Once upon a time we used to play golf, on a golf course – not just hit balls into a net in the garden. When was your last game and with whom?  My last round was special for lots of reasons – for the company, for the course we played and for the glorious weather.  I couldn’t have dreamed then that that would be it as far as golf was concerned for, potentially, months and months.

I was up in Gullane in East Lothian for a few days and had met up with my old pal and sparring partner from Tour days, Gillian Stewart.  We had a game arranged with well-known, local golfing celebrity and current Gullane Ladies’ champion, Sue Penman.  Over the last 25 years or so of the Madill Trophy, (an annual match between my pals and members of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, played at Muirfield) Sue has served as a very willing and able sub.  Ready to step in at a moment’s notice, she frequently has done so and with great aplomb, earning herself the nickname of SuperSub.  Now a member of the Honourable Company she is, I imagine, eligible to play for either side.  Hmm, she could well become the first person to play for each team!

Sue was to bring a pal along to make up the four and when she announced to Gill and me that Lesley Johnson was joining us neither of us turned a hair.  Only Lesley turned out to be Lesley Hope, Scottish champion in 1975 and someone I certainly hadn’t seen for more than 40 years.  And in another little twist that golf tends to throw up, the last time Gill and Lesley had teed it up together had been in the Scottish Championship, played over Gullane No.1, the self-same course we were playing together last month.

The weather was perfect and our fourball skipped around in three and a half hours with more than a sprinkling of good shots and a fair degree of banter.  The course had been prepared for social distancing rules with all the bunker rakes removed and the cups inverted so the ball bounced gently away from the flagstick when holed.  The clubhouse was closed so we had no 19th hole to look forward to but it was a morning well spent and one I won’t forget, not least for the strange times we were just about to enter.

Two or three days prior to our round at Gullane Gill and I had played at Archerfield Links, whose courses were designed by the lovely DJ Russell, once my partner in a professional mixed tournament in Spain.  It turned out to be the final day the clubhouse was open, but with copious spacing between the tables and an attentive staff it was still a treat.  It was another lovely day, weather-wise, and an abiding memory of a fair, but challenging test of golf with first-class facilities at every turn.  I look forward to a return in more normal times……and if you haven’t played there put it on your list….and near the top.

In the absence of golf, what fills the vacuum in your household?  I have a mixture of things that occupy me – most of them outside activities while this lovely weather lasts.  I refuse to clean the house while the sun is shining – after all, as Mary McKenna says, no one is coming to visit,   So, it’s gardening and outdoor exercising that are taking priority.  I have a lovely walk from the house, mostly off-road on secluded bridle paths, which has a decent hill to ascend.  I do a few power walks up and down this hill and on the days I don’t do that I have a spin on the static exercise bike at home.

A new hobby is receiving deliveries of this, that and the other.  As well as the golf net, a strimmer has arrived; copious books (ones I don’t want on a Kindle) have found their way to the door and most important are the wine orders.  At the end of this we are all either going to be fatter or fitter – just one letter difference in the spelling but in reality, worlds apart.  I’m doing my best to be the latter rather than the former.  Time will attest as to how successful I have been.

Keep safe everybody.

 

 

 

Into our second week of lockdown and I’m already wondering how I used to fit in all the things I used to do in a day!  Am I the only one beginning to forget how to get dressed properly in the morning?  I find myself just reaching for the nearest old jeans or gardening trousers and sloppy top.  The hair still gets a brush pulled through it, but, make-up?  Forget it – that’s only for a day I get out into the big, wide world to go food shopping, something that up until now I had only ever considered as a bit of a chore.  Oh, and the lippy might go on on a day I think I may be Facetiming or Zooming (my latest skill) lots of people.

I am out in the garden now, more than ever, but “gardening” is a bit of a grand name for what I do – it’s just tidying and weeding – and it’s only an hour at a time because of my baulky back.  There is one great addition to the garden, however, and I have to report that the self-assembly golf net has, indeed, self-assembled and is now proudly centre stage in front of the house.  I must point out here that the front of our house is not the roadside side.  It’s the other side, so nicely secluded from the view of our neighbours riding, cycling, jogging or walking past.

It meant there were no witnesses to my first shot meant to christen the net.  The ball sailed straight over the top of the bar, over the hedge into the field next door.  What’s more it started its journey in England and finished in Wales without even a nod hello to the net on the way over.  Not surprisingly I’ve now moved in a little closer and find that works much better!  I’ve even persuaded my better half to have a go and am hoping he may get hooked on the Royal & Ancient game despite having eluded all my previous efforts in the last 17 years.

I see this week that the European Tour have postponed the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open scheduled to be played at the lovely Mount Juliet towards the end of May.  It’s an impossible ever-changing, giant Sudoku/jigsaw puzzle of a task for all sports bodies as they survey their various fixture lists lying in tatters.  The uncertainty of the duration of the virus is hand-tying for them and I can only imagine the hours of work going in to making provisional arrangements that will be destined never to see the light of day as new challenges arise across the globe.

It has been cruel, cruel timing for the Ladies’ European Tour, which has struggled to provide playing opportunities for their members for a long time.  With their alliance with the LPGA cemented in autumn last year all looked rosy for the first time for decades.  The older I get the more I realise that timing is everything in life.

Another email has just crashed into my inbox – this one from the R&A, rescheduling the Amateur Championship and the Women’s Amateur to August and postponing the Curtis Cup, due to be played at glorious Conwy, until 2021.  There’s another task on my list now – trying to rearrange the accommodation I booked for Conwy for six of us without incurring financial penalties.

I’m embroiled with the airlines as well over flights that were booked for the Masters and the PGA.  I have yet to be notified that my flight on Monday to Atlanta has been cancelled but I’ve received notification that my return flight is cancelled!  Refund is not a word in the current lexicon of the airlines – they want you to rebook……..and who knows how many of them will still be in business down the line?  Survival is very, very hard at the moment and most certainly not guaranteed.

You may have seen on social media the request to post online a favourite golf picture, no comment, no explanation required.  I think it’s a really nice idea so I started trawling through my endless boxes of photos to find one that I could share with you.  This one does need a little explanation, however.  It’s the earliest picture I have of playing golf with the family and I think it’s taken in 1968 at Boat of Garten Golf Club in the picturesque Cairngorm mountains.  That’s Mum holding her putter in the front right corner of the photo and Patricia took the snap.  I remember the moment well – Dad, a demon putter, had holed yet again from off the green and I looked at him with total admiration and awe.  As this trend continued for several decades I know my expression moved to becoming more one of irritation than adulation!  Happy, happy memories, though.  Stay safe, everyone.

I played golf on Monday – 13 holes in glorious sunshine with two friends – and got battered by our oldest member, who played beautifully, racking up bogeys and an annoying number of pars at holes where she got two shots.  No hugs at the end, of course – not because we were bad losers but because we were meticulous social distancers.

“Same time tomorrow?” we said, having seen that the forecast was good and anxious to play as much as we could while we could.

As we’d feared, however, that was our lot.  Courses all over the country are now closed but we are allowed one walk, one cycle or one run a day.  Some wit put up a pic of Boris announcing:  “You can only go for one walk a day” followed by a pic of the Proclaimers with the caption, “Say no more.”

It made me laugh and I sent it to a friend but she’s not a Scot, not a fan and she was baffled:  “I think my brain’s gone on strike, don’t get it!!!!!”

She didn’t recognise the talented twins, Craig and Charlie, from Edinburgh but she knew the song:  “I would walk 500 miles…..” (proper title “I’m Gonna Be…”), so all was explained.

I’ve been mixing my walks (with the sainted Alice) with gentle cycle rides – the easy-peasy way to keep your distance – and, given the lack of traffic, pot holes are the main hazard.  I even pedalled round Bowling Green Island, a big, scary, speedy roundabout near me that, normally, I wouldn’t take a pension to cycle round.  There was, of course, a car buzzing about behind me complicating matters but I lived to tell the tale, though I’m not sure I maintained the perfect line.

One thing still puzzles me, though.  How on earth do cyclists build up the necessary resilience in their nether regions?  Not a pain barrier I feel I can break through in the amount of time I hope I have left.  Do you think a sheepskin saddle would help?  Or should I stick to walks in Beacon Park?

Talking of sheepskin, I took advantage of the sunshine yesterday to wash my slippers and a variety of ancient headcovers, all allocated to clubs that have long been retired from active duty.  The most aged cover is from the 1983 Ryder Cup at PGA National, where Seve pulled off his miraculous 3-wood recovery from a bunker and Jack Nicklaus, the US captain, kissed the ground when Lanny Wadkins produced his own bit of magic to ensure that the USA won a damned close-run thing.

Next up is the 1986 US Open cover from Shinnecock Hills, where Raymond Floyd won the title by two shots from Wadkins and Chip Beck, with Lee Trevino and Hal Sutton a shot further back.  They were one ahead of Ben Crenshaw and Payne Stewart, who both started with 76 – the par was 70.  Amazing how much joy a golf tragic can get from just reading the results.  Remember Joey Sindelar, Jodie Mudd, Larry RInker, Mac O’Grady, Tsuneyuki Nakajima, Sandy Lyle?  They’re all in there.

There’s also a John Daly lion with a multi-coloured mane, bought in Augusta from the man himself and a dragon, inherited from Dai.  Amazing what you can find to do when you’re not allowed to stray far from home.

I’ve also found time to clean my winter golf boots, which, with luck, will not be needed again this year.  Let’s hope Footjoy realise they’re a staple and don’t decide to discontinue, which would only discombobulate the happy wearers.  They’re cosy, comfortable and quite brilliant.  They’re the black ones in the foreground, with the sainted Dubarrys in the background.  Those cost an arm and two legs but have proved worth every penny/cent. They made their debut at the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor, in 2010, in a mud bath, more than earning their keep.  Still going strong nearly 10 years later, their cost-per-wearing must be so minuscule as to be unmeasurable.

Now that we’re more or less confined to barracks, with police patrols checking that any journey is really necessary, those of us who are on our own are being encouraged to learn a language, take up reading, write poetry, sing, discover our inner Piscasso, cook like Jamie, speak to our friends and neighbours (at a distance), volunteer to drive, collect prescriptions, whatever, anything to stop us going stir crazy.

I’m happy to do all of those things – or give them a go – but, first, the clearing, sorting, de-cluttering continues, the never-ending battle against STUFF.  Some of it’s lovely, most of it makes me smile and brings happy memories flooding back, so much so that I can’t just wave an arm and say goodbye, consigning it all to the charity box without a bit of thought or a pang of regret.  Another few months of quarantine, though, and  even I should be good to go.  Greek anyone?

Or, of course, I could turn my attention to golf.

 

 

If my wee Mum were still here with us, she would be wagging her finger at me and admonishing me to be very, very careful what I wished for!  There I was last week bemoaning the amount of golf on television and proclaiming myself largely bored with it all.  I even penned a heartfelt “Ugh!” at the thought of every shot of every one of the 156 competitors at The Players’ Championship being available to see on some form of media platform or other.  How quickly and how completely the landscape has changed.  Now we have nothing but hours and hours of reruns and repeats of tournaments, golf tips and magazine programmes.  Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to ditch the Sky Sports subscription.

A mere week ago the Players was cancelled along with three other tournaments on the PGA Tour schedule, up to, but, at that time, not including, The Masters.  Twenty-four hours later came the announcement that the Masters was postponed and three days after that Augusta National Golf Club informed us the club was to be closed completely.  This is not as unusual as it may sound because the club shuts each year a few weeks after the Masters tournament and opens again in the autumn.

So, if there is to be a 2020 edition of the Masters it would look like October to November time might be the preferred slot.  Miss that, for whatever reason, and I think we’ll move straight to the 2021 tournament.  My hunch is the latter will be the result.  The iconic colour and perfection of thousands of azaleas would be missing in October and November and no one at Augusta National Golf Cub will wish to unveil their course to the public in anything other than their idea of the perfect state – and I think that means April 2021.

Like many of you whose livelihoods depend upon sport my engagingly crowded diary has emptied faster than water down a plughole – the Masters, the PGA and the Madill Trophy, our annual match against the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, are all cancelled or postponed.  These events will soon be followed, I’m sure, by the US Open and the Curtis Cup, both June fixtures.  The Open at Royal St George’s in July is in jeopardy too.  I remember the construction of the stands at Portrush last year started in the first few days of April and we’re not far from that date now.  To proceed or not?  Tough questions, tough answers and tough decisions.  Every one of them affecting thousands of people and businesses.  This wretched virus is going to ruin far more people than it kills.

And my hopes of the Ryder Cup in September are also receding.  The qualifying period is likely to be decimated but it could still work if we gave the captains twelve picks.  I’m not sure 2020 European captain Padraig Harrington, who has reduced his number of picks from four to three, would be a big fan of that but needs must – and it’d be a great, and controversial, talking point.  And something to look forward to – we all need that.  Perhaps we’ll run a competition later in the year to see who gets all twelve picks correct!

One encouraging note in the midst of all this gloom is that golf courses are currently considered one of the safest places to be.  Social distancing is obligatory for large lumps of time anyway, simply in order to avoid having your brains beaten out by your playing partners’ whirling actions.  Perhaps clubs will partially close (as some have already done), leaving access to locker rooms available.  Sure, we’ll miss out on the 19th hole and a lot of the socialising aspect of the game but we’ll still be getting our fresh air and exercise and helping keep depression at bay.

As Dad used to say when we were coming up to serious exam times, “Time to put society on short ration.”

Finally, a bright note in the desert of professional golf.  The Ladies’ European Tour managed to complete the Investec South African Women’s Open last Sunday and English rookie Alice Hewson recorded her first victory.  It’s a dream start for the former Curtis Cup player.  Let’s just hope she doesn’t have too long to wait before she can tee it up as an LET tournament winner.