One good thing about writing this blog late at night is that the Feherty Show is now on Sky golf and provides inspiration and distraction in equal measure.  It’s Freddie Couples this week and Fred’s always been one of my favourites; how could he not be a favourite!   He’s just a delight, a sweetheart.

At the Ryder Cup at Valderrama, Fred was walking up the 18th in one of the practice rounds and I was watching from behind the ropes.  He smiled and nodded in my direction but I remained stony-faced, then glanced behind to see who it was he was acknowledging.  There was no one there.  FREDDIE COUPLES HAD BEEN SMILING AT ME.  And I had blanked him…..There were, are, no words.

It was the evening of the gala dinner, so, later, when the teams were assembling in their finery with their wives and partners, I, in my not-so-fine daily duds, took a deep breath and went up and apologised to Freddie – fully expecting him to look blank and wonder what this eejit was whittering on about.  Ever the gentleman, he smiled (I nearly fainted – he was, after all, in his dinner duds and like Seve scrubbed up to devastating effect) and I’ve remained eternally grateful that I plucked up the courage to say something.

Ah, happy days!

Now that I’m an invisible old doll who doesn’t lurk outside – or inside – ropes any more, these stories sound like fairy tales, even to me, but they are true – honest!  I probably have a photo somewhere but there’s no guarantee of finding the right one even after days of rooting through box after shoebox after plastic container after box.  And, if I’ve taken it, the chances are that the subject will be blurry, out of focus and headless.  An early, slightly less bloody version of Game of Thrones or Line of Duty.

At this point, I should remind you that a lot of Game of Thrones was filmed on the beach at Portstewart (not sure about LOD, which, from what I’ve seen on Gogglebox and assorted clips, is bloody but not very scenic).  I’ve got a picture of the beach somewhere but since Mo is the photo editor in these parts and she doesn’t do late nights, you’ll just have to take my word for that too.  I’m taking lessons on editing photos for the occasions when my flights of fancy take me by surprise and require me to sort out my own illustrations but it’s taking time.  A slow exposure for a slow learner?

At long last I’ve realised that there’s nothing wrong with being a slow learner.  Whatever we’ve grown up thinking, learning is not a race.  Like golf, it’s something that can – should – last a lifetime.  I know people, good sportsmen, with an eye for a ball and a facility for games, who struck golf off their list because it didn’t click right away; they couldn’t master it first go, so they abandoned it, unwilling to be bad at something, if only briefly, after always being good at everything.  Their loss.

We at WHGC, along with a lot of other golf clubs and organisations, are promoting the game as best we can, trying to encourage girls and women especially to give it a go.  I’ve said it before and I suspect I’ll keep saying it until I keel over for the last time:  The thing I love about golf is that it’s INCLUSIVE not exclusive.  It’s the IN bit I like.  Let’s ditch the EX!

People, we’re full of notions.  We get an idea in our head and that’s it, we’ll never shift.  Golf is not for the likes of us (the likes of us, who are we when we’re at home?), it’s a game for fuddy-duddy codgers with ruddy faces and rotund tums.  Well, yes, it is – and why shouldn’t it be? – but it’s also for slim Jims, svelte Sues, creaky Chrisses (sp??), rip-roaring Rorys, toddling Tigers, retirees, primary schoolers; black, white and every colour in between; male and female and every orientation in between; big, tall, petite, size is no object.  Money might be but that’s not insurmountable.

Look at me and you’ll see – well, I shudder to think but I’m white, flabby, female, elderly (yuk!!), middle-class and I play golf.  Help.  A lot of my friends and fellow golfers are like me (if less flabby) and we can’t help most of those things.  We could be less flabby if we decided to fight against nature and give up the wine and the gin and the cheese on toast and we could give up golf but the rest is, essentially, beyond our control.

I love my friends but I don’t want all golfers to look like us.  I want more golfers to look as unlike me as it is possible to be!  The trouble is that I look like me and people make assumptions, as we do, based on looks mostly – and assumptions.

Dangerous things assumptions, as a magistrate, a member at Royal Portrush as it turned out, once told me when I gave evidence before him.  He dismissed my version of events – I’ve neither forgotten nor forgiven – but I’ve been chary of assumptions ever since.

Finally, congratulations are in order to two people:  to Jenny Burton, who is retiring after nearly 33 years of keeping things in order at WHGC and to Rory McIlroy, who is celebrating his 30th birthday tomorrow.  Ask Jenny, or most of us, Rory, that big 3-oh, ho, ho of yours isn’t so bad after all.  Have a good day.

 

 

 

 

 

If you have a sense of deja vu when you read Mo’s piece this morning, don’t panic – because you’re not hallucinating, you do have deja vu, or deja lu.  She’s so busy and so organised that she likes to write her blog early in the week, which is fine – unless she presses the wrong button, as she did on Wednesday afternoon.

My baby sister, who has forgotten more about golf than I’ll ever know, is convinced that Tiger will not match or surpass Jack’s record of 18 major championships.  I’m not so sure.  Tiger has just notched up major No 15 and, for some reason, three seems a much more manageable gap than four.  It’s still asking a lot and Tiger, although driven, is not quite the single-minded, one-dimensional being he was in his earlier years but it looks as though he hasn’t lost the mental toughness that always set him apart.  I never bet on him but I wouldn’t bet against him.  Normal rules do not apply.

My golf’s not much cop at the moment – nothing new there you might say and you’d be right.  The odd good shot here and there but a lot of squandering, frittering, whatever you want to call it and the putting’s going through a dire phase.  It’s not the yips, it’s not the greens, it’s not putting with the pin in but, whatever it is, it’s bloody annoying.

I try to tell myself that I don’t really care any more, that it’s not important, that I’m out there for the fresh air, the exercise, the friendship and the banter.  All of that is true but, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, it is SOOOOOO irritating and annoying that after more than half a century of trying, watching, reading, listening and, sadly, apparently, not learning……..

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.  Ah well.  Today it could be better.  Maybe aye or maybe och aye.

Early Wednesday was a disappointing day because I went to give blood – donation No 52 – and failed.  Well, for the first time ever it sort of fizzled out, too sluggish to satisfy the machine that monitors these things, half a bag at most, so we aborted.  Can I come back next week?  No.  It counts as a donation, so you have to wait the obligatory few months before trying again.  Oh, piddle, as my aunt used to say when something annoyed her intensely.

Fortunately, that was the afternoon that Mo’s piece plopped into my inbox and cheered me up no end – being early is not a crime and, even better, it’s not even life threatening (at least in this case).  What’s more, she’d got a title, which saved me having to go through my excruciating range of head scratching, puns and alliterations.  What’s not to like?  After all, what’s a couple of days between friends?

Best of all, there was a dinner at the club that night, admittedly a bit of a bittersweet affair because it was to say thank you and goodbye to Jenny Burton, our administrator, who’s retiring after 32 years at Whittington Heath (formerly Barracks) GC.  There’s nothing Jenny doesn’t know about the club and how it works and a lot of the captains under her command were there to pay tribute.  There were a lot of stories, a lot of laughs and some tears, which all added up to a great evening.

Somebody at the golf club was talking to me about challenges, how they still, at their great age (!) liked a challenge and it got me thinking:  Did I like a challenge?  Had I ever liked a challenge?  Is it important/necessary to like a challenge?

And you know what?  I realised that for most of my life I’ve been surrounded by people who like challenges, who are always striving to get better, to improve; competitive animals with a drive to win.  The trouble is, if you’re talking about games, about competitions, there are always winners and losers.  That’s the nature of the beast.  But is it the nature of life – the concept of nature raw in tooth and claw notwithstanding?

I’m a competitive animal, up to a point but when it comes down to it, if I’m not picking up a medal, if I’m finishing next to last in the medal or cheering Spurs on to third in the league, I’ve decided that, whatever the outcome,  I’m happiest of all soaking my aching feet in a bowl (well, a cat litter, with more room for big feet, bought in Cromer in a fit/foot of enthusiasm) of Epsom Salts.

There’s more than one way to put a bit of fizz into your life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, that old saw “all things in moderation” didn’t get much of a look-in at Augusta this year, did it?  Certainly not on the Sunday when it was all hands to the pumps to avoid the apocalypse that the weather people had predicted – and which skirted the property but hit elsewhere with devastating effect.  Instead of the mother of all storms we had a rip-roaring godmother of a Masters, a tournament of the ages for all ages.

The early two-tee start seemed sacrilegious – and such a break with tradition at such a place was a sure sign that this wasn’t just any old weather warning – but the scrunched-up schedule added to the drama and sense of excitement.  A host of players jostled up and down the leaderboard, more than a few of them genuine title contenders on the day that someone’s dream of winning a green jacket becomes a reality.

Even I, cynical and hard of heart, couldn’t begrudge Tiger the sweetest victory of his star-studded career.  Never mind his shot-making and touch, the man’s concentration and control were immense, impervious and made him indomitable.   It was no wonder that, the last putt holed, the prize secured, he screamed, flapped his arms, hopped a bit, screamed again, hugged everyone, shook hands, then screamed some more and flapped again.  He didn’t know what to do with himself.  He’d given everything and the release of tension, all those years of pain, humiliation, frustration, everything, exploded in one ecstatic volcanic eruption.  A man overjoyed and overcome.

“We did it,” he said as he gave his caddie Joe LaCava a crushing bearhug.  “You did it,” LaCava said.

But Tiger was right, he couldn’t have done it alone.  This was a team effort, a victory achieved through blood, sweat and tears, with the love and support of family and friends.  No wonder their beaming smiles lit up an amazing Augusta afternoon.

 

It may not match the goings-on in Georgia but there’ll be no shortage of emotion at Gleneagles in September (13-15) when Europe attempt to wrest the Solheim Cup back from the United States.  The Europeans, perennial biennial underdogs, have never lost in Scotland, with epic wins at Dalmahoy (in 1992) and Loch Lomond (2000), so it’s as well that captain Catriona Matthew, from North Berwick, has always remained cool and calm under pressure.

The other week, Catriona was in Selkirk for the launch of a Solheim Cup tartan, commissioned by VisitScotland and designed by Rebecca Ferguson of Lochcarron of Scotland.  In a spirit of hospitable unity, Rebecca included red, white, blue and yellow in the design and Catriona said, “The tartan looks fantastic and I love that it represents the colours of the European, US and Scottish flags.  The Solheim Cup is hugely competitive but played in great spirit between the two teams and I think this tartan represents that perfectly.”

Scotland now claims to lead the world in the development and promotion of women’s golf, so it behoves the rest of us to make sure that we keep up.  And we don’t need to be superstars to enjoy golf or promote it.  Today is the end of Golf and Health Week, which aimed to highlight how good golf is for our health and wellbeing and if you go to golfandhealth.org, you’ll see that it’s a lifelong thing, not just a fad or phase of the week.

Marilynn Smith, one of the founder members of the LPGA, who died earlier this month, just short of her 90th birthday, thought golf was for cissies until her parents insisted she try it when they realised that playing baseball with the boys was doing nothing but harm to her vocabulary.  She fell in love with the game and spent a lifetime promoting it and encouraging girls and women to play.  Vibrant, enthusiastic, engaging, interested and interesting, Marilynn was also a player of no little skill, with 21 wins to her name and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2006.

If you go to lpga.com, you’ll find Ron Sirak’s lovely tribute to Marilynn, a woman with a gift for friendship and a smile for everyone.  Just last month, at the Bank of Hope Founders Cup in Phoenix, Arizona, she and fellow co-founders Shirley Spork and Marlene Bauer Hagge were on hand to support and encourage today’s LPGA players and join in the Drive On initiative to get more girls golfing.  Indomitable. Irrepressible.  Inspirational.

 

 

 

 

Ambivalence is the name of the game for me this week.  Really, mostly, I don’t know what to think.  Or, at least, until I sat down to write, I didn’t quite know what I thought.  There was that missed tiddler by Sergio and all the hooha about what was equitable, what his opponent Matt Kuchar should or shouldn’t have done.  Of course, in normal circumstances, Kuchar would have conceded the putt but Sergio, in a fit of irritation, dragged the ball back and didn’t give him a chance.

The Spaniard, who won the Masters title two years ago, seems to have ditched most of the maturity that he displayed that April and has been behaving like a bit of an eejit so far this season.  Battering greens and bunkers in temper and behaving like a man on edge, who knows why?

Lots of people seem to think that Kuchar should have levelled things up by conceding something later on and there were scornful comments about golf and its pernickety rules and I swithered, not sure what I would have done in the circumstances.  And you know what?  I don’t think I’d have given Sergio anything apart from a shrug and some sort of semi-sympathetic grimace.  He’s a seasoned professional, a major champion playing in a big event, not a 54-handicap beginner who doesn’t know any better.  Toddler temper tantrum, loss of hole, end of story.  And none of my money on Sergio to win another green jacket.

That brings me to the much-lauded Augusta National Women’s Amateur, hailed as a breakthrough for women golfers worldwide.  The trophy is lovely, classy, as one would expect but, really, doesn’t the hype exceed the reality? In case you hadn’t heard, the event was announced by Fred Ridley, father of three daughters and newly anointed chairman of Augusta National GC, at the Masters last year.  Women to play a major event at ANGC?  Wow.  Was there a blue moon or something?   Were pigs flying?  Had hell frozen over?

More importantly, had Fred discussed it with anyone else?  Had he consulted Mike Whan, commissioner of the LPGA Tour about the clash with the ANA Inspiration, the first major championship of the year, an event that traditionally included the best women amateurs?  Had Fred, good intentions notwithstanding, really thought it through?

As it turns out, the first two rounds of the 54-hole event were at a course called Champions Retreat, with 30 players (out of 72) qualifying for the final round at Augusta National on Saturday.  In a quaint quirk, all 72 players get to play at Augusta National today (Friday).  Mmmmmm.

Nancy Lopez, Lorena Ochoa, Se Ri Pak and Annika Sorenstam, legends and good people all, are endorsing the new event and gracing it with their presence, so how can I condemn it?  Perhaps it will herald a new era for women’s golf but if I had to sum it up in one phrase it would be “crumbs from the rich man’s table”.  And one word?  Patronising.  Or, since it’s in America:  patronizing.

The winner won’t care but there’s still work to do, Fred.

And perhaps the clash will encourage the ANA Inspiration to live up to its name – and its origins as the Colgate Dinah Shore – and be inspired to up its game.  The Dinah started in 1972 at Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage, California and it blew every other event off the fairways with its (for the time) massive prize money, glamour and exposure.  It’s still at Mission Hills and has long been elevated to major status but for too long it’s traded on its reputation; its prize money has gone up but lags behind most of its fellow majors and, frankly, it now lacks glamour, exposure and inspiration.  Work to do there too.  Wonder if Fred and his cohorts, as promoters of the women’s game, could help.

Meanwhile, at the Ayla Golf Club in Aqaba, Jordan, there’s the unique Jordan Mixed Open presented by Ayla, where the Ladies European Tour, the European Challenge Tour and the Staysure Tour (European Seniors) are competing on the same course (albeit the yardages are different) at the same time.  Daan Huizing, a Challenge Tour member from the Netherlands, had a 64 in the first round to lead by one shot from the English duo of Jack Senior, another Challenge Tour man and Meghan McLaren (LET), whose father David is currently in charge of the Staysure Tour and is happy to confess that all the women in his family are better golfers than he is.

The event’s hashtag is WeShareTheSameDrive.  So, golf really is for all.

Last Friday and Saturday at Whittington Heath GC, we had great fun with some of Europe’s best long drivers competing in a round of the European Long Drive Games and showing us some amazing moves (see pics).  It was a bit cold with a bit of a breeze, so no one quite beat the 400-yard mark but there was a lot of jaw-dropping hitting, some of it accurate enough to be measured!  They brought 1000 balls with them, in a variety of colours and they were battered to blazes as the music blared out.  If you get a chance to go and watch these big hitters, take it.  It’s great fun.