It’s October, so it must be time for the July Club to meet.

Faithful followers of this blog will be aware of the existence of this little club of golfers, exclusive only in that it has four members, two Scotswomen and two Irishwomen.  One day our collective brainpower, such as it is, hatched the idea that we should have an annual golfing trip, lasting a week, and that we’d alternate each year between Ireland and Scotland.  The natives of that year’s host country were responsible for sorting out the accommodation and organising the golf courses.  Not too difficult, you might think, and certainly it wasn’t, as we all lived (or knew folk who lived) in places that were ideal centres for a golf week.

The get-together was to take place in October as that seemed the only realistic time of year we could reliably co-ordinate our diaries.  Eligibility for entry into this exclusive little club rested solely on being present when the idea was first mooted which means the full roster of membership reads as follows:  Gillian Stewart and Sandra Ross from Scotland and Mary McKenna and Maureen Madill from Ireland.

One of our early trips provided us with a catchphrase for our group.  We were staying down in the wilds of southwest Ireland with a great friend, Kay Keating, who introduced us to the gem that is Dooks, her home club.  She’d send us on our way each morning to wherever we were playing that day, saying she’d be waiting for us, “arms outstretched”, when we came home.  And indeed she was – arms outstretched, fire lit, meal on the go, wine open, all set for another evening of incomparable Kerry hospitality.  In ensuing years, when we would meet up again for our precious week in October there would be great arms outstretched reunions at airports to kickstart the trip.

Originally, the week would pan out something like this:  Sunday was travel day, Monday golf, Tuesday golf, Wednesday sightseeing, Thursday golf, Friday golf, Saturday sightseeing, Sunday home.  So, in the beginning at any rate, we played four different courses at each get-together.  One year we played Carnoustie, Kingsbarns and the Old Course at St Andrews – all on this week’s roster for the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on the DP World tour.  I guarantee we had more laughs than we had a right to and our competitive juices were fuelled by the cut and thrust of fourball golf.  I think the fourth course we tackled that year was Ladybank, home of the late Dale Reid, a wonderful character and great friend.

It was realising that we’d arrived at the week of the Alfred Dunhill that set me to thinking of all the courses we have enjoyed playing as part of our little club.  How’s this for a selection?  Amongst others, our list comprises Royal Dornoch, Tain, Brora, Royal Aberdeen, Aboyne, Ballater, Banchory, Nairn, Castle Stuart, Royal Tara, Donabate, Seapoint, Co Louth, Dooks, Waterville, Ballybunion, Royal Portrush, Portstewart, Castlerock, Royal Co Down and The European.

Ah…..The European.  What a course…and what an ethos for a golf club.  Lovingly crafted by hand by architect Pat Ruddy and his entire family the course is a joy.  It’s for golfers by golfers………..everything is secondary to the course.  The clubhouse is modest – no Taj Mahal-like edifice here.  Don’t get me wrong – it’s perfectly comfortable but there’s certainly no hint of affectation nor any delusions of grandeur.

The only thing to come close to rivalling the course is the welcome and it was in the pro’s shop that Gerry Ruddy unwittingly provided the name for our little group.  He had us in stitches, making a right show of salaaming as the great Mary McKenna sailed into the shop.  She’s royalty in Ireland, rivalling the one and only Christy O’Connor (known as “Himself”) in the affection in which she’s held by the golfing populace.

Steeped in the game. Gerry instantly knew of Gillian’s prowess – three-time Scottish champion, Curtis Cup player and multiple Ladies’ European Tour winner, amongst her many other accomplishments.  He made the same good-natured fuss of Gill and I also got a few mock bows thrown in my direction.

Sandra thought she had him licked.  “Well, you don’t know anything about me,” she said, thinking that a mere scratch handicap and County Championship titles may have passed him by.

“Oh, yes I do,” Gerry responded quickly.  “You’re Miss July.”

After general astonishment and questioning, Gerry informed us that as an accredited photographer at multiple Open Championships, his visits to the media centre had made him very familiar with the sight of Sandra up a stepladder keeping the giant scoreboard up-to-date for the world’s media.  This was pre the electronic boards that are used now and each year Sandra was the leader of the team that manually put in every hole score for every player in the field.  She was blissfully unaware that her legs were at the eye-level of several hundred writers and snappers (mostly men) for an entire week for 32 years!!  Hence the nickname.

We all loved this yarn and forthwith decided that our group name would be the July Club – it still brings a smile to our faces, so thank you Gerry.

It’s some years now, with Covid and lockdowns and suchlike, since the July Club boasted four fully playing members.  The Irish half of the gang have somewhat fallen by the wayside, with Mary Mc now an avid, and accomplished, photographer, as opposed to golfer.  And over the last six months I’ve come to terms with the fact that my playing days are behind me and am currently exploring new interests and/or hobbies to take their place.  We won’t disband the club, however – it may just slightly change direction.

The 2024 meeting was at this year’s Curtis Cup at Sunningdale.

Time plans were afoot for 2025.

 

As I watched the hordes of spectators jostling for position outside the ropes at Wentworth last week at the BMW PGA Championship it reminded me of the halcyon days, in the 1980s I think, when Mum and I attended a few World Matchplay events there.  I think the sponsors at that time were Suntory, a Japanese whisk(e)y firm, and a wee nip of the sponsor’s product was always welcome on those crisp, autumnal mornings in October.

Dad was still slogging away at the coalface of employment and Patricia was………..well, goodness knows where – possibly covering the fledgling Ladies’ European Tour, so it was treasured time for me with Mum, who, according to the family, was an expert in all things in general and golf in particular!  (I thought I’d better finish that sentence with an exclamation so that you wouldn’t take that last remark in the least bit seriously.)  She always was an entertaining companion and a keen and wily golf spectator, knowing exactly how to move around the course to get the best view of every shot.  We’d tramp round 36 holes a day, love every second of it and then get up and do it all again the next day.  No need for a gym subscription way back then.

Wentworth, at the Matchplay, was also the first place I ever wore wellie boots on a golf course.  The going outside the ropes could get a little soft and wellies were just the job.  It’s where we jointly discovered that if going downhill on a slippery slope it was best to go on your toes.  That way, your heel couldn’t shoot out from underneath you depositing you on your backside.  Balance was more easily maintained on tiptoe.  You see – it IS possible to learn something from even the most shallow of blogs!  As Billy Connolly so succinctly put it, “If it wisnae fur yer wellies, where wud ye be?”

Those were great days with Mum and long before I had any thoughts of there being a smidgeon of a possibility that I might one day work in golf for the BBC.  When that became a reality, the accompanying accreditation allowed for access to the hallowed ground inside the ropes at big tournaments where the view is second to none.

It brought home to me just how hard golf fans have to work to see their idols.  If you like to follow a particular group or a specific player, there’s no comfy seat from which to view the world’s best parade past you.  No, out you go in all weathers, ducking and diving, constantly on the go before standing still for ages for microscopic green-reading and the like.  Peter Alliss always said the golfing galleries were the most patient and accepting of all sports spectators.  They pay a lot for the privilege of being told when to stand still, when to keep quiet and their very existence seems to be ruled entirely by a single strand of rope and being on the correct side of it.

In return, they do have the opportunity to get very close indeed to the best golfers in the world – far closer than other fans would get to the protagonists in other sports, footballers, cricketers, tennis players and the like.  And, oh my, should you have the good fortune to be struck by a stray golf ball, you may even rise to the dizzy heights of receiving a signed glove from the player.  Be still my beating heart!

As I write this blog my phone has just pinged, warning me that the latest episode of The Chipping Forecast, with Andrew Cotter, Eddie Pepperell and special guest Iain Carter, has just landed.  It’s a great listen and I urge you to subscribe to it and make it part of your week.  I guarantee it’ll liven up any grey afternoon when you can’t get out on the golf course.

Wentworth was where I first met and worked with Andrew.  He was a young sports commentator but at that point hadn’t had the opening to have a go at any golf, his first love.  I was considered reasonably experienced as a summariser at this juncture and was told by the producer I would be working with this “new guy” and to “look after him”.  I could see he was very nervous, more than a trifle uptight and not disposed to chat much as we made our way up the 1st.  We were both working for 5 Live at the time and at the first green they came to Andrew for an update.

I stood next to him as he delivered the first of  what has now probably become hundreds of thousands of golf reports.  He did beautifully but had a little stumble over a word or two.  As the broadcast moved on to someone else Andrew was distraught.  He banged his head with his hand, declared there was nothing he wanted to do more than join the golf team and that he’d blown his chance.  I was astounded but tried to reassure him that that was certainly not the case.  I was soon to learn that a young Cotter was angst-ridden, never quite believing in his own abilities, and that his desire for perfection led to astronomical amounts of research and soul-searching.

It was apparent to most of those who worked with him that he had the talent and ability to forge his way to an outstanding career and if there is currently a better golf commentator on the planet, I don’t know them.  And I know, not all, but a great number of them.  And it’s not just golf.  He is simply brilliant right across the board, from adeptly hosting Olympic opening and closing ceremonies with Hazel Irvine to explaining the intricacies of rugby where you can’t see the ball for about 80 per cent of the time.

One of the reasons I love the aforementioned podcast is because with his two co-hosts he seems completely relaxed and able to be himself.  With his dry humour he pokes fun at himself and his “dark side” as well as at all and sundry.  Eddie (who had a season’s best finish of joint 12th at Wentworth) and Iain, 5 Live’s much respected golf correspondent, make up a perfect podcast trio with their stream of consciousness chat and inability to take themselves seriously.  Eddie is almost as droll as Andrew and I laughed out loud when he recounted how he’d tossed a ball to a little lad as he left the 7th green at Wentworth last week.  Said lad tossed it straight back!

Well done, that boy!

 

First of all, congrats to our American friends and readers of this blog who enjoyed an outstanding Solheim Cup last week, all masterminded by their captain, Stacy Lewis (above).

A self-confessed number cruncher and stats nerd, Stacy dived deep into the analytics to come up with her pairings and every tiny detail of every day was planned so that her team had no thinking or responsibilities aside from their jobs on the course.  And boy, did it work beautifully.

The first time I saw this level of preparation by a captain was at the 2014 Ryder Cup when Paul McGinley took the role of leading a golf team to a new level.  It’s not enough to know your own team and their games, you also need to know your opponents’.  That’s why the Robert Trent Jones course in Virginia was set up to leave the US players with so many second shots requiring 6-, 7- or 8- irons in.  This was the team’s strength and where they had an edge over the Europeans and as the home team they were entitled to have some input into the course set-up.

Of course, your team has to perform on the course but when a year’s worth of stats backs up your decisions and pairings, your players buy into it all in a big way.  They understand the whys and wherefores of each of the captain’s decisions and the result is the creation of a platform for the team to perform to the best of their ability on that given week.  Stacy managed this beautifully.

Alas, it’s the destiny of a losing captain to carry the can for defeat and, while it’s never only the captain’s fault, last week there were some very strange decisions by Suzann Pettersen, the European leader.  She openly admitted that the feedback she garnered from last year’s encounter highlighted the need for better communication between herself and her players, yet her astounding decision to play Leona Maguire only once prior to the singles went unexplained to the Irish player.

Suzann also declined to elaborate on her decision at the conclusion of the matches.  It’s one thing not giving an explanation to the media, quite another not giving one to one of your players who owns a superb record in the Solheim Cup.  Granted Leona hasn’t had her best year but the captain seriously underestimated the ability of a player like Maguire to find “it” in the heat of battle.

The only comment on the situation from the Irish player came in the form of the tweet below, taken from the golfdigest.com X feed.  ‘Nuff said.

In her fourball match Leona was paired with Georgia Hall against world No 1 Nelly Korda and the firecracker that is Megan Khang.  It was hard to believe we were seeing Korda in her fourth Solheim Cup and she was yet to be on a winning side.  In those Friday fourballs, however, Nelly was sublime and when the Americans eagled the 12th hole they were dormie.  A further eagle on 14 by Korda closed the match out 6 and 4.  When Nelly putts well no one can live with her.  When Nelly looks happy, smiles on the course and seems to be enjoying herself, the opposition better look out.

A couple of other things surprised me as well.  Suzann and Emily Pedersen are very close friends but I was astounded she played Emily five times.  The Dane is one of the best ball strikers in the game, a joy to watch but if she has an achilles heel it’s her putting.  I lost count of the number of times Pedersen didn’t even hit the hole from 8-20 feet over the first three sessions.  It was well into double figures.  Was that not reported back to the captain by the assistants assigned to those matches?  If it was, it carried little weight, with the player getting the nod for the Saturday fourballs and a high placing (second) in the singles order.  The ball striking counts for little if you can’t get the ball in the hole.

Over the first day the Americans stuffed the Europeans on the greens and the 6-2 deficit at day’s end was ultimately too much to overcome.  They had managed to claw back a whitewash in the first series last year and earn a tie overall but this time it was not to be.  The golf was mesmerising, the atmosphere electric and there was an hour and a half in the middle of the Sunday singles where the Americans must have been scratching their heads, wondering just where the final point and a half were going to come from.  That served to raise the hopes of the European fans but ultimately, in the vernacular of the Madill household, it was a BBU – a brave but unavailing effort by the yellow and blues to reach a winning points tally.

Being caught up in the absorbing tussle over the last few points helped dull somewhat the disappointment of Rory McIlroy coming up short at Royal County Down in the Amgen Irish Open.  A couple of late bogeys, a missed 10-footer for eagle on the last and an exemplary 65 by Rasmus Hojgaard, featuring four birdies in the last five holes, sealed the win for the Dane and Rory was consigned to runner-up spot once again.

That’s largely been the story of his year but he did have an unforgettably warm and emotional level of support the entire week from the Irish fans.  I think that’ll be his lasting memory of the week and it was a reminder to him of how much he is loved over in Ireland.  He admitted to being away from the Emerald Isle “too long”.

So, come back more frequently, Rory – it’s good for the soul.  It’s not only grounding to come back to your roots, it’ll help you realise how big a deal the golf is to the Irish.   And perhaps the enormous support, and yes, love, the fans have for you won’t take you quite so much by surprise as it did at the 2019 Portrush Open.  So, come back again and again………and do us all a favour and win the Open at Portrush next July!

Avid golf watcher and fan though I am, I must admit there are several weeks throughout the year when I struggle to raise even an eyebrow in interest, let alone a finger to click the remote on to the golf broadcasts.  I put it down to overload and reaching saturation point with so many tournaments delivering the same old, same old.

Not so this week.  This week will be all about following the Amgen Irish Open at Royal County Down (RCD), one of my favourite golf courses on this earth.  I played it a lot in my youth and won either two or three Ulster Championships there.  I always wanted to write a sentence like that last one!  It’s the way Mary McKenna speaks when she really, genuinely can’t remember how many Irish titles she won in her heyday.  Sometimes if you ask how many Curtis Cup caps she has, she has to start counting them off on her fingers.  That’s what I call having a career.

But back to RCD.  If pushed (it was an awfully long time ago, in fairness) I think I won two titles there because I’m pretty sure I won one at Clandeboye….and I certainly didn’t win four.  I played the redoubtable Claire Nesbitt in the final each time at Newcastle and I got an incorrect ruling from the referee on the 16th when, despite my objections, he gave me a free drop out of a bunker.  I knew I wasn’t entitled to it but he was adamant and as they say, the referee’s decision is final.  I managed to lose the hole anyway and the ref did apologise to both players after the match.

The second time I won round this glorious links I had a local caddy on the bag and there was a picture of us both on the sports pages the following day.  We were coming up the last in the final and the caption name-checked us both.  My caddy was furious at being in the picture, worried about his weekly visit to the dole office.  All seemed to turn out well, however, as the person in the DHSS office merely glanced at him and, with a slow smile as the envelope was slid under the grille, asked if he’d enjoyed the golf.

In 2007 I returned to Royal County Down working at the Walker Cup for the BBC.  This was my first proper meeting with Rory McIlroy, who made history at the opening ceremony by raising the Irish flag.  An Ulsterman raising the Irish flag in the north of Ireland was an historic moment and it underlined to me how golf – along with the majority of our sports – has always been an all-Ireland affair.  There never have been any borders in Irish golf.

During that Walker Cup one of my colleagues arrived at the course in the morning and realised pretty quickly that he had left some essential gear back at the hotel.  Mid-morning he nipped back to collect the forgotten items and found his things neatly stashed and another suitcase and set of clothes in the wardrobe.  Not having time to enquire as to why someone else’s stuff should be in his room he returned to the course.  At day’s end we all returned to base and things were as he had left them first thing in the morning – no other suitcase or clothes hanging up in the wardrobe.  Seems there was a bit of double booking going on……!

And folk think it’s glamorous working for the BBC!

Today (Friday) when this blog is posted things are due to become a tad more tricky.  The Solheim Cup starts in Gainesville, Virginia, at the Robert Trent Jones golf club.  If you’re thinking it can’t possibly be two years since the last one, you are right.  The pandemic caused the Ryder Cup to shift from the even to the odd years, so the women are moving to the evens to avoid future clashes, hence the Solheim Cup in consecutive years.  This is the second occasion that this has happened with the same course of action being taken after the postponement of the Ryder Cup in 2001 after 9/11.

As holders Suzann Pettersen’s team retained the trophy last year when the match was halved.  (Please don’t get Patricia started on that one – oh, too late.)  If they can pull this one off, they will have been undefeated since 2017.  it’s absolutely extraordinary how one of the most seemingly lopsided international sporting contests has so quickly established itself as a close encounter nearly every time it’s played.  And, of course, it’s hard to beat the drama and excitement of match play.

The last Solheim I attended was at Gleneagles in 2019 and it was also the last time I sat alongside the great Peter Alliss in the commentary booth.  That was the year of Suzann’s putt on the last to win and her epic mike-drop of retiring on the spot after the ball found the bottom of the cup.

I always think these sorts of scenes can never be repeated but that is seemingly not the case.  New stars will undoubtedly step forward this week and we’ll be on the edge of our seats.

Just hope there are no wrong rulings.