We’re starting at the bottom this week, with a reminder, if one is needed, that this is International Flip Flop Day.  Don’t tell me you didn’t know that on the third Friday of June every year, you can wear your flip flops everywhere – even at the golf club?  It’s a pity the G7 summiters aren’t still in Cornwall, where they could have appeared properly dressed for all those photo shoots on the beach.

Ten years ago Gandys started their business with flip flops and they’ve been expanding their range ever since.  If you don’t know the story of how the founders survived the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka – their parents died – have a look at gandysinternational.com.

To quote:  “When we returned from Sri Lanka…..we had nothing; not even a pair of flip flops on our feet for the flight home.  Now, we are designing flip flops in Sri Lanka where the first Gandys kids campus was built.

“We started a company to give back and continue our parent’s legacy.  As we continue to provide travel gear, we will continue to give back by providing underprivileged children with equal opportunities and safe space to grow and develop.”

It’s worth reading their amazing story.

Now, from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Call me old-fashioned, out of touch, overly conservative, whatever (dress code excepted) but there’s one word that springs to mind when I read about the spat between Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau:  PLONKERS.  As in clot or eejit or ass.

Don’t give me all that guff about growing the game or fostering a rivalry, this is just downright childish and unedifying in the extreme.  Two of the best golfers in the world sniping like schoolboys, thinking they’re being clever but showing an alarming immaturity, wrapped up in their respective bubbles and social media ratings.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, lucky you!  I’ve already read – and now written – far too many words about it.

To be fair to DeChambeau, who is defending his US Open title this week on the South Course at Torrey Pines, the cliff-top municipal in San Diego, California, he’s mainly been responding to barbs from Koepka.  The burly US Open champion of 2017 and 2018 (and US PGA champion of 2018 and 2019) just seems to have taken a scunner agin DeChambeau, the burgeoning superstar with his crazy professor approach to the game.

It may not be the industry standard – and it’s certainly not for everyone – but it’s far from daft and can be maddeningly effective.  And it attracts a lot of attention.  And so many sponsors that DeChambeau uses up a lot of precious interview time thanking them all one by one.

It’s unreasonable to expect fierce competitors always to be all sweetness and light with each other and fans have their favourites and their bogeymen too.  When Jack Nicklaus, big and brash and monstrously long, first appeared on the scene and started threatening the dominance of the charismatic Arnold Palmer, the people’s champion, Arnie’s Army were outraged.  They were vocal in the extreme and even stood in the rough with signs saying, “Hit it here, fat boy.”

In the end that fat boy became the winningest (sorry, should have resisted that awful word but it’s getting late and, sure, it’ll do) major champion so far and a strong contender for the title “Greatest of All Time”.  With apologies to all goats, especially the wonderful kefir-producing ones at Chuckling Goat in Wales, I absolutely refuse to use the ghastly acronym because I hate it, find it demeaning and completely inadequate – so there!  Someone please come up with something better, classier and more fitting.

Back to golfing antagonisms:  there’s a cracking story from the 1913 US Open at Brookline, the one where Francis Ouimet, a 20-year old amateur, became a national hero when he defeated the Brits Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, giants of the game, in an 18-hole play-off.  After two rounds – it was 36 holes a day – Vardon was sharing the lead with Wilfred Reid, another Brit, two shots ahead of Ray, who had won the (British) Open in 1912.

At dinner that night, there was some sort of argument about taxes (ah, politics, politics, always a dodgy subject), tempers frayed and Ray, a big bloke, bopped Reid so hard that he fell to the floor with his nose bleeding.  Reid got to his feet and was heading for Ray until the head waiter, a brave  man or one worried about his tablecloths, got between the combatants to prevent further damage before their friends and fellow competitors pulled them apart.

So much for the good old days and deteriorating modern manners….

I’m indebted to The U.S. Open, Golf’s Ultimate Challenge by the late, great Robert Sommers for that tale.  His book, published in 1987, is wonderful but of course it pre-dates the Tiger Woods era, a volume on its own.

My thanks to Alistair Tait, whose daily blog is a tour de force, for pointing out that Old Tom Morris was born in St Andrews on 16th June 1821, 200 years ago.  The St Andrews Links Trust have planned various celebrations and golfers who played the Old Course on Wednesday received a commemorative certificate to mark the day.

 

In case you’ve forgotten, Old Tom won the Open four times, in 1861, 1862, 1864 and 1867 before his son Young Tom took over and won the title in 1868, 1869, 1870 and 1872.

The person below is not an Open champion but she is a member of Whittington Heath and played the Old Course on Tuesday, 15th June.  Whether she got a certificate or not, it’s hard to fault the swing and the concentration.  Looks like a proper player.

Finally, just a reminder to break out the flip flops today, whatever the weather.  Mine are posing in the garden with Kerikeri the Kiwi, who came all the way from the Bay of Islands, right up there in the north of North Island, New Zealand.  She came back as hand luggage, well wrapped, via America many years ago.  Doubt I could manage that now.

 

 

 

 

There are days when I wish I knew more about golf and was paying more attention to what exactly is going on these days – where, when, WHAT?  I was watching the last knockings of the US Women’s Open from the Olympic Club in San Francisco last Sunday and, although it wasn’t that late, I mooched off to bed assuming that Lexi Thompson was a lock, a cert to win the second major title of her career.

Shockingly, when I had a look for the results the next morning, there was no sign of Lexi holding the trophy.  Turned out she’d lost the plot over the last nine holes, driving like Reginald Molehusband (you have to be VERY old to understand that reference but suffice to say it has nothing to do with precision or the straight or narrow).  She’d also putted like a drain and bogeyed two of the last three holes to miss out on a play-off.

In the end the new champion was Yuka Saso from the Philippines, of all places, not regarded as a hotbed of golf but that could change now.  Saso, at 19 years 11 months and 17 days, is exactly the same age as the sainted Inbee Park was when she became the youngest winner of this title in 2008, at Interlachen.

Saso, who is a Rory McIlroy fan and has modelled her swing on his (think it must have been an earlier version, when he was in his pomp), had messages of support from the Ulsterman when he became aware of the connection:  “Rory said, ‘Get that trophy’, and I did.  So thank you Rory.”

Saso, who had two double bogeys in the first three holes of her final round, rallied to post a 73, two over par and shared the 72-hole lead with Nasa Hataoka, of Japan, (68) on 280, four under par.  Thompson, gutted, finished third, a shot behind.  It took three more holes for Saso to prevail and the crowd – there was a crowd – went wild.  Apparently, Daly City, not too many miles away, has the highest concentration of Filipinos in the United States, so Saso was not short of support.

Talking of Daly City, that’s where the LPGA players are this week, competing in the LPGA Mediheal Championship at Lake Merced and it was Leona Maguire who led after a first round of 65, seven under par.  There is every sign that she is not just flattering to deceive but could be the person to put Ireland’s women professionals up there with the world’s best.  And who knows where that might lead.  Look what happened when Padraig Harrington started winning majors:  he opened the floodgates.

I suppose I’d better explain the photo which appears (fingers crossed, technical glitches permitting) at the top of the blog.  It’s Alison Nicholas, winner of the US Women’s Open at Pumpkin Ridge in Oregon in 1997.  Nicholas defeated Nancy Lopez, the darling of American golf – and in all honesty, world golf – in one of the best performances ever by a European golfer, man or woman.  Seve, Faldo, Woosie, Sandy, Dame Laura, Padraig, Rory;  Big Al’s win was up there at the top.

I’m reminding you all of this because at one stage last week, Sky told me that Mel Reid was the first Englishwoman to lead the US Women’s Open since Laura Davies, who won the title in 1987, at Plainfield, New Jersey.  “WOT?” I screamed at the telly (it’s dangerous living on your own, worrying, not least for the neighbours….).  “NOOOOOO.  What about Big Al?  She definitely led going in to the final round….”

And she did.  Reid, who, I think, shared the lead this year after the first round, faded but Nicholas was three shots ahead of Lopez with a round to play.  They were paired together, there were at least 40,000 spectators (ah, the good old days), all but one or two of whom were rooting for Lopez, who had never won her national Open despite coming close several times.  The American started like a dream, with three birdies in the first four holes – and was still three behind.

It’s impossible to overstate the magnificence of that Nicholas performance.  It was, undoubtedly, her finest hour as an individual golfer and shouldn’t be forgotten.   So much so that I’m using another pic of her!

What to talk about next?  Jon Rahm, who tested positive for COVID-19 and had to withdraw from the Memorial after 54 holes despite leading by six strokes?  Patrick Cantlay beat Collin Morikawa in a play-off to win the tournament – and $1.67 million, plus shedloads of world ranking, Ryder Cup, FedEx Cup and other assorted points.

Annika Sorenstam and Henrik Stenson are worth a mention, as co-hosts of this week’s Scandinavian Mixed at Vallda Golf and Country Club in Kungsbacka, Gothenburg.  There are 78 men and 78 women in the field, playing together on the same course – more or less – for one trophy, with one prize fund of one million Euros.  At the end of the first round Christine Wolf, of Austria, shared the lead with Sam Horsfield, of England, on 64, eight under par.

The hosts, playing together with Thomas Bjorn, were a little more rusty, with Stenson the best of the trio on 70 and the others on 73.

I can’t not mention Marcus Armitage, who won his first European Tour title, the Porsche European Open, in Germany last Sunday.  It was appropriate that a speedy car was involved because a couple of months ago Armitage and Paul O’Neill (a BMW touring car driver) got themselves into the Guinness World Records (trademark) for the “Farthest Golf Shot Caught In A Moving Car”…..Yes, well, I suppose somebody’s got to try it and the feat is documented in a slightly (?!) bonkers video on the European Tour website if you want to have a look.  They beat the old record by 30 yards.

Finally, I’ve always thought that golf was the ideal sport for Muslim girls and women, not least because they can wear traditional dress if they wish and the Muslim Golf Association and love.golf agree.  They held a taster session at Stonebridge GC, near Coventry, recently and were oversubscribed.  Fahra Bhatti, one of the participants, said, “I have always thought of golf as a sport for white, middle-class men but today has shown me that it’s not and anyone can enjoy it.”

How wonderful (though I must admit that some of my best friends are white, middle-class men).  And I do look forward to the difficulties this might cause the keepers of the sacred dress code…

 

Good morning everybody, this blog is being brought to you under a certain amount of duress (all relative of course – I am not starving, homeless or languishing in a cell with my fingernails under threat).  No, it’s just that I’m trying to compose while decomposing, having had my second jab on Wednesday (that fact alone brings home to you just how quickly the years are rushing by) and visited the osteopath yesterday.  As usual, the bits that I thought were tootling along nicely turned out to be locked in unnatural positions and now that they’ve been re-aligned, I’m knackered.  Fit only for a return to the pub, really – inside preferably, given the weather we’ve been having.  Let’s hope the Horse and Jockey’s refurb stays on course – and the dust from the neighbouring demolition stays out of the beer.

You couldn’t tell from the picture above but it’s complete chaos on Sandford Street in Lichfield, just next door to one of the country’s great pubs.

Florida, I have to confess, is not my favourite state but that’s where I’d like to be this weekend, at Seminole, at the Walker Cup, watching the amateurs of GB and I (Great Britain and Ireland) suffer yet another defeat at the hands of the United States.  We usually lose away from home, so that’s not an unreasonable assumption but in reality and against the weight of history I always live in hope and there have been celebrated upsets in the past, so perhaps there’ll be another famous away win this weekend…..

At least the team won’t be hampered by having me taking to the tee.  Earlier in the week, I woke up in a muck sweat because, for some unknown reason, I’d been drafted in at the last minute to play in the Walker Cup at Portstewart, my home course.  I don’t think I ever quite made it to the 1st tee (that’s an anxiety thing usually – in this case it was a relief) because I couldn’t work out why they’d picked me.  Where were the reserves?  Couldn’t they get there in time?  Weren’t there any Irish guys high enough up the list to get there?

Fair enough, it was my home course but I’d never played it from the back tees and would have to play out of my socks even to reach the fairways.  How on earth was I going to avoid losing 10 and 8?  The par 3s were my only chance really and even then it would probably take chipping in a la Dad.  He was lethal around the greens but could I, a not very spiritual being, channel that?  Would blind panic be enough to summon a long forgotten family skill?  Putting like the sainted Inbee might help but I’m still waiting for the videos to be translated…

Proud strikers of the ball though our Walker Cuppers undoubtedly are, chipping like Daddy Madill and putting like Inbee Park, fearsome competitors both, might be just the skills they need to upset the odds at Seminole.  Good luck gentlemen.

These days most Walker Cuppers harbour hopes of being successful professionals and earning lots of money, winning titles, all that sort of good stuff.  Nothing wrong with that, so when everyone starts wondering how much money is too much; when ambition becomes greed; when independent contractors are suddenly no such thing; when proposed super leagues threaten to upset the comfortable status quo….What happens then?

Well, it’s all a bit beyond me, not least because I couldn’t quite grasp the attraction of the premier super-duper league concept, apart from the bank vaults of cash (or will all transactions be in/via bitcoin?) being thrown at potential competitors.  What professional – and assorted advisers – wouldn’t be intrigued?

It just seems a very limited concept to me but judging by their reaction the US PGA Tour and the European Tour are worried.  They probably should be – not too many empires have lasted for a thousand years – and golf is not the same as football, with fans invading Old Trafford.  Who’s going to be storming….where?  Wentworth?  The Belfry?  Quail Hollow?  TPC Sawgrass?  Le Golf National?

This looks like a story that will keep a lot of people exercised for quite a while and even the newspapers are taking an interest.  If you’re a Daily Telegraph reader (I do know a few), Jamie Corrigan will keep you informed and I think Daily Mail readers are lucky enough to have Derek Lawrenson writing about golf still.  The Scots haven’t given up on golf yet and Alistair Tait is asking some pertinent questions on alistairtait.com.

Back to the supposedly ho-hum, lowkey, everyday European Tour, which is doing its best to survive and throws up heartwarming stories time after time.  I love its leaderboards, featuring players from South Africa, Germany, Poland, Finland, name your country and who wouldn’t be moved by the general joy when Dean Burmester ran away with the Tenerife Open (how quaint and old-fashioned, a tournament sponsored by an island) with a last round of 62 at Golf Costa Adeje.

“There’s no words that can describe it,” the South African said of his long-awaited second European win.  “It’s four years of struggle and hard work…I can go home and see my family now, I’m so excited.  This is pretty emotional.”

 

 

 

 

I’ve got the beers in for the Carabao* Cup final on Sunday – that’s the Football League Cup in old money – though I see that the sponsors make “a low calorie fruity energy drink….with half the sugar of Red Bull” (not that that would be difficult – I tried the “gives you wings” tipple once when they sponsored the last six holes at European Tour events and found it undrinkable, more likely to make me stumble than soar).  Still, they seem to be doing OK in Formula One, not the cheapest of sports to fund.

[*A carabao is a “domestic, swamp-type water buffalo” hence the featured picture.  Congrats to anyone who spotted the connection.]

Sitting here writing this, I’m feeling slightly guilty about watching this match at all.  It’s between Manchester City, currently the best team in England, aiming to win this competition (the least important on their list) for the fourth time in a row, apparently and Tottenham Hotspur, my club for more than 50 years, who’ve just sacked their manager Jose Mourinho but are in dire need of a trophy of any sort after years of flattering to deceive.

Worse, both City and Spurs were involved in the European Super League shambles, the excoriated elitist semi breakaway that collapsed before it really started, buried, perhaps temporarily, under a tsunami of scorn, fury, horror, whatever, from fans, governing bodies, government.  I felt ashamed that my lot were involved in something so self-serving that smacked, in our case, of delusions of grandeur but why should I have expected anything else?

Professional sport is all about money, so why be outraged when those who already have a lot – although the pandemic has taken its toll of the pounds and the pennies and the sainted bottom line – want more?  And to hell with everyone else.

Or is it really that simple?  I was never a blonde and am not always dumb but the whole thing is puzzling.  Why make the announcement when they (the dirty dozen intent on super stardom) did?  And then realise that it was so cock-eyed and unpopular (to say the least) that they pulled out right away?  They’re supposedly intelligent, successful businessmen, have they a hidden agenda; is there a cunning plan?  Or did they just completely misjudge the public mood?  They’re so used to making shedloads of money that they’ve forgotten that they can lose it too?   Are all their advisers useless?  Does the owners’ contempt for the fans know no bounds? (Probably not.)  What will the fall-out be?  Is modern sport unsustainable and unaffordable?

Football likes to ride roughshod over most other sports, dominating the telly, radio, whatever newspapers remain, hoovering up the mega sponsorships, paying massive transfer fees and salaries to the select few, maintaining a huge gap between the haves and have-nots.  Moderation in all things?  You’ve got to be kidding.  What planet are you on?

Here I am hyperventilating about football and its inherent greediness and then we hear about the PGA Tour and its Player Impact Program(me), a bonus pool of $40 million for the ten biggest needle-movers, heaven help us.  They will be decided by an Impact Score determined by five criteria (or metrics):  a player’s popularity in Google Search;  his Nielsen Brand Exposure rating (don’t ask); his Q Rating (appeal, apparently);  his MVP Index rating (engagement on social and digital channels); and his Meltwater Mentions (frequency he generates coverage across media platforms).

I’ve copied this from golfchannel.com, who got it from Golfweek I believe and it makes me sick to my stomach, perhaps because it makes me realise that I’m a complete dinosaur, incapable of making sense of the gobbledygook or getting to grips with a concept that exists solely to make exceedingly rich people even richer.  And no doubt their accountants have already worked out how to make sure that their clients pay next-to-no tax – no squeezing them and their PIP “earnings” until the pips squeak.

Based on figures from 2019, we’re talking about Tiger Woods (no one “moves the needle” like he does), Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Rickie Fowler, Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Justin Rose and Adam Scott.  No doubt the PGA Tour will keep us posted as to who is up there in the rankings now – unbeknownst to most of us the PIP started at the beginning of this year.

Rose was asked for his thoughts about it and said:  “…..you do want to incentivise the top players to create content.  It’s very easy for the top players to say no because it doesn’t serve them.  So if you are looking at content creation….that’s where it’s coming down to these days.  So if it serves the fan and if it serves the game of golf…..then it’s probably a good thing for everybody….”

Blimey O’Reilly.  This fan can take no more.  The jig is up.  The pros really have gone beyond me.

Ah well, at least there’s still the game itself and the joy of playing with friends, sometimes for money, mostly not, just the drinks and the bragging rights.

Still on the subject of money, I’ve just read a rather heartening article called Payback Time by Rupert Neate in The Guardian Weekly.  There are, surprisingly, some super-rich people (multi-millionaires and billionaires) who are in favour of a wealth tax to help fund the recovery after the pandemic.  Abigail Disney, the granddaughter of Roy, brother of Walt, has always been, she says, “too rich”.  She is a member of the Patriotic Millionaires movement, a group keen to persuade governments to “raise taxes on people like us.  Immediately.  Substantially.  Permanently.”

Blimey O’Reilly.  Perhaps there is hope after all.