I thought I’d start with the tulips (pic above, I hope, technical glitches permitting) to cheer everybody up and add a bit of colour to the blog from the get go, no other reason.  Also, although plants undoubtedly have feelings and are much more sensitive than many of us once thought, they don’t, as yet, have any problems with their image rights or the use thereof.

That’s not to say that tulips didn’t once put the figures being bandied about by Greg Norman and the Saudi golf investors in the halfpenny place – I exaggerate of course but not by much.  Read Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach to find out more.  There’s a film too but the book came first, so start there.

I don’t quite know what to make of the Saudi situation, which seems to be getting feverish, not least because the PGA Tour and the fledgling DP World Tour (until recently the European Tour), are getting their schedules – and many other things – in a twist.  And are they in any position to claim the moral high ground?  They’re showing signs of becoming very Putin-esque (bossy, bullying, belligerent, if without the Russian’s firepower – though who knows what’s just smoke and mirrors?)  What happened to jaw jaw instead of war war?  Are we just hard-wired for conflict?

And, one quick question here, why did the R&A decide not to give the winner of the Asian order of merit an exemption into this year’s Open?   The Asian Tour was badly hit by the pandemic and attendant disruptions – and has been given a lifeline by Saudi money – but the R&A is committed to “growing the game” worldwide and withdrawing the exemption seems on the face of it to be an unsupportive, retrograde step.  A clear explanation would help enlighten the puzzled.

Professional golf is all about money, the clue is in the name, professionals expect to be paid, the glory is just an added bonus and in the end it’s probably not the players who are going to suffer when people with mega bucks (real, bona fide mega bucks) come in to shake up the status quo.  I did have to laugh when I saw that Phil Mickelson was accusing the PGA Tour of “obnoxious greed”  but on reading further it seemed that Phil, articulate as ever, had a point.  His main gripe concerned image rights and the fact that players had no control over theirs but the tour made millions, nay, billions from them.  John Huggan’s piece in Golf Digest will get you started if you wish to try and fathom the intricacies.

In truth, all this really doesn’t affect those of us who play golf at ground level – often literally, given that the top is one of my most effective shots, water hazards being notable by their absence from Whittington Heath, thank goodness.  However, a few days ago, on one of my recent rare forays onto the course, I hit a shot as it was meant to be hit and my heart was in my mouth from the moment of contact because it was at a short hole – our current 2nd – and it was a busy day.  A hole-in-one is always a delight but I wasn’t sure that I was insured….

On Tuesday we at WHGC had a visit from golfing royalty, a woman who is so steeped in golf that it is impossible to overstate her achievements.  I didn’t know where to start when someone looked blank when I mentioned her name.  It was a bit like talking about Nancy Lopez and realising that the person I was speaking to had no idea who Nancy was….Where to start?  How to explain her significance, her impact?  I was flabbergasted, stumped.

Anyway, it was not Nancy who called in to have a tour of our new holes and learn about the HS2-induced changes but Bridget Jackson MBE, who has graced Staffordshire, English, British (and Irish) and world golf for umpteen decades.  She won the British Girls’ in 1954, the year I was born and trained on to win many more titles and playing honours, including Curtis Cup.  She became an administrator – Staffordshire, the Midlands, England, ELGA, LGU (both now defunct) – and is now an honorary member of the R&A.

Having excelled myself in some respects of the visit (this is such a rarity that it was inevitable that something would go wrong), I completely forgot to take any photos to commemorate the occasion.  Oh dear.  It didn’t occur to anybody else either – oh double dear – so I’m not the only plonker.  Sorry Bridget.

All this talk of image rights has been making me nervous, so there are no pictures of Jill Thornhill, who has just become president of Walton Heath  and Alison Chestnutt, the new captain of Dungannon, the first women to hold their respective positions – a clunky phrase that makes me think of yoga or tai chi but it’s late and my brain cell is falling asleep.  So congratulations to them both and to their clubs, who had the good sense to appoint them.

Finally, an arboreal quiz question, featuring a tree in Beacon Park.  What are these bushy outcrops?  Not nests, not mistletoe.  Any ideas?

 

You know those times when things are getting on top of you and you’re floundering to keep a vague semblance of control over things?   No?  Ah, an organised bod who not only writes lists but looks at them and works their way methodically from top to bottom, ignoring all twists and turns and refusing to dive down rabbit holes.  Not someone like me who is easily distracted, leaves her home insurance, car insurance and tax return to the very last minute, then has conniptions – not in the same league as a panic attack but uncomfortable enough – and fantasises about selling the house and disposing of every last possession.  Mmmm, maybe not a good idea at this time of year for those of us who are lucky enough to have got used to central heating and hot water on demand.

I was oddly cheered by someone on the radio saying that it was a fallacy to think that we were in control of our lives at any time and at the moment there are any number of places where everything seems to be running out of control, be it a coup, a tsunami, an impending invasion, a party, a trial, an illness, whatever.

Checking in most evenings for 1-2-3 Move with Esther (Gokhale, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back; www.gokhalemethod.com) in an effort to improve my posture and get the old bones in to some sort of order, I’m a fan of this carpenter from Burkina Faso and couldn’t help wondering how he’s getting on after the coup.  A few years ago he persuaded Esther to take his photo and he’s a lovely example of how working at a low table in front of you is no excuse for hunching and rounding your shoulders and poking your neck out of line!  Ah well, we can all dream of at least some improvement.

I’m trying to incorporate some Gokhale principles in to my golf swing – well the set-up and stance anyway – but it’s hard to break the habits of nearly a lifetime.  At least it’ll give me something to think about and work on for the rest of my golfing life.

One of the rabbit holes I scuttled down recently was trying to find out why Adrian Meronk of Poland withdrew from the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship after three rounds, when he was a more than respectable four under par.  I couldn’t find an explanation anywhere on europeantour.com (it’s now the DP World Tour but the website has yet to be rebranded) so I looked up Adrian’s Twitter and there was nothing there, though there was an email address for his management group.

I sent an email (think I was putting off deciding on my new car insurer) but had no reply, then noticed that my mention of his eagle three at the last hole was a complete nonsense – that was from last year, in Dubai, a completely different tournament; DUH.  Nearly as annoying as Facebook bringing up stuff from years ago and me thinking it’s something recent…

Well, what is current is that Adrian did withdraw but he’s back on the course this week at the Slync.io Dubai Desert Classic and seems to be ok.  Meanwhile, I’m older, chastened but still none the wiser…

Not having made any new year resolutions I thought I should get out my Renew You Journal, which I’ve had since October, when I went on a lovely one-day course with Jane Woods (www.changingpeople.co.uk) near Bath.  There were four of us and I think Jane sent all of us away with, as it says in the book, “renewed vigour and energy to make positive and lasting change in your life, a renewed you…”

By my calculations, it’s 17 weeks since my trip to Bath and the exercise this week is to “Try to look at something in your life from a different perspective this week.”  So I skipped to week 36 where the recommendation is to start laughing and smiling, even though I didn’t much feel like doing either.  According to the book, “Laughter can help to relieve stress and has been shown to improve our immune system.  Laughing has been described as like giving your innards a workout; massaging our inner organs….When we can laugh at something, we change our perspective and our attitude.”

Apparently small children smile about 400 times a day and we adults manage only about 14 smiles…Serious and all as life is that doesn’t sound good.  Let’s all make an effort to smile harder.  Thinking about it, my golf’s quite good for a laugh right now, new clubs notwithstanding.

Maureen gave me a present that makes me smile – it’s a picture and I’m having fun deciding how to frame it and where to hang it.  It’s by a woman called Judith Clara (www.judithclara.de) who specialises in one-line drawings and it’s fascinating to try to work out exactly how she does it, where does she start?  Something to ponder over a glass of red.

One of the pieces we’re learning at singing (there’ll be no one who knows me who won’t be laughing at the very thought and clutching their ears in horror) is “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.  Words and music by Bobby McFerrin, arranged by the prolific Audrey Snyder.  I love it but it’s very tricky and there’s no way in the world that I can sing it.

The second part, for the growlers like me, is all doo doo doo doos, pretty well ad infinitum and I woke up the other morning thinking about it – and realising that I could be doo doo doo dooing without success from now until doo doo doo Doomsday…

At least that made me laugh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello everybody and Happy New Year.  First things first, apologies for my dearth of Christmas cards; am starting early this year in the hope that I’ll be able to work my way through my list and let my friends (most of whom are not psychic) know that I’m thinking of them.  If I write a few every month between now and December, my main worry will surely be remembering where I’ve put them.

One of my friends told me to “keep writing the bollocks”, so here we are again.  I wasn’t sure Mo and I would start up again – she’s not feeling great and has had to suspend her golf club membership, not least because she can’t cope with being in the car long enough to get to the club and I’ve been spending more time going up and down to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (think I’ll go back to calling it White Hart Lane) than on the golf course.

And much as I enjoy watching people playing golf in shirt sleeves with a sparkling sea in the background while I’m bundled up in multiple layers, I’m not that excited by a few multi-millionaires in a jostle towards billionairedom annoyed that they haven’t broken 60!  Fantastic players, some amazing shots but, frankly, at this time of year it’s the view that appeals to me.  And making full use of my season ticket.

My golf, such as it is, has been so sporadic recently and so rubbish that it’s as well that I now play for the company and the exercise – and the worse the golf the greater the exercise, so I suppose you could call that a bonus.   Then, last week, oh happy day, the new irons that I’d ordered in July arrived at WHGC.

We’d played bridge in the morning – most of us still beginners but definitely getting better and now almost sedate enough to survive a hand or two at a proper bridge club should they (and we) be desperate enough.  Anyway, the course was closed for most of the day because of fog but lo and behold it cleared just as I was about to head for home after a leisurely lunch, the sun was out and I couldn’t resist the temptation to try out the long-awaited irons (living on your own without a dog your time’s your own).

I left the driver in the locker and played a loop of five holes.  Of course I hit the new clubs beautifully most of the time because there was no score to worry about, no pressure to do anything but test them out and do my best to judge the frozen bounce.  I’d forgotten how lovely it is to play a few holes on your own on a beautiful evening simply for the joy of it and I had a bit of a revelation.

I am still a golfer.

Blimey.  That came as a bit of a shock.

Not a person who can hit a golf ball well, not even remotely that sort of golfer these days; after all a friend who was a proper golfer couldn’t believe that my new irons consisted solely of a 7, a 9, a wedge of some sort (think it’s got a U on it) and a sand iron.  No sign of proper irons like a 4 or a 3, let alone a 2.  She used to love her 2-iron, hitting it miles, especially when the fairways were dry, fast and hard-running.  Dead as the dodo now thanks to hybrids and different lofts and lies and myriad modern tweaks.

No, I’m not a golfer who can hit the ball properly, I’m just a golfer who has discovered, rather to her surprise, that she still loves golf, that the game itself is the main thing.  Weird.

Our AGM’s today (Friday) and there’s been a lot going on, what with big changes to the constitution, the move to the new clubhouse, COVID 19, loads of trees being cut down as we prepare the ground for a return to proper heathland and the monstrous HS2.  Any number of people have put in hours upon hours of time and effort to keep us going throughout the disruptions and I’m full of admiration and gratitude for their dedication and diligence – and their ability to cope with the gripes and snipes, the moans and groans of the rest of us.

We women, greatly outnumbered, still have to fight our corner as part of the whole, as all minorities do (albeit in this case a pretty privileged one) but hey ho, we relish the challenge and send our representatives in to the fray armed with a smile, a packet of paracetamol and membership of The Wine Society.

Over in Australia, where even the male chauvinists are forced to be creative (isolation, small market, small fields, economic forces, that sort of thing), they’re getting quite good at accepting that it makes sense for the women and men professional golfers to run their events concurrently.  The other week the Australian PGA Championship and Australian WPGA Championship, both sponsored by Fortinet (a cyber security firm as far as I can gather) took place at Royal Queensland, separate tournaments played together on a proper golf course.  Hallelujah.

Jed Morgan (keep an eye out for him further afield) ran away with the men’s event, smashing all sorts of records on his way to lifting the Joe Kirkwood Cup and Su Oh won the women’s championship to take home the inaugural Karrie Webb Cup.  Stoked to give her name to the trophy, Karrie apparently insisted that it be big enough to hold a bottle of wine! Slainte.

 

You know, I haven’t had a real rant for a long time – when you spend most of your life in hoodies and trackie/tracky bottoms, the dress code has lost its power to incense….Mmm, having re-read that statement, it doesn’t ring true.  As long as there’s a dress code it will always incense someone but fortunately it’s pretty well in hibernation at this time of year.  If we’re out on the golf course at all in this neck of the fairways (our woods are disappearing as we start the long process of reverting to proper heathland), we’re muffled up to the eyeballs in waterproofs and woollies or fleeces or some sort of multi-stretch, windproof, high-tech outfits that deflect all criticism.

Just out of interest I rooted out the trusty Chambers to check the spelling of trackie/tracky (I know, I know, beyond sad – and as it turns out beyond the scope of the dictionary) and found myself reading the definition of tracksuit.  “Loose warm suit intended to be worn by athletes when warming up or training, but sometimes worn by others in an error of judgement.”

Wow, that comment’s more than a bit judgemental surely and certainly written well before the pandemic when even the most stylish of us – and the fashion industry – had succumbed to the allure of comfy clothing.

No, the rant wasn’t about anything sartorial, it was about something audible rather than visible.  Our grand (some would say grandiose) new clubhouse doesn’t really have a ceiling, so the sound tends to reverberate and we oldies with deteriorating hearing sometimes have to concentrate really hard to follow conversations.  A few days ago I was chatting to one of our older members, who was having lunch with his wife and a couple of friends and he was recounting a great story about a coup involving some rare 1927 port.

He was sitting down, I was standing up, leaning in, listening intently when I realised that it wasn’t his soft voice, it wasn’t the acoustics that were making it so difficult to keep track of the details….It was the blankety-blank MUSAK/MUZAK on a continuous crapola Christmas loop.  NOOOOO!  Whose idea was that?

We’re all getting older – well, do you know a single soul who’s getting younger?  We’re all getting deafer but we still enjoy getting together for a natter and a catch up and we don’t need Slade and Noddy Holder – or whoever – buggering things up.  Even worse, December was still in single figures, so who had decided that it was time to roll out the Xmas loop and drive us all demented?

I made my feelings known to all and sundry – including, I think, one of the people responsible – and I’m hoping it won’t be necessary to send for the friend with experience in such matters; the friend who took direct action when his favourite pub discovered Muzak and refused to switch it off.  His solution?  He approached the speakers with malice aforethought and ripped out the wires.  My only worry is that his method could be outdated.  The wireless age might have rendered his wire ire inconsequential, of no consequence or value, impotent.  Might have to resort to jamming…(And I don’t mean sending for Jools Holland and his band.)

One January, many years ago, Dai and I were at the President’s Putter and were thrown out of a restaurant in Rye because we asked – very politely – if they could turn the Muzak down, or, preferably, off, please.  As she handed us our coats, our hostess said, “My husband’s been running this restaurant for 20 years, he doesn’t need you to tell him what to do with his music….”

Oops.

We were the only people in the restaurant at the time and fortunately Dai was so shocked that he had lost the power of speech and allowed himself to be ushered out without complaint.  We found somewhere else to eat and it only took a day or two for the story to make the rounds, with added extras.  Rye’s a small place and tends to be very quiet in the winter…..

Talking of music, have you heard Rod Stewart’s latest?  Initially I thought it was a bit of an odd sentiment but assumed it was because he’d been married several times, though I’m not even sure of that, don’t think he’s in the Liz Taylor, Mickey Rooney league of multiple marriages.  Anyway, I thought the chorus/sentiment was that he wouldn’t want to be “breaking up with anybody else but you….”; turns out my ears deceived me and it’s “waking up….”   Ah.  Sorry Rod.  Hope it’s a hit.

It’s good to hear that Tiger Woods will be having a bit of a competitive hit when he plays in the PNC Championship at the Ritz-Carlton GC in Orlando next week.  After his car crash earlier in the year, even Woods, whose will is a force of nature, has expressed doubts about his ability to reach the heights of winning major titles again; his body is battered and by all accounts he’s lucky to be able to play at all.

“Although it’s been a long and challenging year,” he said, “I am very excited to close it out by competing in the PNC Championship with my son Charlie.  I’m playing as a dad and couldn’t be more excited and proud.”

Nelly Korda is playing with her dad Petr, Padraig Harrington is playing with his son Paddy (the lad who wanted to put ladybirds in the Claret Jug – where do the years go?) and Nick Faldo is with his son Matthew.  The field features 20 major champions, playing with a relative in a 36-hole scramble over two days.  Justin Thomas and his father Mike are the defending champions.  It’s fun but fierce.

Wishing everybody who’s kind enough to read the blog a very happy and healthy Christmas and New Year and lots of fierce fun on the fairways.