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 were you want them to be and things aren’t quite how you want them to be.

 

 

 

Well, would you Adam and Eve it, they’ve only been and gone and done it.  It’s taken a couple of centuries – and then some, 272 years by my calculations – but the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, founded in 1754, has elected its first woman captain.  Wow.

Many congratulations to Claire Dowling, née Hourihane, on her appointment.  “It’s an extraordinary honour,” she said, “and the reaction has been insane.”

The wee girl from Dublin, who started at the John Jacobs driving range at Leopardstown under the watchful eye of her father Bill, has come a long way.  She had a distinguished playing career, then took to administration – handicapping, course rating, rules, amateur status – and became one of the first ripple of women members of the Royal and Ancient when the club finally entered the 21st century in 2015.

Claire, who’s 68, won the first of her five Irish titles in 1983, the last in 1991 and was British Strokeplay champion in 1986.  She played for Ireland in the home internationals from 1979 – 1992, in the European Team Championship from 1981 – 1991, represented GB and I in the Vagliano Trophy six times and in the Curtis Cup in 1984, 1986 (the famous victory at Prairie Dunes 40 years ago), 1988 and 1992.  She was captain at Ganton in 2000 and that is only a partial list of her achievements.

The blog wishes to claim a bit of reflected glory because Claire made her Ireland debut (full, for the big girls) at Harlech, Royal St David’s, in 1979 with Maureen as her foursomes partner and they started with three birdies, possibly even four.  A few years later, when the internationals were at Whittington Heath, I’m pretty sure I caddied for Claire when Ireland won.

Such traumatic experiences notwithstanding, the most nerve-wracking moment of her playing career undoubtedly lies ahead:    on the morning of Friday 25th September, on the 1st tee of the Old Course, at 0800 precisely, in front of a sizeable crowd, with a cannon firing and caddies waiting to pounce, she will drive in as captain.

Claire and her husband Peter, a retired district judge, became the first married couple to referee at the same Open Championship, at Royal St George’s in 2021.  They were long-time members of Copt Heath in Warwickshire and now live in Devon and play at East Devon, where Claire’s handicap index is 7.6 (at least she will understand the system…)  Her home club in Ireland is Woodbrook, where she’s an honorary life member.

Claire’s appointment might not mark the end of golf being regarded as a game for men only with women unwelcome interlopers but at a time when misogyny is still rife in far too many places where it shouldn’t be, it’s a bloody big crack in the glass ceiling.  Hooray for the R&A, sorry, Royal and Ancient.

 

 

Yesterday (7th of May) was the 15th anniversary of the death of the great Severiano (Seve) Ballesteros and his picture was on the 1st tee at Real Club de Golf El Prat when the Estrella Damm Catalunya Championship got under way.  Quite a few of the players were wearing navy trousers and white shirts, signature Seve, both in Spain and in America, where Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose were two of the Europeans paying their own tribute at the Truist Championship at Quail Hollow.

It’s impossible to exaggerate the Seve effect and probably impossible for those who never saw him in his pomp to appreciate it.  He was, quite simply, magical, incomparable, a joy.  Not perfect by any means but golf’s gift from the gods.

Down here, on planet whatever, my friends and I fear we are in danger of losing the plot.  The other morning, fully awake, or so I thought, I took my hot water bottle – it’s been chilly at night – to the bathroom (in truth it’s a titchy shower room, though the shower is not titchy) to empty it in to the basin…Instead I found myself emptying it in to the wastepaper basket (open weave)…Duh.

Next up, the gardening friend who sprayed her air-fryer-bound veggies with plant food – the bottle looked much the same as the  one containing the olive oil – found herself watering a houseplant that turned out to be artificial….In her defence, it looked so realistic that the rest of us were fooled too – and she’d bought it from the middle of a load of real plants.

The really worrying thing is that we’re still allowed out on our own…Beware.

Notice that there’s been no mention of the dreaded football so far, though I’ve put the Spurs relegation-celebration party on hold because we won 2-1 at Aston Villa last Sunday and looked like a football team with players who knew what they were supposed to be doing.  Long may it last.  It’s the mighty Leeds at our place on Monday night, yet another of those oh-so-sympathetic tee times…

Finally, to cheer me up, one of Mary McKenna’s great photos, a souvenir of her visit to Lichfield.

 

 

 

 

The good thing – one of the many – about having a sister who writes about golf and does the heavy lifting is that it leaves me free to meander any and every which way.

At the moment I’m re-arranging the shed, a classic blog-avoidance strategy.  It’s not a big shed and it doesn’t have an awful lot in it but it’s amazing what odds and sods emerge from dark, cobweb-strewn corners as the spiders scuttle off in alarm and annoyance.

There’s a table in there – it used to be very smart and sparkling  but over time it’s moved down in the world and is now a bit wet and grubby from its years as a dumping ground for pots and assorted garden junk; at least it’s still very useful and is being remembered for its heyday.

There’s also an old cupboard – minus its doors now – that was made by a friend’s husband and is still much treasured and serves as a wee memorial to him, even though he was a Liverpool fan…He made it to measure for a spot in our old house and it works very well as shelving for extra logs, the fermenting bokashi bin, garden hose, spare tiles and sundry other bits and pieces.  Thank you Mick.

I was interested to read that Justin Rose was putting a new set of clubs in to play at the Cadillac Championship at Doral, over the famed and once ferocious Blue Monster course.  It probably still is a fearsome test but it’s a while since the PGA Tour has been there and the venue’s official title is now Trump National Doral, being part of the Donald’s portfolio.

Many years ago I had one of my best-ever – and most expensive – pedicures at Doral and it was worth every cent.  Sadly, I hadn’t the nerve to put it on expenses.  It was there that I was watching Greg Norman, pretty well in his pomp, playing the last and overheard two old dolls, blue-rinsed, immaculately clad, with painted toenails to rival mine, being classically pass-remarkable:  “I’ve always liked Greg,” one of them said.  “He’s got such a great pair of buns.”

Well, golf never has been just about 5-irons to five feet…..

Thank goodness.

Back to Justin.  He’s now the main face (along with brand ambassadors Michelle Wie West and Ian Poulter) of McLaren Golf and has been very involved in the development of the clubs.  Precision engineering is a large part of McLaren’s game and Zak Brown, the CEO of McLaren Racing and Lando Norris, the reigning F1 world champion, are both golf nuts, so why not diversify?  As Jack Rix, of Top Gear, cracked:  all the company needs to do now is design a McLaren you can fit the clubs in….

It remains to be seen how well the experiment works and whether it gives Justin the extra edge he needs to win another major.  Even if it takes until next April to sort things out, everybody’ll be delighted:  orange and green co-existing happily, wonderful, a dream come true.

I remember, years ago (isn’t everything?), Ian Woosnam turned up at the Australian Open with a new set of clubs – Marumans I think – and couldn’t get on with them at all, for whatever reason.  Perhaps his involvement in the research and development had been minimal, who knows?  The clubs didn’t last the week because Woosie went in to the pro’s shop at Royal Sydney and bought a set of the clubs he used to play.  It didn’t remain a secret for long!

Did he win?  Did he even make the cut?  No idea, I can’t even remember the year, though Woosie was one of the best players in the world at the time.  A bit of diligent research might reveal all but it’s getting late and my reliable resources are limited; there’s no room for archives here and Wikipedia, useful though it is, has its limitations.  Chat bots?  Aaaagh.  Too dangerous for me.

Back at Doral, Justin started with a double bogey seven at the 1st, then had three birdies in four holes before another double bogey seven, at the 8th.  He finished with a 74, two over par but this is one of those so-called signature events and there’s no cut, so the new irons will continue to be properly tested in competition on a proper golf course.  Wonder if the timings will allow Justin to attend the Miami Grand Prix in person?  Presumably the golf won’t want to clash with the cars.

Talking of cars, well,  motorised vehicles anyway, Maureen, Mary McKenna and I took a couple of buggies to tour the humps and hollows of Whittington Heath last week – to see what they could remember of the course (the visitors, not the buggies).  They had a bit of trouble working things out because the HS2 railway works had them a little discombobulated (join the club) but it was a nice day and we enjoyed the ride – until there was a plaintive cry from Mo:  “I think I’m running out of juice…”

We decided on the shortest route back to the clubhouse but it was over rough terrain and Mo conked out some way from home.  Mary and I motored on to summon help and Jordan, a reassuringly large presence in the pro’s shop, came to the rescue.  He had some very promising results in the long-driving (strato) sphere until a dodgy knee intervened but he was just the man to help us in our hour of need.  Many thanks, Jordan.  Hope there were no ill effects.

The pictures tell the story.

Visitors, important visitors, are coming to stay with me in Lichfield this weekend, so, of course, as usual, the place is in disarray and I’m beginning to panic.  Earlier in the week, I was calm and relaxed enough to think that I had several days to get ready, even allowing for golf on Tuesday.  No sweat.  Now, with barely half a day left and a blog to do, there’s a hint of perspiration and more than a whiff of panic.

In a way, however, I’m exaggerating because my visitors won’t be arriving with a series of checklists and malice aforethought like the people on that horrible tv programme where they look under beds, slide fingers along picture frames and examine the loo forensically.  One is the sister, who’s used to the chaos and the other is honoured guest Mary McKenna, who’s a very relaxed host(ess) (don’t know the accepted form nowadays) and will I’m sure be happy enough if she can see a clear path to her bed and the bathroom.  Fingers crossed I can at least manage that.

At the time of writing the landing – a small space but mine own – is acting as a storage overflow, cluttered (there’s that word again) with stuff that’s waiting to be sorted and, possibly, dispensed with.  Let me put it this way:  when I have ceased to be, no one, absolutely no one will be keeping this stuff, so why, oh why am I?

On closer inspection, it’s probably another exaggeration to say that it’s all junk, of no worth whatsoever but what to do with it is the big conundrum.  That’s why it’s still hanging about being of no use in particular, waiting for me to make a decision.

There’s a photo of Dai with Jose Maria Olazabal talking to him just before his comeback from a crippling foot/back problem.  It’s signed but the message has faded and is barely visible:  “To my dear friend Day, with my best appreciation….”  At least I think that’s what it says but the signature is quite clear.

There’s also a frame with a couple of photos (no signatures) of Harry Vardon playing an exhibition game at Rhyl in 1908.  Vardon was six down after the first 18 holes but in the afternoon showed everybody why he ended up with six Open Championships and one US Open title, holing a monster putt to win on the 36th.  His opponent was Rhyl’s professional Ted Matthews, a Midlander who later spent many years at Walmley.

Ted, father of our great friend Harry, was an excellent player but told Dai’s father Rod, who wrote for the Birmingham Evening News, “I soon realised that I was going to be a club professional, not a tournament player.  I actually lost that match when Vardon holed a 15-yarder at the last but I virtually lost the match at the 1st in the afternoon.  I hit the ball so hard that I finished in the humps and hollows beyond the fairway.  Vardon won that hole and set out to beat me.”

And there’s a slightly tatty head cover from the US Open of 1986, at Shinnecock Hills, this year’s venue.  Raymond Floyd won, in the days of persimmon drivers with tiny heads.  Not only did the pros use them but so did we!!!  How on earth did we manage?

For a blast from the past, Floyd won by two shots from Lanny Wadkins and Chip Beck, with Lee Trevino and Hal Sutton a shot further back.  They were a shot ahead of Ben Crenshaw and Payne Stewart, one ahead of Jack Nicklaus, Bernhard Langer, Mark McCumber and Bob Tway.

Mention of Sutton reminds me that he remains my all-time favourite US Ryder Cup captain.  He was in charge at Oakland Hills in 2004 and was flamboyantly Texan – and completely outplayed by his opposite number, the cool calm and collected Bernhard Langer.  Europe won by 18 1/2 points to 9 1/2 and won every session bar one.  Blissful.  In my pile of “junk” I discovered a media bib signed by the European team.

Talking of the Ryder Cup, tickets go on sale in Ireland today (Friday).  A weekly general admission ticket (Tuesday to Sunday) is just shy of 2,000 Euro (1,999) and a match day ticket (Friday to Sunday) is 499.  Prices have been hiked substantially since Rome but as the people in charge pointed out that was four years ago and a lot has happened since then, with nothing getting any cheaper.

That explanation hasn’t stopped punters calling it greed and suggesting that ROI (Republic of Ireland) stands for Rip Off Ireland.  I suppose the main lesson is that if you want to go to a home Ryder Cup, it’s best to have a four-year savings plan because you’ll have to factor in travel and accommodation as well as tickets, meals and so on.  If you want to go to America?  Save harder.  And if you want to go to the football World Cup this summer, it sounds as though you have’ll to sell your worldly possessions.

On a happier note, a week or so ago Luke Donald and his wife Diane took the Ryder Cup to Limerick for an outing with local school children.  It was their first official visit to Adare Manor in the run-up to the big event next year.  Edoardo Molinari, the king of stats, the first vice captain to be named, also made the trip to inspect the golf course and some of the team spaces.  The defence begins.