Funny how the brain works (if it works at all, that is) and how it makes connections whether they are actually there or not.

I was supposed to go to Lichfield this past week to go with Patricia to the theatre to see Fascinating Aida.  We have seen them a couple of times in the past and their own website describes them as “Britain’s raciest and sassiest musical cabaret trio”.  They are not for the faint-hearted or those who are easily offended but they do deliver some amazingly clever, observational, musical comedy, one of my all-time favourites being their song “Cheap Flights”.  It’s a humorous rhyming rant about all the add-ons you end up paying for on a flight that’s advertised as costing 50p.

Anyway, I didn’t get to Lichfield because of a misbehaving back which has kept me housebound this last week.  This gave me ample time to keep up to date with the golf news from all arts and parts of the world.  First to catch my eye was the report in the excellent Irish Golf Desk by Brian Keogh that Joe Lyons from Galway had posted an impressive final round 67 to win the Spanish Seniors’ Amateur Championship at Real Club Sevilla Golf.  A former winner of the West of Ireland Championship and the current Irish Senior Close Champion, Lyons is extending his considerable reputation with this international win………. but the new champ was forced to go home empty handed.

Ryanair refused to allow him to bring the trophy home with him!  Doh?  What’s that all about?  And my brain immediately jumped to Fascinating Aida and their famous ditty.  The airline did relent and send the trophy on the next flight, relaying it by courier up to Galway…. but only after Joe had tweeted about his disappointment in them.  What WERE they thinking?

And what was Jake Knapp thinking, I wonder, after winning on Sunday in Mexico on the PGA Tour in only his ninth start?  The 29-year old had played extensively on the Canadian Tour in honing his craft before earning his PGA Tour card last year after finishing high in the final season standings on the Korn Ferry circuit.  Simply teeing it up in Vidanta in the Mexico Open was quite an achievement considering that less than two years ago he was working part-time as a nightclub bouncer in order to finance his golf and pay for his travel and entry fees.  Asked what he learned from that experience he succinctly replied, “I didn’t want to be a bouncer all my life”.

No danger of that now.  For a start, $1.46 million has crash-landed into his bank account, not to mention exemptions and invitations into all of this year’s majors, plus PGA tour status until the end of 2026 at the earliest.  “Life changing” is a much bandied-about term but it was never more accurate than in this case and who doesn’t love a moving story?  I certainly do.

I only had to turn my attention to the DP World Tour to find myself reaching for the paper hankies again to dab my ever moistening eyes.  The tournament was the Magical Kenya Open, the venue Muthaiga Golf Club.  Where to start?

Perhaps with the winner, 34-year old Darius van Driel from the Netherlands.  A broken hand led to him giving up golf for a number of years but he found his way into the pro ranks almost a decade ago and managed a couple of runner-up positions on the DP World Tour.  Last year saw him lose his card but he gritted it out at tour school and bounced back, scooping the ultimate reward last week with his victory.

Another heartwarming story featured the man who was joint runner-up.  He was also possibly the man who delivered your Morrison’s shopping the week before last.  Joe Dean, like van Driel, earned his card at tour school last year and this was only the 29-year old Englishman’s second ever start on the main European tour.  Not having enough funds to play every event he was supplementing his income, not by being a bouncer a la Jake Knapp, but by working for the supermarket as a delivery driver.  There should be a vacancy there now if you’re interested.  Joe has tucked away almost 200,000 euros so he won’t be needing it.

And there’s more…….

Ever heard of Ronald Rugumayo?  No, neither had I.  That’s Ronald’s picture at the top of the piece – he’s holding his lucky ball.

Last Friday Ronald stood on the 9th tee (his final hole of the day) at Muthaiga Golf Club knowing that he needed a birdie to be sure of making the cut.  He decided to change his ball from a number 4 to his favourite, a number 3.  His second shot finished just over six feet away and his putt disappeared in the right-hand side of the hole making birdie and making history.

“Happens every week in a golf tournament somewhere or other,” I hear you cry.  Er, no!  Ronald is the first player from Uganda to make the cut in a DP World event.  Truly history in the making.

It was a brilliant moment for Ronald, for Uganda, for East Africa but also, I’m sure, for the R&A whose tireless efforts to spread the game in Africa are now bearing fruit with Uganda having a home-grown role model and hero of their own.

“There are no words that I can use to express how I feel,” said Rugumayo.

“I’m so grateful for Kenyans, my fellow Ugandans who flew all the way (to watch me). Honestly, it’s not about me as a player, it’s not about Uganda, it’s about East Africa. Everything I’m doing, I’m doing for East Africa.”

This is what golf does time and time again.  Just when you’re ready to wash your hands of it completely the sport throws up people and stories that are irresistible.  It’s all making me fall back in love a little bit, well, no actually, quite a big bit, with the men’s professional game again.

It’s similar to when you are out playing a load of rubbish and you reach the last tee and, from nowhere, you stripe it down the middle.  By the time you’re in the clubhouse you’re hooked again.

Breaking news!  It absolutely IS possible to travel through time.  I know.  I’ve done it.  Last weekend in fact.  Move over Dr Who.

Let me set the scene.  Last Friday the sister and I set off from her place in Lichfield to Thorpeness Golf Club and Hotel on the Suffolk coast to a reunion of  founder members, early members and folk involved in the early days of the Ladies’ European Tour.  It was all the brainchild of one of those founder members, Chris Langford, who is currently the director of golf at the aforementioned Thorpeness.  Having recently suffered the loss of some of our colleagues from those days Chris decided she most definitely did NOT want funerals to be the driving force behind future get-togethers.  And so the idea of the reunion was born.

If you’re anything like me you experience a range of reactions whenever the “R” word comes up.  My initial response is always really positive – probably due to an inherent nosiness – but also I’m like my Dad in really enjoying reminiscing and tripping down memory lane.  As the date approaches that eagerness and interest tends to dwindle into a feeling of apprehension and a fair degree of anxiety.  Will I recognise anyone?  (I do, after all, suffer from a level of face blindness.)  Will they recognise me?  Should we be wearing name badges?  What will we have in common nowadays, forty years on?  What will we talk about?

At a conservative estimate I’d say it took about five minutes for every one of those questions to be answered and for the remainder of the weekend I was carried along on a wave of joy, delighted and thrilled to reconnect so easily with players and friends from yesteryear.

Time now for a little bit of background info.  In October 1978 a number of players decided to take the plunge and turn professional, forming the Women’s Professional Golf Association (WPGA).  Up until that time the only pathway for women into the professional playing ranks was to head over and try their luck in the States at the Ladies’ Professional Golf Association’s (LPGA) qualifying school.  Forming the WPGA was a bold move with zero guarantee of success but a first season’s schedule was cobbled together for 1979 with the year’s prize fund totalling a dizzying £80,000.

By the time I joined the tour in 1986 things were well established and ticking along nicely and in my second year we had a total of 27 tournaments on the schedule.  By the early nineties, however, recessions had hit and the tour was struggling.  This rollercoaster continued over the ensuing decades with the serious prospect of the tour not surviving never far away.  Resilience has been the ever-present thread running through the WPGA (now Ladies’ European Tour, LET) however, and this year today’s players are competing for 34 million euros.

Let me just say that again – THIRTY FOUR MILLION EUROS!  That would have been an inconceivable amount of money to us all back then but it is now a reality for the modern player – and all made possible by those very special people who paved the way for the rest of us.  In a video message to us all Trevor McClintock, the first sponsor of professional women’s golf in Ireland, was clear about the importance of the tour to him in growing a business in the North of Ireland during the Troubles.  The WPGA, he said, was the first international sporting body to regularly visit the province at a time when folk simply weren’t going near the place.  The knock-on effects on business in the country were huge and slowly other golfing visitors and sports bodies followed the lead of the WPGA.  He has never forgotten it and is still in touch with some of those players – an enduring relationship if ever there was one.

Another to send a message through to everyone was Laura Davies, the one player who can claim to have straddled the time span from the early years to the modern day.  As ever, the Dame was succinct in her summation of things:  “They may be playing for a lot more money nowadays but I can guarantee you they don’t have anything like the fun we had back then.”

How right she is!  After all, the advent of the ubiquitous mobile phone ensures today’s players never have to deal with some of the little challenges facing those of days gone by.  One of our number present at the weekend often found herself in a few scrapes.  On one occasion she arrived late in Germany for a tournament so the organisers kindly gave her the last tee time for the opening round the following day.  What she hadn’t been told, however, was that you needed a key to get out of the hotel in the morning.  By the time she was ready to leave everyone else had gone, including the staff and the door was locked.  Undaunted, she climbed out of her bedroom window, shimmied down the drain pipe and made her tee time with ease.

On another occasion the tour had moved to Jersey where all the players were being hosted by members.  This same player had been lent her hosts’ car to go to the club for a sponsors’ dinner and she duly set off in her finery.  At the end of the evening she drove for three hours round the lanes in Jersey, couldn’t locate her hosts’ home so returned to the clubhouse and slept on the bench in the locker room.  She was first on the putting green the following morning – still in her frock!

Present at the weekend were three golf writers who had chronicled the ups and downs of the tour from day one.  They were heavy hitters in their own right with Patricia (sister) going on to write for The Times, Lewine Mair for the Daily Telegraph and Liz Kahn for The Guardian.  Along with the early members these folk have so much knowledge and archive that is in danger of being lost in the mists of time if not chronicled soon.

It was a privilege to be in the company of such an inspirational group of people.  Some have gone on to become authors, artists, raise families and run businesses.  Some are still involved in the game.  Whatever paths everyone has followed it was astonishing the ease with which we all reconnected.  Or was it?  Our common backstory was golf and always will be and we did share many special times.

How lucky we are.  Thank you founder members.  Thank you, Chris.

If there’s any one single thing that’s designed to make me feel totally inept it is the acquisition of a new bit of digital techie stuff.  I have in the last day or two become the (proud?) owner of a fruity sort of watch, if you get my meaning.  Other makes are available, I understand, but they are all seemingly designed to enable you to run your empire from your wrist.  I was reasonably confident that I had managed somehow to graft my entire phone and its contents onto said wrist and I was sitting enjoying a cuppa, happily minding my own business, when I got an unpleasant buzzy, stinging feeling and a rather terse little message from my timepiece.

“You’ve been sitting too long.  Get up and move it,” it commanded.  Before I knew where I was I was outside, taking a turn round the garden.  I was well into my second circuit when I thought, “Hold on a minute here.  Have you gone completely and utterly MAD?  You are jumping to obey your WATCH?????”  In a show of defiance I returned to my, now cold, cup of tea and resolutely plonked myself back down on the sofa.  After an interlude of I’m not sure how long, it happened again.  And so it continues.  Despite copious amounts of googling and button pressing I am still getting my sharp little reminders not to be a couch potato.

Modern technology – don’t you just love it?  It’s everywhere you look in life from your working environment to your social interactions to your favourite sports and hobbies.  If it can be measured it certainly will be, whether it’s your heart rate, your calorie consumption, your swing speed or your weight distribution and it’ll be presented to you in a nice little graph.   Several of my colleagues recently made their annual pilgrimage to the PGA show held in Florida each January.  There is on display there every single gimmick, gadget and golf-related thing you could ever imagine – and quite a few you probably couldn’t.  I’m reliably informed there are over ten miles of aisles housing these little gems that are going to enlighten and enliven your golf experience – and are designed to part you from your hard earned.

It’s a dizzying spectacle and a long way from the domain of my first teachers, Johnny Hunter in Portstewart and P. G. “Stevie” Stephenson at Portrush, both of whom had wonderful glory holes of workshops crammed full of stuff and smelling of  musty golf gloves, members’ shoes and epoxy resin.

How different life in general, and golf in particular, all was when I was trying to forge my way in the game.  There are some innovations I would have loved to have had during my development as a player.  Trackman, in my opinion, has been pivotal in the arena of practice and in the production of technically sound players at a remarkably young age.  It engages a player and draws them in with instant feedback and information on what exactly has happened in the last swing as regards the angle of the clubface at impact, the path and speed of the club, the spin rate of the ball and such like.  Guesswork and going by feel, the hallmarks of my early practice, are really minimised on today’s practice grounds.

And there’s another thing.  We were on a practice GROUND with a bag of balls not good enough to play with on the course and which we hit, then went and picked up, and then hit again.  Nowadays, aspiring stars can access under-cover ranges with first-class mats to hit off and balls that contain digital chips.  The luxury of it!  And no wandering down the fairway and rough to retrieve every ball you’ve hit.

However you find your way into golf it is, and can be, a magical game.  And, rather aptly, the name of the opening tournament on the Ladies’ European Tour last week was the Magical Kenyan Ladies’ Open, played for the fourth time at Vipingo Ridge.  There was a great deal of new talent on show with twenty of the sixty-four rookies with cards for this year teeing it up in the season opener.

And what a story unfolded.  Shannon Tan, from Singapore, went to the Tour school at the end of last year as an amateur and managed a top twenty finish, which gave her a tricky decision – to turn pro or not to turn pro.  After much soul searching and conversations with family, friends and, importantly, her coach, the nineteen-year old decided to accept her card, thus becoming the first player from her country to achieve full status on the LET.

Following a couple of months of hard practice and preparation she headed to Kenya to make her debut on tour and one week later found herself with a first professional win under her belt and the first Singaporean to win on tour.  Tied for the lead heading into the final round, Tan finished strongly to open up a four-shot gap over Italian Alessandra Fanali and felt the outcome completely vindicated her decision to turn pro.  After her victory she confided,

“It was a tough decision to begin with but I’m glad I made it now! It’s a good thing because juniors back home know it’s possible and that anything is possible, and it can push them a little bit and inspire them.”

It was indeed an inspiring win in an inspiring setting, even if play was sometimes delayed for the strangest of reasons.

Yes indeed.  Magical all round.

Well, a fairly significant milestone birthday has come and gone in the last few days and I find myself having arrived inside the gates of pensionerdom, as I like it call it.  Admittedly, it was a  much more pleasant prospect from the sun-drenched mountains and hiking trails of Gran Canaria than it is now back in cold, rainy, storm-torn England and so plans are afoot to get back to doing a bit more travelling in 2024.

For starters, the men’s four majors are all back on my agenda for this season, working for Sirius XM.  Last time that happened was 2019 – it seems a million miles away – and the landscape of the men’s professional game has changed unbelievably in that time.  That segment of the sport will surely have to work very hard indeed to win back all the fans sickened by the relentless display of greed and entitlement.  Hopefully, things will settle down eventually.

First up is, of course, the Masters, the only one of the majors played at the same venue each year.  That’s psychologically challenging for the players as the minute they set foot back on the grounds all the old memories, good and bad, coming rushing back, often unbidden.  It’s why the police run reconstructions of crimes, sometimes long after the event.  Why, last week I revisited some hiking trails from last year and during the walk was even able to recall meeting other hikers at certain points, our conversations and where we might come across a good viewing spot for a lunchtime break.  The human brain is just amazing.

Anyway, this is one of the challenges facing one of the blog’s favourites, Rory McIlroy, every time he pitches up at the first major of the year.  Back in 2011 he had a four-shot lead going into the final round and appeared to be on the cusp of his first major title.  A dodgy, nervy front nine saw his lead reduced to a single shot and his total meltdown started on the 10th tee with a wild tee shot miles left.  I’m pretty sure that particular gremlin is there to meet him every year – and will be until the day he manages to make room in his wardrobe for a green jacket.

Coupled with that is that this is the one major the Irishman needs to complete the full set and so become only the sixth player in history to complete the career grand slam.  No pressure there then.

The second of the four majors is the PGA Championship, back once again in Louisville, Kentucky at Valhalla Golf Club.  Last time I was there the club and city proved incomparable hosts to all the visiting European media and fans for the 2008 Ryder Cup.  They collectively produced a faultless tournament – unlike the European team, so poorly led by Nick Faldo.  Best to draw a veil over that, methinks.

The US Open is back at Pinehurst in North Carolina, a golfing mecca, and America’s equivalent of St Andrews, if you like.  It’s where the sister had her first overseas golf assignment as a writer and where she met her husband and so many soon-to-become longstanding friends within the golf industry.  Many, many happy memories abound and therefore it was no surprise when she bit my hand off upon being asked would she like to come with me.  Hmm, we might even have to extend that trip a little longer than just the working week.  Would be rude not to.

And then there’s the Open, back at Royal Troon, a really familiar stomping ground for all women amateurs with the renowned Helen Holm tournament being played there every year over the Portland and Old courses.  It was also the scene, one year, of me taking thirteen blows at the famous 123-yard 8th hole, the Postage Stamp, in said Helen Holm.

It was one of those days you could hardly stand up in and I shot +11 on the final day, dropping ten of my shots at that brilliantly designed little terror. [NB  +1 for 17 holes on a tough, tough day – ed.]  Mum was caddying for me that day and was embarrassed at the hash I was making as I criss-crossed the green visiting several bunkers.  Her admonishment to me to “pick the ball up and come on out of that.  You’re holding up the whole course” put her in real peril.

It was only because I was several feet below ground in a bunker and couldn’t reach her that I didn’t throttle her.

Not surprisingly, there was not much chat from there to the clubhouse but over the years that tale became part of the family golf lore and many a laugh we’ve all enjoyed – at my expense, of course!

Finally, already in the diary with accommodation booked and anticipation rising is a trip to attend this year’s Curtis Cup at the end of August at the delightful Sunningdale Golf Club in Ascot.  It’s a great contest between the best female amateurs of Great Britain & Ireland and those of the United States and for the first time in the history of the game one of the teams has a professional golfer as captain.

Catriona Matthew, twice a winning Solheim Cup captain, is taking charge – a wonderful move, in my opinion.  I was never a fan of limiting that sort of role to amateurs alone, thus cutting yourself off from a wealth of experience and information residing in those who play for a living.  We are all golfers, after all – it’s irrelevant to me if you’re amateur or professional.  Just get the best for the job – which is exactly what’s happening here.

The match is always a wonderful week, affording us a glimpse of future world beaters and allowing us to wander the fairways (yes, really!) following the matches, renewing acquaintances and friendships made decades past.  This is sport at its finest – no monetary or financial gain.  There’s simply the pride and pleasure of representing your country.  It’s refreshing and uplifting and if men’s professional golf throughout the year hasn’t wised up, it’ll be akin to coming across an oasis in the desert.

It’ll also be the best week of my year.