There’s a good deal of chat going around the golfing world at the moment as to how golf can fight its corner in attracting and keeping new players in the face of stiff competition from a plethora of seemingly more exciting and more sexy sports and pastimes.

At grass roots level it is fairly obvious that we in the UK and Ireland can do better at providing an environment appealing to women, children and families, an idea embraced by the Scandinavians for the last three decades.  Too many clubs have been slow to buy into this concept with the result that it is frequently an uphill battle combating dwindling numbers and interest.  With this in mind, I applaud the simplification of the rules, the next version of which comes bounding into play in January 2019.  Taking a couple of penalty shots and dropping the ball near the out-of-bounds fence over which your ball has just sailed is common sense and has been in practice in friendly golf for years.  It is simpler and beats trudging back to the tee and taking a penalty of stroke and distance – and, with a bit of luck, it should keep play moving.  Rules that are easier to understand and implement are obviously one way forward, though this OB rule won’t be used at professional or elite level.

I’m pretty much in favour of most things that make the game easier and therefore more enjoyable for the club golfer.  I most definitely would NOT have banned the anchoring stroke in putting for the club player, who, to a greater or lesser degree, is challenged in terms of skill level anyway.  Many of the players you see with the broomhandles have suffered from the yips and the long putter has kept them playing the game and enjoying it.  Of course, the long putter itself is not actually banned but you cannot have your hand touching your body, a near impossible task in winter golf when swathed in several layers.  This is an easy game not to play – let’s not give anyone any encouragement in that direction.

For the same reasons I would not want to see the club player losing significant distance in their long games because of mooted restrictions on the distance the ball can travel.  It is a great joy to swing one of the frying-pan-head sized drivers and belt the ball a decent distance even when the bus pass is tucked into your hip pocket alongside your scorecard and specs with which to read them both.

The sharp eyed among you will have noted that I make all of the above points with reference to the club player.  I am, however, in favour of different conditions being imposed on those who play the game for a living.  I am a fan of bifurcation (a fancy word to describe having two sets of rules, one for pros and one for amateurs.)  The guardians of our game have oft stated they are completely against bifurcation, citing one of the beauties and unique selling points of golf being that anyone can play any of the great courses that host major championships with the same balls and clubs available to the world’s best. That is a claim that doesn’t bear close scrutiny.  We already have bifurcation.  Higher end equipment played by the tour pros is not available to the public from retailers.  And the aforementioned new option of dropping after hitting it OB is only available to the club golfer.  What is wrong with acknowledging that the pros play a completely different game and on occasion should (as they indeed do) play different rules?

Let’s talk about the professional game now.  It’s our shop window and has the power to attract or repel people into or away from our sport.  The modern game played by supreme male and female athletes has been described by many as a “bomb and gouge” game, i.e. go and smash the ball as far as you can, often leaving only a wedge or short iron to the green.  It’s so much more one dimensional than twenty years ago.  But let’s not blame the pros for the lack of guile and shotmaking in the modern game.  They and their skills have developed in response to the equipment and course set-ups they play week in week out where the premium is on length and not necessarily accuracy.  This has led to courses getting longer and longer, rounds taking longer and longer and costs of maintaining courses soaring to stratospheric heights.  With drives now reaching, and on occasion surpassing, 400 yards it is time to restrict the distance the ball goes.  That way the great courses of the world do not become obsolete and the diminishing skills of strategy and shotmaking can be reintroduced through judicious course set-up.

Furnish the manufacturing companies with specifications for a tournament ball and allow them to come up with their own conforming model which must be played in all professional tournaments – and, I would suggest, perhaps also in amateur championships and International matches.  I don’t forsee any difficulty for elite amateur players – it ‘d be similar to when both the 1.62 inch ball and the 1.68 inch balls were in use and we amateurs switched to the larger one for everything because that was what was required at the elite level.

Leave the club players to enjoy and benefit from technology and introduce a tournament-conforming ball for the pros and elite amateurs.  Is it really so difficult?

This week I was going to write about the new rules, which will be introduced in January 2019 and the new handicapping system, due to come into operation in 2020 but things have been a bit fraught in this household this week and rules and handicapping have never been my forte, requiring as they do a level of concentration and forensic attention to detail that stretch my capabilities beyond their meagre limits.

Like a lot of games golf is intrinsically simple:  you tee the ball up, then pursue it across country and hit it (without teeing it up again) until it disappears into the hole, whereupon you add up how many times you hit the ball (or tried to hit it) and that’s your total for the hole.  Then you do the same again, and again, for 18 holes.  Some people might ask why?  What’s the point of all that?  But if you get the point, if it appeals, that’s you, hooked – not always a golfing outcome to be wished for – and on your way to being sucked into the maelstrom of handicaps, rules and even, heaven help us, dress codes.

There’s also lots of fun, competition and banter with friends, being out in the fresh air and able to play a game that has universal appeal and an injury toll that may involve backs, knees, wrists, elbows and shoulders but is unlikely to include concussion – unless you’re unlucky enough to be hit by a ball or a club.

Michelle Wie and Tiger Woods, two of the most hyped golfers in history, one of whom has more than lived up to his billing, are flying high at the moment, revelling in being fit and fighting again after myriad injury woes.  What’s wonderful to see is the joy they have in competing and performing at the highest level, revelling in showing off their talent for a game that has held them in its thrall since they were kids.

Love of the game, whatever it is, is the key to success because, let’s face it, sport will break your heart if you let it; to keep coming back, time after time, defeat after defeat, injury after injury, you have to love it.  However good you are, however many trophies you’ve won, however many leagues you are ahead of your opponent, the moment you think that all you have to do to win is to turn up, you’re toast.

Ireland won’t be thinking like that at Twickenham tomorrow, when all they have to do to win the Grand Slam (and Triple Crown) is beat England on their home turf, a wounded England at that, hitting the buffers for the first time under Eddie Jones, the bullish Australian and staring down the barrel of three consecutive defeats.  Ireland don’t have a great record at Twickers – few visiting teams do – but gone are the days when Ulsterman Cecil Pedlow, a ridiculously talented all-round sportsman, could turn to Tony O’Reilly, of Heinz fame, as they were lacing up their boots before running out onto the pitch and say, “You realise O’Reilly, this is the 13th consecutive defeat we’ve shared together.”

That’s one of my favourite sporting stories – anathema in today’s professional era of positive thinking – and, no, I haven’t trawled through the record books to check that it’s accurate but it probably is.  It was a wee bit before my rugby conscious time, though I was at Ravenhill when Ulster drew 5-all with the All Blacks in January 1954.  Well, Mum was there and I arrived in June and she thought that that experience and her dreaming that they’d christened me Wembley Stadium accounted for my being such a sports nut!

Ireland are probably better than England at the moment but they’ll only win tomorrow if they turn up and give short shrift to the weight of history (and home advantage).  They can’t ignore the fact that they’ve only won the Grand Slam, that magical, elusive beast, twice:  in 1948 and then in 2009, in Cardiff.  Maureen and I were there and Wales had a kick to win the match in the last minute but, right on target, it fell short and those of us in green went gratefully doolally.

Just because it’s St Patrick’s Day doesn’t mean Ireland are destined to win and there’ll be no disgrace in playing their best and losing but there’s nothing more gutting than a BBU (brave but unavailing), especially one that the players will remember years from now as the Slam that might have been.  Might as well win then.  It’s much more fun!

Finally, on a joyous note, congratulations to Angela and Sergio on the arrival of Azalea Adele Garcia, who puts sport in its proper perspective.

I jumped for joy on the course at Whittington Heath on Monday, before the snow arrived in earnest to threaten life and limb let alone golf.

Bev Chattaway and I were engaged in our Winter Foursomes semi-final against the redoubtable sisters Anne Fern and Rachel Rowe, giving seven shots, on winter greens on the frozen fairways.  A few days earlier, I’d been so vociferous in stating that we hadn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell that our revered president, who hails from Wales, said he’d buy Bev and me a drink of our choice should we lose.  “Done,” sez I and we shook hands.  Rather to my surprise, he did not add that if we won, we’d be buying him a drink of his choice.

Well, again rather to my surprise, we did win and, really, I should buy the pres a drink, not least because Ireland had beaten Wales – just – at the weekend, to have us all trying not to think about a Grand Slam.  After all, if the Scotland that mangled England at Murrayfield turn up in Dublin a week on Saturday, they’ll be hard to beat and England are no pushover at Twickenham.  But I digress, which will come as no surprise to our regular reader.

I didn’t jump up and down because we won – by that stage we were all so cold we hightailed it to the clubhouse as quickly as possible – but because something wonderful had happened at our 8th hole.  It took a while to sink in.  Anne and Rachel had won the 7th hole, so Anne had the honour and hit a decent drive.  I hit next, not in any trouble and we all set off from the tee, Bev and Rachel a few yards ahead of Anne and me.

Suddenly, I did a double take and stopped in my tracks.  Wait a minute, there’s something  different here, what on earth is it?  When I realised what it was, I started screeching and lepping up and down like a mad thing, a bit like watching Ireland v Wales at the weekend, a shameless, unedifying display that mystified my companions, who thought I was in pain.  Ecstasy more like.  Because they’d gone.  All of them.  At long, long last.  Hooray, hooray, hoo-bloody-ray.

For far too long they had been the bane of golfers of all ages and stages, invisible to the longer hitters but far too often the ruination of almost everyone else.  Every round you’d see people, bum in the air, poking around in a desperate attempt to even see their ball, let alone retrieve it.  As for playing it.  No chance.  And now they were no more, scrubbed out, defunct, deceased, destroyed.

The 8th has become a proper golf hole again.  It looks different, better.  You can see its lovely, subtle shape and most of us will still have more than enough trouble getting a par four.  Harry Colt, who designed the original, might even give a satisfied smile of recognition.

The offending gorse bushes, they that no longer have to be feared, that are no more, were just in the wrong place, plonk in front of the tee at a perfect length for the shorter hitters.  It wasn’t their fault that someone, at some time, thought they were a good idea.  Off to the side, right or left, no problem but where they were, in the middle, lots of players could hit their No 1 stonker and where would it end?  Unplayable, in amongst the prickles.  There was no viable alternative route and that, no matter which golf architect you consult or erudite tome you read, is an absolute no no.  You’ve got to give players, whatever their skill level, a route to the hole.

Everybody sees things differently and there are lots of people who hate winter golf.  As long as I’m well wrapped up I love it.  It reminds me of growing up at the seaside and playing a fast, hard-running course, keeping the ball low, pitching and running and using a putter from all over the place.  You learn that the vagaries and irritations of the bounce are an integral part of the game, not a random source of annoyance.  And, as a putter with a longstanding ropey stroke, bad greens with lots of lumps and bumps tend to suit me.

Also, when it comes to foursomes, when it’s your partner who has to get you out of trouble, it helps to have a Bev on your side, a 4-handicapper who can come back from two weeks off, including a skiing holiday and make the game look so ridiculously easy that you wonder why you make it look so ridiculously difficult.

 

 

 

There was a man on the radio the other day who was arguing that we shouldn’t bother with the Winter Olympics because we – countries like Britain, Ireland and, presumably Jamaica and Nigeria – were no good at the sports involved, so we shouldn’t waste our time trying to compete with the snow-deep, mountain-high powerhouses.  What a slushy, wet blanket of a view.

With an attitude like that Columbus would never have put out to sea, the Vikings would never have reached Scotland, the Montgolfiers would never have taken to the air, Michelangelo would never have started drawing, imagining, inventing, it’s the sort of attitude that kept us in the dark ages while the Persians and the Incas and others were doing amazing things.  In short, no one would ever have tried anything remotely different.  So, you’ll have guessed, I think that bloke was wrong, wronger, wrongest.

Don’t get me wrong, most of the Winter Olympic athletes are stark-raving bonkers, putting life and limb in danger every time they strap on a ski, a skate or a snowboard.  How they learn their trade without breaking their neck or falling foul of Health And Safety is a mystery to me.  As someone who loses all sense of where she is after turning in a quarter of a semi-circle on solid ground, I haven’t a clue how those acrobatic half-pipers keep track of where they are or what they’re doing.  I watch, open-mouthed, in awe, muttering imprecations, as they fling themselves about.

As for the tea trayers, well they are truly off their trolley, surely.  And, don’t get me started on the ski jump.  Whatever Eddie the Eagle was – and apparently he thinks GB is spending too much on the Winter Olympics now – he wasn’t a wimp.  Just to stand at the top of one of those jumps is enough to turn me to jelly and there’s more than enough flesh to wobble wildly, if not quite enough to guarantee a soft landing.

The skiing I can understand, more or less, though my knees creak and my heart quails as they plummet downhill at ridiculous speeds with insouciant skill.  And I admire the way they stand at the bottom, heart in mouth presumably, watching the clock and hoping to hang on to a medal by hundredths of a second.  I’d hate that.  The head-to-head racing, however manic, is understandable even to the ignorant and I found myself yelling myself hoarse cheering on a Swede in the cross-country relay.

It’s all exhilarating and fun and you can see why people get hooked.  Just being in the mountains is invigorating and even if you start off at the SnowDome in Tamworth or the dry ski slope in Gloucester, if you keep persevering, you’ll end up in the snow somewhere, be it the Alps or the champagne powder of Colorado.  Even the Norwegians, the cross-country colossi, train on roller skis in the summer, so you can learn to do that almost anywhere bar the beach and some of the pot-holed roads round by me.

“That Elise Christie, she’s obviously no good, she shouldn’t be there,” said the man on the radio after the speed-skating Scot had crashed out of yet another Olympic race.  He’d picked the wrong one there.  La Christie is one of the world’s best and was in form going to the Games but a nudge here, a caught edge there and her dreams were cold as ice.  Sobbing in Sochi, pissed off in Pyeongchang, she was bloodied but unbowed.  “I’ll be back,” she said.

It’s the winning that drives Christie now but the taking part is still the most important part of sport:  without participants there’d be no sport, so every sport needs as many people as possible to play it.  The broader the base, the more likely you are to produce champions, who inspire and nourish a desire to play and compete in others.  Though sometimes it works the other way:  Switzerland and Scotland were hardly places you’d associate with tennis before the advent of the sainted Roger Federer and Andy Murray.

Also, as the All Blacks appreciate, for a sport to be really successful it needs people who understand it and really care about it, irrespective of their playing prowess.  It needs participants with passion at every level to survive and thrive.

Golf is rarely life-threatening – just make sure you’re not hit by a ball or club – or exhilarating in the way that faster sports are and you don’t have to be a supreme athlete or young to play it well.  That doesn’t make it a bad or a dull or a boring game.  Just the opposite in fact, it’s intriguing, exasperating and compelling and it’s good for all of us, especially if we can manage to keep on walking.  And it’s amazing how effective a weird and wonderful swing, devised to cope with various aches and pains, can be.

As you probably know, it annoys me that people think you shouldn’t bother with things unless you can do them well. Frankly, that is utter – and I can’t think of a better word – bollocks.  You miss out on so much fun.  Don’t die wondering:  take the plunge and try something new.