I think it was the BBC’s Iain Carter – like Mo no fan of the Woods v Mickelson boost for Gamblers’ Anonymous – who mentioned that the World Cup of Golf was overshadowed by the over-hyped PGA Tour-sanctioned shindig in Las Vegas.  Well, in recent years, the World Cup has tended to limp along in the shadows whatever else has been going on.

The competition, which started in 1953 as the Canada Cup, at Beaconsfield in Montreal, was won by Roberto de Vicenzo and Antonio Cerda of Argentina and the following year, at Laval-sur-Lac, also in Montreal, Peter Thomson and Kel Nagle of Australia won.  In 1955, with home advantage, the United States won for the first time, represented by Ed Furgol and Chick Harbert.  The USA triumphed again in 1956, at Wentworth, with the more legendary pair of Ben Hogan and Sam Snead wowing large galleries.  And, of course, in 1958, in Mexico City, Harry Bradshaw and Christy O’Connor won for Ireland.

As far as I could see, this year’s event, officially called the ISPS Handa Melbourne World Cup of Golf, was not listed in the European Tour’s media guide but, fortunately for me, all the results were and the names on the immense trophy include some of the greats of the game – Palmer, Nicklaus, Player, Trevino, Ballesteros, Faldo, Els, Woods.  In Hawaii, in 1987, Wales won with David Llewellyn manfully supporting an imperious Ian Woosnam.  They beat Scotland, represented by Sandy Lyle and Sam Torrance, in a play-off.  Llewellyn, known as Lulu, could play a bit and should have become the first man to break 60 on the European Tour, as long ago as 1988, but three-putted the last at Biarritz.

There was a new name on the trophy this year, with Belgium winning at The Metropolitan Club in Melbourne.  Thomas Pieters and Thomas Detry held off Australia (Mark Leishman and Cameron Smith, supported by a huge crowd) and Mexico (Abraham Ancer and Roberto Diaz), to win by three shots.

This year the format was two rounds of fourballs and two rounds of foursomes and I have to confess that over the years covering the World Cup was not always the most exciting gig.  Watching the Scots one year in Florida (I was the Daily Record’s Dale Rankin No 302, or thereabouts; if their own man wasn’t there, the bod sending in the golf copy was given the byline Dale Rankin) and the most noteworthy thing was a chat with Jim Milligan, the quiet Scot who’d helped GB and I win the Walker Cup at Peachtree and was on his holidays.

I think that was the year that I also had to do The Times unexpectedly and Ian Woosnam ended up writing to the sports editor to complain that he had not, as I reported, been up until three in the morning playing the piano. It turned out to be a combination of rushed writing, changing editions and inexact sub-editing and Woosie was mollified by a bit of grovelling on my part and some nifty diplomacy by the golf correspondent.

I finally cracked how to cover the World Cup when I was doing the Scots again, in Italy this time and they were playing uninspired stuff, well down the leaderboard and losing interest by the stroke.  We were staying in Rome, about an hour’s coach journey from the course, which was pretty well in the middle of nowhere and some people moved out of Rome to cut out the commute.  It was worth every second on that coach to be able to enjoy Rome and one morning Dai and I joined Kaye Kessler (read his stuff when you get the chance) and his wife Roe on a memorable tour of the catacombs, guided by an ebullient priest from somewhere like Hong Kong.

If memory serves, we had a delicious lunch and hitched a lift in a courtesy car summoned by the formidable and well connected Kesslers (distinguished Americans merited priority treatment), arriving at the golf course just as the Scots were approaching the 18th green, five or perhaps nearer six hours after they’d started.  Perfect!  Even better, I managed to intercept one of the Scots as he legged it out of the scoring hut by the back door, trying to evade having to say anything at all about their dire performance.  Oh happy days!

No jetting off to Australia, Hong Kong, Mauritius, the Bahamas, Vegas, or wherever for me these days but I’m hoping to be at Woburn next year to see Georgia Hall defend her Women’s British Open title.  Ricoh have finished their stint as sponsors and yesterday it was announced that it’s now the AIG Women’s British Open, with American International Group, Inc (NYSE:  AIG) becoming the title sponsor for the next five years at least.  AIG is a leading global insurance organisation (I quote the press release but prefer organisation to organization) and this is the company’s first title sponsorship in professional golf.  More on this all, no doubt, in due course but let’s welcome what I hope will be good news for women’s golf worldwide.

Meanwhile, lower down the swinging order, it was Christmas jersey day at Whittington and I leave you with one trio’s offering.  We got 13 holes (the designated number at this time of year) in before it started lashing with rain and didn’t have to cover our jumpers with waterproofs.

 

I don’t know what sort of week you’ve had but I suspect that Justin Rose, his inestimable caddy/caddie (I can never decide which I prefer) Mark Fulcher and their family and friends have had a lovely week, very contented, after Justin, the defending champion, won the Turkish Airlines Open and went back to world No 1.  He beat Li Haotong of China in a play-off, at the first extra hole.  Who knows how much Justin and Futch are worth these days but it’s lovely to see that nice guys don’t have to finish last – they can finish first too.  And second.  Li is, by all accounts, a lovely lad and he and Shanshan Feng, a former women’s world No 1 and Olympic bronze medallist are so good for golf.  They are world class, so even those who see golf as a selfish, bourgeois, imperialist non sport that is injurious to the health of the people have to hold their whist – bite their tongue.  In the meantime, more and more Chinese hear about golf and think it might be something to try.  In China, even a small percentage is a lot of people.

Who knows how long the world No 1 will last this time – was it a week last time? – what with the logjam at the top but it’s not going to be dull keeping up with the twists and turns.  Rose won in Turkey and later that day, a few time zones back, in Las Vegas, Bryson DeChambeau, an intelligent, inventive man who has the courage of his convictions, won the Shriners Hospitals For Children Open.  It was the young American’s third win in five starts – a scarily good strike rate – and he is now No 5 in the world.

DeChambeau, he of the same length shafts, applies physics (which, I’m told, is the key to understanding the world, which is therefore destined to remain a mystery to me) to his study of the game of golf and sometimes it works.  He had a pretty poor Ryder Cup, in terms of points – nul, zilch – but don’t bet against him having worked that thing out by the next match in 2020.

You don’t have to be the world No 1 or a Ryder Cup player to make a good living out of golf but the luckiest golfers are those who just love the game and get a lot of pleasure out of it for as long as they can swing, staying more or less upright – the balance goes as you get older – and walk at least a few steps.  If you’re a member of a club, even if you no longer play, you can go up and sit in a corner with your paper and a glass of wine, watch the golf – or the cricket, or whatever – and chew the cud with your friends, putting the world and the club to rights.

At Whittington at the moment we’re trying to put the club to rights – not just in whispers or complaints in corners between friends – but properly, seriously, taking soundings from everyone who wants to talk or has an opinion, a complete overhaul of how we operate, to drag us into whatever century it is we’re in and set things up for the next few generations.  We’re lucky because our prime asset, our course, is playable all year, frost and snow permitting and the sainted Harry Colt had a large hand in re-designing it in the late 1920s.

We’re also lucky that we have a person who is not only willing but able to undertake the review of our modus operandi, who has the skills to do the job properly and the support of what is beginning to look like a majority of the members, not least because they’ve been asked to make their views known, to share their expertise and realise that they have a say in how the club is run.  There’ll be disagreements on details, of course – whatever you do, don’t get embroiled in dress codes or changing shoes in car parks, that’s not the object of this exercise – but, whisper it quietly, there may be a consensus………

Late though it is, I’ve just looked that word up in the dictionary because as I get older I realise that nothing is certain, that the things I thought I knew, the words I was sure I was using correctly, so that other people understood exactly what I meant, led, more often than not, to confusion and misunderstanding.  According to my dictionary (Chambers, 2003), consensus means “agreement of various parts; agreement in opinion; unanimity…..”  Phew.  I think that’s what I thought I meant……

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I spent two hours in a meeting being briefed on what was going on and the time whizzed by!  It’s amazing what you can learn when the right person is doing the teaching/explaining.  At university, I fell asleep in the classes that dealt with administration, how things worked; the practicalities just weren’t my thing but, of course, if the teacher had been more inspiring, even I might have perked up and appreciated that this stuff was important, not boring.  Though there’s no pretending that organisation would ever have been my forte.

I’ll never be the world’s best bridge player – even starting in the womb wouldn’t have helped – but rather to my surprise, after a false start when I thought the game was not for me, I’ve recently become hooked, helped in no small part by the right teacher and the right school, small, relaxed, a bit noisy, rude, funny.  That’s right, bridge is fun, who knew!

Whatever it is, keep persevering.

 

It’s amazing how quickly blog night comes round and as so often I’m searching for the laptop (yes, it was under that pile of stuff on my bridge table – see pic above) and scratching my head for a theme.  This week, as so often, there isn’t one thing that springs to mind but I might as well start at the top, musing on the position of world No 1.  It’s tight at the top of both the men’s and women’s rankings, with players flip-flopping almost week to week, a far cry from the dominant days of Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam.  Nowadays you can be forgiven for not knowing who is No 1.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing for golf?  Who knows?  I, being an old-fashioned sort of semi-traditionalist in some things, am inclined to think it’s a good thing, indicative of strength in depth, that sort of thing.  Others may argue that it’s a weakness, with the sport lacking a focal point, a big name known far beyond the fairways.

If pushed, I’d argue that professional golf matters not a jot – well, ok, maybe a fraction but essentially very little – for the health of the game overall.  What matters is that lots of people, of all sorts, everywhere, play the game and love it and enjoy it.  So we need accessible, affordable places to play, breeding grounds for the golf tragics of the future.

Some of them will go on to become world No 1, people like Ariya Jutanugarn, the Thai who has just replaced Sung Hyun Park of South Korea at the top of the Rolex (Women’s World Golf) Rankings and is the LPGA’s Rolex (watch out for them, they’re keen on golf) Player of the Year.  Georgia Hall, of England, is 6th in the world rankings, followed by the American Lexi Thompson, the Canadian Brooke Henderson and the Chinese Shanshan Feng.  It really is a global game now.

The men’s No 1 is an American, not the given that it once was, despite the fact that three of the four majors are played in the United States and the (US) PGA Tour still has a financial clout given to few.  It’s had to move beyond its borders to sustain its growth but, then, perhaps, sport knows no boundaries.  Anyway, moving swiftly on, the men’s world No 1 at the time of writing is Brooks Koepka, who replaced his fellow countryman Dustin Johnson.  There’s no arguing with Kopeka, who missed a chunk of the early season because of a wrist injury but has won two majors this year – the US Open (retaining the title he won in 2017) and the US PGA – and proved himself to be a player of substance.

Koepka doesn’t seem to go out of his way to be liked but what’s not to like?  In Global Golf Post, Ron Green wrote about the clarity and simplicity of the new No 1’s approach to the game.  Green-reading books are not for him and he’s not likely to be put on the clock for excess deliberation.  Listen to this and cheer:  “When he settles over a shot, Koepka says his mind goes quiet:  ‘I’ve simplified the game so much….There’s no swing thought.  There’s no anything.  I’m not trying to work on anything while I’m out there.  I’m just trying to hit the correct shot and it’s always between two clubs.  You just try to figure out, miss short or miss long. I think guys overcomplicate it a lot.'”

You can say that again.  This is a good time to listen to the world No 1:  “I THINK GUYS OVERCOMPLICATE IT A LOT.”

Are you listening out there?  Guys, gals, golfers everywhere.   SIMPLIFY.  DITCH THE OVERCOMPLICATING.  PLEASE.

If I’d worked a bit harder, I might have had a chance of being world No 1 in procrastinating but it’s a crowded field and I’m not sure I’d ever have had the dedication or determination required, so the mindset of serial No 1s is a bit of a mystery to me.  Getting there once, fantastic, no need to do it again.  I don’t think it works like that for ferocious competitors like Federer, Nadal, Woods and Djokovic.  Justin Rose had a taste of it, briefly, a few weeks ago and he’s keen to get there again but, really, does it matter?  If you were offered, over the course of your career, all four majors, the career grand slam or world No 1, which would you choose?   No contest, surely.

More seriously, should the European Tour be playing in Saudi Arabia next season?  Or Turkey this week?  Or Russia whenever?  Or China, even?  Who persuaded the Chinese women to withdraw from the tournament in Taiwan the other week?  Why?  Do you play or stay away?  Moscow Olympics?  Apartheid South Africa?  If anyone has the answers, please stop reading this blog immediately and get sorting.

Footnote:  excruciating puns may, or may not, have a place in a blog but they are not, repeat NOT acceptable in a budget speech in the House of Commons.  I had BBC Radio 5 Live on last night as I was tapping away and I could not believe what I was hearing as Philip Hammond, the chancellor of the exchequer, was replayed playing to his immediate audience, the MPs in front of him, on Monday and not those of us to whom what he was saying really mattered.  He’s no comedian and his ill-advised attempts at humour were no joke.

Second and more important footnote:  Sue Spencer, Whittington Heath’s super senior, had a hole-in-one at our 15th on Tuesday.  She hit a 4 rescue I think (it’s not a short short hole) and was playing with the sainted Sue Clarke, who insists on wearing her shorts until we hit November.  Perhaps it’s being born in the shadow of the Himalayas that does it.

 

Last week, when I realised that Padraig Harrington was in with a chance of winning his first tournament in quite a while, I plonked myself in the armchair to cheer him on and found myself captivated by a rather lovely Italian called Andrea Pavan.  I have to confess that I thought he was French at first because one of the on-course How’s it lying Clives called him Andre – or at least that’s what I heard – but I twigged eventually.

So it was Viva Italia once again and another second place for Padraig to add to his impressive collection.  I was disappointed that he didn’t win but delighted that Andrea, who looked ecstatic, dazed and amazed all at once, had snatched his maiden European Tour victory in grand style, coming home in 31, five under par, with birdies at the 10th, 12th, 14th, 16th and 17th.

Then they showed the leaderboard and I was so ecstatic, dazed and amazed all at once that I went, “Wow, that’s fantastic,” out loud.  That’s what happens when you live on your own, you talk to yourself, some of it profound (?!), a lot of it rubbish.  Some sort of slippery slope I suppose.  Anyway, what impressed me was the diversity, the way that golf has worked its way in to pretty well every corner of the globe.  

Root out your atlas and we’ll work our way down the leaderboard at the D+D REAL Czech Masters at Albatross Golf Resort, Prague.  Golf in Prague, for goodness sake and this is how the final standings read, by country:  Italy, Ireland, Malaysia, England, Scotland, South Africa, India, Sweden, France, Denmark, USA, Belgium, Thailand, Austria, Spain, Australia, Zimbabwe, Greece, South Korea, Germany.  By my reckoning (taking into account ageing eyes, titchy print and the inevitable margin for error of the mathematically challenged), there were 20 countries represented in the top 30 places.  Wow.  Fantastic.  That’s what I call a global tour.

At the golf club the other day I happened to mention that the World Amateur Team Championships were in Ireland over the next two weeks and wasn’t that exciting.  Dead silence.  No one knew what I was talking about.  I’m a fan of the WATCs because Maureen played in the Espirito Santo (the women’s version) at Pinehurst in 1980 and I met Dai (dear reader, I married him) at the Eisenhower Trophy (the men’s comp) that year.  It’s a big thing, not least because of the numbers involved.  At Carton House, near Maynooth in county Kildare, women from 57 countries are competing and next week there’ll be 71 men’s teams.

For many years Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England combined as GB and I (Great Britain and Ireland) but now they enter as separate entities.  Mo’s was a GB and I team that consisted of her, Mary McKenna and Belle Robertson, with Maire O’Donnell from Donegal as captain.  McKenna was injured just before the start and Jane Connachan, a very young Scot, was drafted in to replace her.  At least now 12 players have a chance to take part instead of three and two years ago, in Mexico, Ireland’s women won the bronze medal, a great effort.

They’ll have to go some to match that this year after the USA rocketed into first place after the 2nd round, posting a total of 272, one shot ahead of South Korea (officially the Republic of Korea), the defending champions and two ahead of Japan.  Ireland’s team of Olivia Mehaffey, Annabel Wilson and Paula Grant were on 288, sharing 10th place with Mexico.  Wilson, an ebullient teenager, had a 74, one over par, on the O’Meara course yesterday but was overshadowed by her playing partners Jennifer Kupcho and Ayean Cho, who had 65 and 64 respectively.  Kupcho, from Colorado, is ranked No 1 in the world and the Korean Cho’s 64 was the lowest score of the week.  Kupcho’s teammate Kristen Gillman also had a 65 so Lilia Vu, the third American, found her score of 69, four under par, discounted!  It’s a tough school.

Looking ahead to 2020, when the Curtis Cup will be held in Conwy, north Wales, not far from where I’m writing this, Elaine Ratcliffe has been named as captain.  Hooray.  The personable Englishwoman, who’s from Cheshire originally, had a distinguished amateur career before turning professional but was reinstated as an amateur in 2008 and has captained England teams at various levels.  She’ll also lead the Vagliano Trophy and Astor Trophy teams next year.  And Ireland’s Maria Dunne will captain GB and I in next year’s Junior Vagliano Trophy at Royal St George’s.  Hooray again.

Finally, the team of the month award must go to Lahinch, whose women won the All-Ireland Senior Cup for the first time when they tonked Elm Park 4 1/2 – 1/2 in the final at Knock GC in Belfast.  It’s a fantastic achievement and I trust the team and their supporters will be celebrating for a while yet.