I’m sitting here at the keyboard, forcing myself to start the blog so that I can have a good night’s sleep and be in with a chance of looking my best (at 70, nearer 71, with all those lines, who am I kidding!) at the great nephew’s wedding on Saturday.  Fortunately, as we all know, it’s the bride who matters, so the pressure is off.  And the outfit is sorted (mine as well as hers) – just have to remember to collect the aged Prada sandals from the ace shoe repair man in Lichfield.

How I love those Prada sandals!  They cost three figures in a sale in a big London department store – I’ve forgotten which one, I’d just wandered in to put in some time before meeting a friend – at least a quarter of a century ago.  That was serious money but they proved worth every penny (I was going to say cent but in the current circumstances, certainly not).

That wee bag, shoes inside, went everywhere with me, tucked neatly in a corner of the luggage and whenever I wore them, wherever it was, whatever else I had on, I knew I was the business and could hold my head up high in any company.  What more could you ask?

I’d probably write quicker – and more coherently – if I weren’t/wasn’t (who cares about grammar these days) trying to pay attention to a Zoom seminar  (had to upgrade to business for a couple of hours; don’t worry, I’ve already cancelled my free trial) and Spurs away at Chelsea.  There has been screeching and swearing and stomping about; I’d have had at least three red cards, if that were possible.

Am beginning to think that my friends who are indifferent to football have a point but my fellow football supporters are very entertaining.  One of them, a Chelsea supporter, sent me this message before the latest match:  “Give Chelsea a 3-goal start and I still fancy Spurs this week…”

Goodness knows why because Chelsea are miles ahead of us in the table and my reply was:  “Don’t be daft, we’ll be lucky to keep 10 men on the pitch.”  That’s a reference to a recent encounter, at our place, when we went down to nine men and Chelsea scored four goals.

These two teams really don’t like each other, it’s usually feisty and beyond and one Spurs fan predicted that only 19 of the 22 players would still be on the pitch at the end.  Amazingly, there were still 22 left as we trudged off and Chelsea skipped – after TWELVE minutes of added time.  It was 1-nil to them – both sides had a goal disallowed – but we were woeful, so disappointing.

We’re still in Europe, so Ange, our Australian manager, is still in a job but we’re edging towards the point where I seem to be the only person wanting him to stay for next season.  Far too often our lot look as though they’ve never met, let alone played or trained together.  My mate, whose optimism is at a low ebb, was vaguely heartened and wrote:  “Chelsea at least look like someone has actually opened a defensive manual.”

“Think ours is in some ancient Aboriginal language understood only by a handful of elders.”  A bit of a cheap crack perhaps but I think the elders would at least get their point across – providing the players are willing to listen and capable of taking things in.  Footballers don’t need to be super smart but please, please, give them a footballing brain.

Once the footie started I was only keeping half an eye on Selena Soo’s ‘Rich Relationships’ book launch/seminar.  I sign up to all sorts of things, goodness knows why really; it’s a bit late for self improvement or becoming a multi-millionaire and no one would ever think of me as an entrepreneur but you come across all sorts of interesting people and it can be inspirational:   “I was a teacher, tired of being broke; faith over fear; breathe with your heart; be a rich giver.”  And the title of one of the books really made me laugh.  It’s also well worth reading apparently.

There’s a lot of pleading – please, please, please –  in this blog and I do need a bit of help from all those car buffs out there, please!  My sturdy Ford Fiesta is starting to show signs of age, admittedly not helped by the recent brush with Mo’s rockery, so I’m looking for a replacement.  I nearly crashed in to a bus because I was so busy eyeing up every car coming towards me and wondering if it would be the one…

Electric, hybrid, petrol?  What’s for the best?  Last week I was at a talk given by Mike Berners-Lee on the first day of Lichfield’s Literature Festival but he was so busy signing copies of his new book and answering more lofty questions that my choice of car fell by the roadside.  Instead I emailed his company Small World Consulting Ltd and got a very detailed and helpful response from Jenny, who referred me to Mike’s book “How Bad Are Bananas” and quoted a lot of figures related to our carbon footprint, with advice on how best to reduce it.

Walking is best, of course but not always possible if, for instance, you want to get from Lichfield to a wedding in Leamington Spa, a reception in Claverdon, a hotel in Warwick and a 70th birthday lunch in Wrexham…

There’s a wonderful weekend in store.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was an unusual start to a week – sitting down at lunchtime on Monday to watch the conclusion of The Players Championship which had suffered a four-hour storm delay on the Sunday.  The gathering darkness had ensured that, despite the early tee times, it was impossible to squeeze in the three-hole play-off, so everyone reconvened roughly fourteen hours later on a chilly Florida morning at 9.00 o’clock.

The two protagonists were J J Spaun, a winner on the PGA Tour in the past though not exactly a household name on this side of the Atlantic and Rory McIlroy, one of the blog’s favourites, multiple winner on multiple tours and most definitely a household name on each side of the pond.

It was seemingly set up to be an intriguing battle.  JJ had by some distance the best tee-to-green stats for the week on a testing TPC Sawgrass layout but it was Rory who had a three-shot lead with five holes remaining.  Somehow, the pair contrived to be tied after 72 holes, setting up my Monday lunchtime treat.

And then something happened that I’ve never witnessed in a play-off before.  The rules official informed Rory it would be his honour as he had finished earlier the previous day.  That was a massive advantage for the Irishman and somewhat surprising as normally the players draw straws or toss a coin to determine the order.  That was certainly the case any time I was involved in a play-off and JJ must have feared it’d be an uphill battle when Rory unleashed a monstrous opening tee shot right down the middle, leaving only a wedge into the par-5 sixteenth hole.

And so it proved, with Rory taking a three-shot cushion down the last as he comfortably claimed his second Players title and the large galleries that lined the three holes were treated to what Sky Sports’ on-course commentator, Wayne Riley, described as “a pillow fight”.  It was a pillow fight that netted Rory a cool $4.5 million and JJ 2.725 million.  I’d be up for that sort of pillow fight.

It’s Rory’s 28th victory on the PGA Tour and I suspect that we (i.e. his fans and supporters) are a bit blasé about yet another “W”, as Tiger dubbed a victory.  What I love about tournament golf, however, is that tucked away in the list of names in their various finishing positions are stories and achievements that are almost equal in terms of significance to those individuals as yet another title is to Rory.

Take Danny Walker, for example, a 29-year old Korn Ferry Tour player who wasn’t in the field for the Players until Jason Day withdrew citing illness.  Walker has been a professional since 2018 and has swithered between keeping going at the golf or quitting.  He was on track to study astrophysics but decided to give the golf a go and has pretty much stuck at it despite the first six years in the paid ranks yielding just over half a million dollars – not a fortune when you consider the high outgoings.

Don’t you just love the feelgood stories that abound?  You never know when life may turn on a sixpence and there’s no doubt Day’s illness was a godsend for Danny, who played the golf of his life at Sawgrass, standing up to the greatest pressure he’s ever known.  Luckily, he knows the Pete Dye layout like the back of his hand, living close by and doing most of his practice there, but it was only on Thursday morning that he learned he would be teeing off in one of the marquee groups with Jordan Spieth and Wyndham Clark – a daunting prospect, indeed.

However, relishing the opportunity to make use of his extensive local knowledge, Walker made the cut on the number and then had a phenomenal weekend, shooting 66, 70 to finish tied for sixth, scooping over a million dollars and trebling his career earnings at a stroke.  His life has utterly changed over the course of four days.

Perhaps he should take Jason Day out to dinner sometime soon.

Touring professionals don’t have the monopoly on feelgood stories, however, and one much closer to home brought a smile to my face.  The Sue Hayton Centenary Salver is a foursomes trophy competition at glorious Ganton golf club with a draw for partners, one player playing off a low handicap, the other a high one. This year my longtime friend Pat Smillie was drawn with 92-year old Rachel Coxon, who was captain of the club in 2012 and has been a member for forty-seven years.

Their passage through the draw was eventful, to say the least, but Pat’s strategy of keeping her partner out of the fearsome bunkers seemed to be paying dividends until they reached the 16th hole of the semis two down.  It wasn’t looking good when further down that hole Rachel was inspecting some new work done on one of the bunkers and contrived to fall out of her buggy!  Nothing daunted they conjured up an escape of Houdini proportions and managed to win the last to necessitate extra time……..and, you guessed it, they won on the 19th.

On to the final and our dynamic duo are playing well – particularly Rachel, according to Pat – and they are two up and two to go.  Nervy three-putts on the final two greens mean it’s another trip down the 19thth where a solid five secures victory and the coveted salver.

Oh – and did I mention that Rachel has two new knees?

What an amazing performance and I guarantee there wouldn’t be a golfer in the land who wouldn’t raise a glass to the pair.  As Pat said of her partner, “I’m in awe.”

Well, so am I.  Thanks to you both for the warm, fuzzy feeling your achievement has given me.

Celebrate long and hard.

Many, many years ago, in the dim, distant past, when I worked at Downtown Radio in Newtownards, one of my tasks was to write the quiz questions for Candy Devine’s afternoon show – I’m pretty sure it was in the afternoon because I don’t have any memories of having to get up at an ungodly (in my eyes) hour to work on the morning show.  Anyway, to continue with the religious tone, it was the devil’s own job to produce questions that only had one possible answer.

I tied myself in knots to get the correct wording – regular readers will realise that that dedication seems to have gone the way of the typewriter – but there was nearly always some clever clogs out there who could scupper your best-crafted conundrums.   Or, to be fair, someone whose brain just worked differently from yours, well, mine.  A day with no complaints and no alternative answers was a triumph; a week was a miracle.

All this came back to me on Tuesday when Fiona, our diligent, long-suffering handicap guru, produced the cards for the Lady Captain’s Charity Day.  It was a 9-hole Stableford comp, with added complications and Fiona’s cards were beautiful, unique works of art specially designed for the occasion.

We were playing in threes, on the Heathland, WHGC’s shorter course – not a separate 18 holes, just different tees – and it was a shotgun start.  We had to put down our individual scores and there was a team total as well.  In addition, there was a marked ball that each of us had to use three times and it was worth double points.  If we lost it, we had to pay £3 to the captain’s charity for a replacement.  There was a prize for the best individual total with the marked ball, so there was a column for that as well.  Hope you’re still with me.

By now, you’ll understand – well, the golfers will anyway – why Fiona couldn’t use the normal scorecard and had had to get creative.  Unsurprisingly, she was very pleased with her creation, confident that everything was perfectly clear, absolutely foolproof…

Absolutely not.

It took Fiona and Sue J, her fellow handicap whizz, quite a long time to sort out the numbers and our creative director was nonplussed, a bit baffled that her system had not worked as envisaged.  “You lot,” she said, addressing the assembled company before announcing the results, “just don’t think like I do!”

The winners were deduced, eventually, a good time was had by all and a bit of money raised for St Giles Hospice.

Orange is not a colour I wear often and my most orangey item of clothing is not a winter woolly but a thin, short-sleeved polo shirt that must be nearly twenty years old.  It’s treasured because it’s from Barnbougle Dunes in Tasmania and it’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever be there again.  Dai and I had a wonderful trip to Tassie and the highlight was to be a round at Barnbougle – there was only one course at that time and we’d heard great things about it.

I played – badly – but sadly Dai did not.  A couple of days before we were due to play he had a fall – he was lucky not to kill himself – and hurt his shoulder, so golf was out of the question.  He had to content himself with walking round with his notebook and camera and taking happy snaps of me failing to come to terms with the bunkers!

Getting back to cards, our regular four played bridge on Tuesday night and it got a bit rowdy.  I’d announced at the start that I was working on improving my etiquette but like many a resolution it fizzled out early on.  To make matters worse for the opponents, my partner and I got all the cards and played them rather well.

We won two uncontested rubbers and the others got nothing below the line.  We gave them their points in penalties when we were vulnerable and going for the jugular.  Genteel game bridge?  I don’t think so.

Going back to Candy, I turned to Wikipedia to see how she spelled her married name – born Faye Ann Guivarra in Queensland, she became Mrs Donald McLeod and an Ulster icon, ending up with an MBE.  I saw that she had died late last year, at the age of 85, having gone back to Australia after Donald died.

She was a force of nature, full of life and laughter, a talented musician, singer, broadcaster and actor – she was in Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, which I never knew.  A special person.

Alastair, one of her children, is now a famous chef in Oz and I doubt he remembers this work of art, which he drew on the back of one of his mum’s promotional posters when he was about seven or eight!  Charlie Brown, aka Richard McCracken,  also worked on Candy’s show at Downtown for a while.

 

 

 

 

It’s been a tricky week.  Apart from having to take to the garden (not my favourite occupation) to try and repair the damage done to the rockery by the sister’s erratic driving (in a car, that is, not on the golf course) my oven blew up mid roasting a chicken.  The chicken was rescued as the top oven continued to oblige for a few more hours before it, too, started misbehaving and emitting alarming noises, but, thankfully, no smoke..  All of which has led me to be confined to barracks this morning as I await the arrival and installation of a new oven.  I have been given a three-hour time slot……and so, I wait, not entirely convinced anyone will turn up when they are supposed to.

The next item on the agenda to fail in its duty was my laptop.  Yesterday I had just triumphed at solitaire, to which I am almost addicted, (is that even possible?) when the battery ran out.  In fairness to my machine it had been warning me that it was getting low on juice but I had been too idle to get up and plug it in.  So, out of spite it seemed to me, subsequent charging has had no effect whatsoever despite all the usual lights glowing as if to indicate all is well.  I am met instead with a blank, dark screen and no answers.

There don’t seem to be any answers either issuing forth from the powers-that-be re a deal between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.  It seems more likely than ever that the two will co-exist rather than a merger happening.  A couple of the majors (none of which is run by the PGA tour) have softened their cough with regards to allowing an exemption to a LIV player into their championships that has nothing to do with world golf ranking points.  For example, the highest finisher (not otherwise exempt) in the top five of LIV’s individual season’s standings will earn a tee time at Royal Portrush.  I like that because it adds a bit of spice, a bit of jeopardy, to each player’s performance – something that has been absent in the 54-hole shotgun start, every-player-gets-paid-a-fortune-anyway circus.

What I absolutely do NOT like is what happened last week at Bay Hill at Arnold Palmer’s tournament.  This is one of the PGA tour’s so-called Signature Events but only 72 players were in the field, 51 of them surviving the cut to play at the weekend.  These players shared a pot of $20 million dollars. Does this sound familiar?  A small, exclusive field for shedloads of money which pretty much assures one of the chosen ones entry into the next limited-field event and so it goes on.  The week to week, full-field events which require you to play your socks off to be around at the weekend are becoming rarer and I dislike that intensely.

I doubt Arnie would approve.

The Ladies’ European Tour had a disappointing time last week with the cancellation of the Australian WPGA Championship due to be played at Sanctuary Cove just south of Brisbane.  The call was made early in the week with the players being advised to leave the area as soon as possible because of the approach of Cyclone Alfred.  With the next two weeks of tournaments to be played further south the golfing family of Australia cuddled the players in a warm embrace, offering accommodation, practice facilities and a place to go for their unexpected week of non-tournament play.

When Alfred did hit the coast last Saturday it had been downgraded to a tropical storm but it still wreaked havoc, destroying beaches, golf courses and homes, so it was a good, early call on the part of the organisers.  Let’s hope the Aussie sun shines on the players, not to mention the organisers, over the next fortnight.

Another course to suffer at the hands of the weather in the last few months – as well, obviously, as the wider community – is Augusta National.  Hurricane Helene left some Augusta homes damaged and the residents without electricity and water for a while but recovery efforts were greatly helped by a $5 million donation to the relief fund by the Augusta National Golf Club (ANGC).

Past masters at swift and invisible repairs to any damage mother nature can throw at them, the ANGC chairman, Fred Ridley, gave an update on the course with characteristic understatement:  “I think we had minor damage to the course, the playing surfaces themselves, but we were able to get that back in shape and I don’t think you’re going to see any difference in the condition for the Masters this year.”

I’ve witnessed several episodes of storm damage on the hallowed grounds over the years and I’d defy anyone to point out the following day where anything had taken place at all.  Rest assured, everything at Augusta in April will be absolutely perfect – on the surface at least.

With just four weeks to go to the men’s first major of the year it’ll soon be time for the annual zoom call with friends and family to organise our picks for the week.  There are usually six of us in the mix and all six have attended at least one Masters – and still have endless plastic logoed drinking cups to prove it, I suspect.  I’m already doing some early research and may surprise some of the others with some of my choices.  That’s all I’m prepared to say about that at the moment.

What I will say now, however, is “Hallelujah!”  The oven is delivered, installed and working and the old one removed – all within the three-hour time slot.

I never doubted it for a moment.