometimes, weeks – of being a bit off for no apparent reason;  those times when you think that maybe you shouldn’t be allowed out on your own and I, shortsighted as ever but more open-minded, am beginning to think that Gary was onto something with his biorhythms…

The other night mine certainly went missing or were on a go slow or whatever they do when friends, having a rest from bridge, introduced me to Balderdash.  It’s a word game and we journalists, retired or not, are meant to have a way with words…Guess who finished dead last?  Well behind my four opponents, trailing all the way, bluffed from the first throw of the die (there’s only one) to the last.

The Scrabblers in the company thought they’d add new words to their armoury but of course, being the age we are (that’s our excuse), we could barely remember the words or their meaning a few goes later.  Did you know – none of us got this right not even the horsey person – that rataplan is the sound of a horse galloping?  Well, it’s a drumming sound, from the French, according to my trusty Chambers and it does have a classier ring to it than clippity clop.

Whatever – and this is not in my dictionary – we had an evening that was positively gelogenic.  That’s something that makes you laugh, apparently and there was no apparently about it – we roared from start to finish.

And, red wine notwithstanding, we stayed dry.

 

 

 

Growing up playing golf in Ireland, you got used to playing in the rain  because if you didn’t, you didn’t play.  Nowadays, I’m much more of a wimp and if it’s chucking it down and I don’t have to play, I don’t.  Mind you, I know my waterproofs still work, so do my shoes and so does my brolly.  It’s just that, without a caddy to do all the hard drying, golfing in a deluge is a bit of a faff, when you could do with extra hands.  For me, now, golf is to be enjoyed, not endured.  Coffee please!  And bridge.  Or Cluedo.  Or any indoor game you care to mention.

Not that I’m much of a hand at games – bridge is fun but frustrating; crib is still a bit of a mystery; and as for Cluedo – I didn’t realise you could move Miss Scarlett from the drawing room (or was it the conservatory) to stop someone else from revealing her as the murderer in the right room with the right weapon.

I suppose that’s what most of the LIV golfers have signed up to – more fun, less grind.  Golf lite.  Who am I to criticise them?  But, really, I have no desire to watch them – or write about them.  Plenty of other people know a lot more about it all and once again, I particularly recommend Eamon Lynch, of Golfweek/USA Today, who’s implacable in his opposition to the whole concept.

It’s the time of year when the game’s best (or a fair number of them anyway) are swinging in the sunshine, attempting to put the icing on the cake.  In Dubai, at the Jumeirah Golf Estates, Europe’s finest are fighting it out to be the continent’s No 1, still a worthy ambition.  Rory McIlroy, the world No 1, had an up-and-down first round of 71, one under par and found himself six shots behind US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick, who started with five birdies and the mercurial Tyrrell Hatton, who is a law onto himself.

Elsewhere, players are battling away to get a card somewhere or other and Alastair Tait (alastairtaitgolf.com) wrote about the trials and tribulations of those fighting it out at the European Tour Qualifying School at the Infinitum Club in Tarragona, Spain.  I’d been mulling over my own memories of Q-School and despite the wonderful stories at every turn, I hated it.  It was brutal, six rounds of hell – or heaven, at least for a while, if you made it through.

All I saw were friends (or lovely, long-standing, a lot-more-than acquaintances) standing in front of scoreboards watching their lives drain away….That’s a bit melodramatic and most of them survived well enough one way and another but that’s what it felt like at the time.  It was hideous and one year we were somewhere near Montpellier and the weather was grim and everywhere was shut, which didn’t help the mood of gloom and despondency.

I can’t remember the year and I can’t remember if that was the one that Retief Goosen won, a lad so shy and quiet that it was just as well that we at least knew his name and his nationality (South African) and what he’d scored because we learned very little else from him.  At least he went on to have a heck of a career (two US Open titles and a lot else besides) and is still starring on the Legends Tour in America.  Not every Q-School winner does so well but at least the card holders head out with hope in their hearts.  Good luck to them all.

Alastair wrote about experienced, battle-hardened veterans – Ryder Cup players – losing their nerve at Q-School, double bogeying the last to miss out on regaining their card.  At least they kept giving it a go; I didn’t even have the bottle to cover more than a couple of the marathons; I wimped out, snuffling into my hanky.

The football world cup starts in Qatar on Sunday, so that’s the end of my trips to N17 for a while.  Fortunately – very fortunately – Spurs ended on a high note with a 4-3 win at home to Leeds.  We were behind three times and at the end, the Leeds manager, a passionate American called Jesse Marsch, said he felt as though his heart had been ripped out of his chest.  I’m not surprised.  It was a bonkers game, a manager’s nightmare.  As the sainted Sir Alex once said, “Football, bloody hell.”

I travelled down from Lichfield with Essie, a Tottenham fan who grew up in the area, a lot closer to White Hart Lane than Portstewart is.  She’d been to the old White Hart Lane but this was her first visit to the swanky new stadium and she loved every minute of it.  Now we regulars want her to come to every game because she’s obviously a lucky mascot.  Even better, despite hordes of people pouring into London – and back out – for rugby, Remembrance events, football, theatre, whatever, the journey could scarcely have been smoother.  Thank you Essie for a wonderful day.