Most golfers don’t have a clue about the rules; they probably know that there are some but that’ll be about it.  I think I know the basics but don’t question me too closely these days, now that we’ve had yet another update and are meant to look things up on an app.  I suppose the booklets we used to get every few years were expensive to produce en masse (who remembers the sponsors?) and paper is passe (still haven’t sussed the acute accent, so what hope have I of differentiating areas, penalty or otherwise, on the course…?)

If most of us were to take the R and A rules exams, well – we wouldn’t.  They’re a lot of work, requiring reading, revision, remembering and knowing where to look when remembering isn’t enough.  Then there’s moving up the ranks from the smaller events, amateur, junior, all those things that require organising and officiating, even if the competitors scarcely notice.

All the big amateur events, local, regional, national, international, need rules officials and so do the professional circuits, big and small.  As the events get bigger, so does the pressure but if you were a rules official at The Open, for instance, or the Ryder Cup or any big event, if you felt yourself floundering, intimidated by the player, flummoxed by the complexity of the situation, overwhelmed by the occasion and the television cameras, you knew you could relax, breathe, reactivate the brain cell, because there was no need to panic.  You were not alone.

Whenever John Paramor, who has died, far too early, at the age of 67,  was on hand, all was well.  You knew you were backed up by the best, the undisputed world No 1, a giant of the game in every sense.

At least one regular reader of this blog (many thanks for your support) will not have a clue who John was and will have missed the marking of his retirement a couple of years ago.  Sadly, the dreaded cancer buggered up the rest of his life and he and his family and friends had known for some time that he was not going to do.  I sent him a WhatsApp message on St Patrick’s Day a year ago and he, ever the gentleman, replied the next day.

“….Thank you very much for your message…Hope both you and Maureen are well….I am not quite at my best and sadly will not be improving that much in the foreseeable future either but it’s lucky as I have probably lived two lifetimes in one!…Take care and hopefully will get a chance to see you one of these days…JP.”

That was not to be and Mo and I send our condolences to his family and  his many other friends worldwide.  JP was that rare being:  a person respected for his knowledge and expertise but above all loved for his kindness and generosity of spirit, as Alistair Tait put it in his lovely tribute on alistairtaitgolf.com.

Looking back, it’s ridiculous how kind the greatest rules guru of his day was to a plonker who needed clarification and happened to have his contact details.

I remember losing my ball marker, a pale green plastic thing that should never have been allowed to reach any golfer’s pocket, on a green in bright sunshine (it was, amazingly enough, in the UK);  you had five minutes to look for your ball in those days, so I suppose a lost marker was the equivalent of a lost ball and it took a heckuva long time to pace up and down the green looking for the suddenly invisible marker….”It was about here…..it must be here somewhere….what happens if we don’t find it?….”

I remember Woosie at a World Cup picking up his ball and forgetting to put his marker down because he was desperate to get to the loo…but losing the marker altogether?…

I contacted John later to ask what the correct procedure was and have now completely forgotten what he told me!  But the very fact that he answered my query tells you all you need to know about the man.  He was a marvel.

He spent a large part of his life on the perennial problem of pace of play and when the US Open was at Shinnecock Hills in 2018, I sent him an email entitled “Shot Clock” that included the question:  “Is it my imagination or was Jacquelin once one of your slowcoaches?”  Heaven knows what I’d witnessed on the telly but sometimes even this blog needs to know the facts.  This is the bulk of JP’s answer, on the eve of a major championship:-

“Good to hear from you.  Currently on Long Island and enjoying being back at the iconic venue of Shinnecock.  It is in great shape and hopefully should provide a great championship.  We are staying some 20 miles away and it took us 35 minutes to get to the course (25 back) by car leaving at 9.00 am.  [Traffic congestion and access to the course were major issues.]  So I don’t know where all the traffic went but am glad they were clearly somewhere else!  The only hold ups were a roundabout with road works and where police were trying to cone off the road….and with a potential departure time from the hotel at 5.00 am each day, I am hoping we don’t have any problems….famous last words.  Saw Maureen yesterday touring around in a buggy.

“Rafael [Jacquelin] might have been on the average side (not particularly slow) of speed but I think he has improved as most others have gone the other way….

“Brilliant last week with players being ready to play when it was their turn to play.  Hallelujah!  Exactly what I have been asking for every year when I send them out a timing procedure report.

“Enjoy viewing and hope to see you at Carnoustie.

“Best regards.

“JP.”

No wonder we all loved him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As acronyms go, it would be hard to find a worse one.  Surely, surely, we must be able to find a decent replacement for the, frankly, bloody awful GOAT:  Greatest Of All Time.  Come on, I don’t think so; it’s the last thing I’d want to be called in the unlikely event that I was mentioned in any such elevated conversation.  Even if it was only in the context of procrastinators from Portstewart, I would balk/baulk at being labelled a goat.

Here’s the definition of goat from my trusty Chambers:  “a horned ruminant animal (genus Capra) of Europe, Asia and N Africa, related to the sheep; (with cap and the) Capricorn; a lecher (fig); a foolish person (inf); (in pl) the wicked (Bible)…”  So far, so bad.

It gets worse if you look at goatish, adjective:  “resembling a goat, esp in smell; lustful; foolish.”  Oops.

Now, I don’t mind goats, they have a lot to commend them despite the rather disparaging dictionary descriptions and I’m delighted to sing the praises of Chuckling Goat, the wonderful company in Llandysul, deepest Wales (a little north of Carmarthen, a little west of Lampeter) that supplies the gut-enhancing kefir that I glug religiously every morning.  There’s no doubt that goats have their place but it is NOT at the top of any tree, sporting or otherwise.

This “greatest of all time” stuff has always got my goat and been filed under CRAP:  completely rubbish and pathetic.  Sadly, it hasn’t gone away, so I suppose we’ll just have to come up with something better.  For instance, dragons are much more dramatic and dynamic than goats but there’s nothing snappy about “Did Really Amazing Great Outstanding Notable Stuff”.  Thinking caps on, please.

This musing/moaning has mostly come about because Tiger Woods, the god of golf, has ventured back onto the fairways this week at the Genesis Invitational (he’s also the tournament host) at The Riviera Country Club at Pacific Palisades in California.  There’s no doubt that Woods, who is revered by many of his peers (though none of them has won as many tournaments and only Jack Nicklaus has won more majors, so perhaps that makes them “fellow professionals”) is one of the best of all time but surely even he, goatish aberrations notwithstanding, deserves better than the “G” word?

Hey ho, that’s the aged BOF (Boring Old Fart) stuff out of the way for today.

Eleven years ago, on Valentine’s Day, Sue Turner (nee Jump), one of the world’s great people, golfing or otherwise, died at the age of 50.  She’s the reason for the dragon at the top of the piece (technical glitches permitting) because she was a proud Welsh woman whose passion for the game knew few bounds.  She learned the game at Bull Bay on Anglesey and ended up at Whittington Heath/Barracks in Staffordshire.  Sue went beyond golf though and those of us who knew her remember the vibrant person who transcended whatever sport it was she played and brightened up our lives – even now, years later – whenever we think of her.   That’s being a DRAGON – I wouldn’t insult her memory by calling her a goat.

The picture above was taken at a European Team Championship (junior, in Switzerland, Mo thinks, when she was Wales coach and Sue the captain).  Chatting to me, it all came flooding back.  Wales qualified eighth, so made it into the top flight (just).  That meant they played Spain, the top qualifiers, in the first round of matchplay.  Now, at the time, Wales were not in the same league as Spain but the teams got on well, not least because Marta Dotti, their coach and Mo were good pals, having played together as amateurs and professionals.

At the bar, the night before their match with Spain, who were ridiculously short-odds favourites, Sue said to Marta, “You can buy us a drink tomorrow night when we’ve beaten you.”  Everybody laughed because there was only one possible outcome.

The next day, because Spain were the leading qualifiers, they were out first (two foursomes in the morning) and Mo and Sue T reminded their players that the Spaniards, not by nurture early morning bods, didn’t like getting up too early and could be ambushed before they woke up.  Well, it worked and Wales won both of the morning matches.  Even more impressively, they hung on well in the afternoon and knocked out the favourites.

Carlota Ciganda, who went on to become one of Europe’s best professionals and a stalwart of the Solheim Cup, was a star even then but lost one of her matches when she sent her approach to the last soaring miles/ kilometres over the green, out of bounds.  Her caddy was the indomitable, legendary Emma Garcia Ogara (Villacieros), already president of the Spanish Federation and her young team were, naturally, in awe of her.  They were open-mouthed when Mo and Sue T teased her mercilessly, saying, “Emma, Emma, how could you?  You clubbed Carlota into the bar…”

What could Emma do but look hurt, horrified, consider her response, then shrug, raise her arms, shoulders, eyebrows, laugh and admit she’d made a bollocks.

When you’re a professional, the money is important, perhaps vital but for the rest of us the essence of golf is the competition and, over and above that, the friendships.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t quite a blast from the past but it was as near as dammit.  Justin Rose, most people’s favourite Englishman (though born in Johannesburg), popped up from goodness knows where to win the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Monday (inclement weather).  It was four years on from his last victory, at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines and the pictures tell you just what it means to win again and show yourself – and everybody else that you’re not past it – far from it.

After all, he’s only 42, it is a Ryder Cup year and he has been on three winning teams.  He missed the rout two years ago at Whistling Straits, when the Americans outplayed the Europeans by some margin and should be brushing up his Italian for the match in Rome in September. I’ve just put Duolingo on my phone and feel confident I’ll be well able to order a coffee come the autumn.  And a golfer must always be looking for some useful way of passing the time during those weather delays.

Now, no doubt, being a model professional for the guts of a quarter of a century, Justin had been beavering and tinkering away – he changed his irons just before the tournament started – and I just hadn’t been paying enough attention to realise that he was due a win.  Then, boom.

“Time flies by, doesn’t it?” the champion, the first Englishman to win this venerable title, said.  “It’s amazing how long it has been.  This is just a moment to say thanks to the people that believe in me more than probably I do.  My team have been incredible, obviously my family at home – Kate, Leo, Lottie, this one’s for you, I wish you were here with me.    What a place to win a tournament, unbelievable.”

He was talking about Pebble Beach, a course that is on many people’s bucket list and has ocean views to take the mind off the golf if it’s less than stellar.  But don’t worry too much if you can’t make it to California in the immediate future – we have plenty of great seaside courses in Britain and Ireland to be going on with, at a fraction of the price.  And not so much of a carbon footprint either.

Whittington is about as far from the sea as you can get in this country – and that’s not too far in global terms – but the views can still be stunning.   I played early the other Monday – my partner/opponent works and can’t just rock up any old time – and it was glorious, even getting warm enough to start shedding layers.  The halfway house was open – not something that happens on a Tuesday, when the course is packed with women; presumably most of us roll past without making the detour but I know I’d be tempted to have a tea or a coffee (per favore) and as the course is routed at the moment, we have two goes at calling in.  It would be nice to have the option…

I was still on a bit of a high that day, having watched the sainted Harry (Kane) score his 267th goal for Spurs on the Sunday, to become the club’s all-time record goalscorer, overtaking the legend that was Jimmy Greaves and, just as important, to beat Manchester City 1-nil.

Greaves’s record had stood for more than half a century, so, injuries permitting, by the time Harry’s finished, it’ll take a monumental effort to overtake him.  Who knows how long he’ll stay with us but perhaps we could win the FA Cup or the Champions’ League this season and hang on to him for a wee while more.  That’s football fans for you:  always dreaming!

The downside of Sunday was that it consolidated Arsenal’s position at the top of the league but, as Dad was for ever reiterating “every result makes someone happy”.  Mmmmm…

I stayed with friends in Welwyn on Saturday, arriving in time to watch most of Wales v Ireland (not quite as relaxing as I’d anticipated after our early blitz but a good win nonetheless – Mo and I were in Cardiff the last time we won there, the Grand Slam match of 2009) and all of England v Scotland.  What a cracking Calcutta Cup and what a delight to enjoy a game as a neutral, sort of.  Dad’s mother was a Scot, from Lossiemouth and one of his cousins “nearly played for Scotland”, so I was a bit biased.    Mind you, we have to go to Murrayfield and that’s always tough; not sure I’ve ever been there when we’ve won…

It was Scotland’s third successive win over England in the Six Nations and former Scotland captain Peter Brown, one of Maureen’s golfing pals, was delighted to have an earlier record matched.  In 1972, he’d led the team that beat England for the third Five Nations in a row.  The year before, at Twickenham, he’d converted Chris Rea’s last-minute try to win 16-15 and he had a great record against England:  played 8, won 5, lost 2, drawn 1.  Even so, that was trumped by his late brother Gordon, who won 6 of the 8 matches he played against England.

“He’d always mention that,” Peter said, in a lovely piece by Alasdair Reid in The Times.  “That would be his greeting to me.”

Many thanks to everybody for reading and encouraging me to continue exercising my brain cell every Thursday.  I’m attempting to modify the habits of a lifetime and get the blog finished before 0400-ish on a Friday morning but that’s a monumental undertaking for the easily distracted and the organisationally impaired.  And it’s blooming freezing at this time of the year with the heating turned off during the day.

It’s all very well being told “to heat the human, not the house” but I feel a bit of a prat sitting at the keyboard wrapped up in my fisherman’s jersey and warmest gilet, with my best cashmere Travelwrap (a bit grubby now because it’s a regular at Tottenham games but I’m scared to wash it) over my knees.  In fact, no sooner had I got tucked in and settled than I felt the need to go in search of my woolly hat and fingerless gloves – any excuse to delay writing a word.

They’re not exactly new resolutions but I’m still intent on reducing my amount of stuff and spending more time on the golf course.  I hesitate to say “play more golf” because at the moment my good walk is punctuated with a series of physical jerks that could scarcely be described as swings or shots; contortions and clouts, more like, as my foursomes partner this week would be (un)happy to confirm.

Our winter comps are over 13 holes and we were just about in credit on Tuesday, with six blobs and seven scoring holes for a not-so-grand total of 15 points.  We were far from last but the runaway winners had an otherworldly 31 points.  I don’t care what level you’re playing at, that is good going in foursomes.  Well played Jenny L and Sue J.

Lots of people don’t like foursomes because it’s an unforgiving format and it’s hard to score well if one or other of you is off your game – and heaven help you if you’re both misfiring.  It can test patience and stretch friendships (and relationships) to the limit.  I’ve always loved it because it suits my lazy nature and if you hit a poor shot, it’s up to your partner to sort it out.  The only rule, really:  Just get on with it.  No sorries. (Every sorry equals a gin and tonic.)  No tuts. (Don’t even go there!) And, in my case, do not play with your spouse.  NEVER EVEN CONTEMPLATE IT.  DO NOT BE TEMPTED.  I could partner Dai in a fourball but foursomes?  NEVER.

Apart from the fact that he was likely to visit boondocks that I never even knew existed, the main problem was that our approach to the game was very different.  I’d evolved from being a bad-tempered little sod, a stormy petrel who threw clubs, into something a little more laidback and less obnoxious, capable of treating the two impostors just the same – more or less.  Dai?  Not so much.

Mark Garrod, who runs the AGW’s PYP (Association of Golf Writers’ Pick Your Pro), our annual competition in futility, was the Press Association’s golf man for many years and played quite a bit of golf with Dai, one way and another.  He recalled a time they were playing in Phuket, in Thailand and Dai’s first five shots all finished in a lake.  Ever droll and understated, Mark said, “He took it well, of course,”……

Mind you, Dai and I shared an aversion to water on a golf course, perhaps because our balls were invariably attracted to the watery depths, never to be retrieved.  One of the reasons I love Whittington is that there’s no H2O to speak of:  not a lake, not a river, not a sneaky little burn meandering its way across the fairways to trap the unwary and the unskilled.  Saying that, I was at WHGC on Wednesday afternoon and put five balls in the water.

How so?  I was up having an indoor lesson with Rachel Bailey, one of our pros, who’s trying to encourage us to do a little work on our games during the winter, ready to blossom in the spring.  There were a couple of us there, having our games exposed by the numbers on the screen as we hit into it.  We decided that doing a bit of pitching and chipping would be less depressing than seeing how glacial our swing “speed” was. Then, encouraged, we headed off to play Nailcote Hall, a par three course of considerable complexity.

Well, it was too complex for me anyway.  Ball after ball tailed off into the water and there was that sinking, sinking feeling that I’d never get round, doomed to spend the rest of my golfing life in the dropping zone.  Even so, Nailcote has a special place in my heart because I once spent a wonderful day there, at their Par 3 Championship, chatting to Max Faulkner, Open champion at Portrush in 1951 and Bert Gadd, from a long line of golfing brothers.  I didn’t say much because they regaled me – and the rest of their audience – with enough stories and anecdotes to fill a library of books.  They were both well in to their 80s but sprightly wasn’t the word for them.  It was a magical day.