Your six-week break from us is over!  Welcome back.

In the interim I’ve been on the golf course a total of four times – one full round and three nine-hole outings, the last of which was on Christmas Eve.  I bet you think I’ve taken advantage of this latest edition of lockdown life to hone my golfing skills as much as possible for re-emerging on to the fairways – whenever that may be.

Well, I haven’t done a tap.  Not a single swing in the practice net (which has been permanently up in the garden since last March), not a single putt on the carpet, not a single effort to work on my mental game.  Fanatical as I am about the game, it is an easy game not to play – particularly when there isn’t the prospect of even a few holes.  And when the diary is startlingly white and empty there’s no urgency to do anything at all.  I think it’s called drifting.  Am I the only one who is suffering from this?

Those who earn their living from playing the game are doing anything but drifting.  They’re working hard, building their confidence, their fitness, their mental strength, their technical games brick by brick, piece by piece.  Nothing new there, then – folk have been doing that for decades.

But, hold on, one person is working to the point of blacking out such is their effort level.  Who else could that be but Bryson DeChambeau?  He is heaving and grunting his way into the history books as far as physical training undertaken by a professional tour player is concerned.  His winter training has included swinging the club so quickly for so many repetitions that he has lost consciousness.  That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of a golfer training with that intensity.  I do remember years ago watching a training regime followed by (Sir) Steve Redgrave and (Sir) Matthew Pinsent which resulted in them both throwing up at the end of the session, but a golfer blacking out??  That’s a whole new frontier in our sport and it is fascinating to see where it leads.  So far it has led to one major and Bryson is eyeing up many more.  Are we witnessing the Gary Player of the modern era, I wonder, and will it yield the American a career grand slam, just as it did for the diminutive South African?  It’s going to be fun to watch how he fares in 2021.

It’s not possible for me to mention Gary Player without wondering why on earth he and Annika Sorenstam went to the White House the day after the attack on the Capitol to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Donald Trump.  I was very disappointed in them both and as representatives of our sport it was another instance of golf missing the bigger picture.

One piece of news that did gladden my heart was the recent engagement of Mel Reid to her partner Carly Grenfell.  The couple have recently moved to Jacksonville in Florida where Carly has started a new job working for the social media division of the PGA tour.  It surely signals the end of a tumultuous near-decade for Mel which started with the tragic loss of her mum Joy in a traffic accident in Germany.  Ensuing disenchantment with her life and golf resulted in some tough times but with the help and support of good friends and family Mel turned things around.  In 2020 she came out as gay and won for the first time on the LPGA tour and hopefully there are more happy, fulfilling times ahead.

It will be very interesting to see what 2021 brings us in terms of golf – in our own games, of course, as well as in the golf we watch and follow.

There are nine professional majors slated, five women’s and four men’s, an Olympics, a Solheim Cup and a Ryder Cup.  That has never happened before and is unlikely to happen again.  With nothing too exciting to occupy me at home (aside from freeing up storage space on my devices and trying to limit the amount of time I spend watching utter rubbish on telly) I have decided to publish my wish list for each of these events.  I have two self-imposed rules.  I must select someone I really think has the capability to win the event and I can’t nominate the same player for more than one victory.

So, in calendar order, here are my hopes and purely emotional picks for golf in 2021.

ANA Inspiration – Charley Hull.  Time for this uber-talented player to step up and really assume the spotlight.

Masters – Rory.  Who else?  A career grand slam would give us all something to smile about.  Cue another Irish major championship party!

PGA Championship – Hideki Matsuyama.  Am beginning to think the majors may pass him by and I don’t want that to happen.

US Women’s Open – Carlota Ciganda.  Have admired her and her game since first meeting her when she was 14.

US Open – Tommy Fleetwood.  This would be sensational for the “rockstar” and his incredible coach Alan Thompson, both fairly local to where I live.

KPMG Women’s PGA Championship – Anne Van Dam.  Such an exciting player to watch and the maturity she will gain from contesting and winning a major will lead to even greater things, I feel.

Open Championship – Rickie Fowler.  One of the most gracious interviewees in the game and a sensational bad weather player.  Also, it’s criminal he is, so far, major-less.

The Evian Championship – Minjee Lee.  The Australian is one of my favourite players to watch in women’s golf and as a nod to all my Aussie friends from tour days I’d love to see Minjee bring joy to her sports-mad country.

Olympic Men’s Golf Championship – Justin Rose.  A successful defence for the Rio gold medal winner and a thank you for all he and his wife Kate did for the women’s game in 2020.

Olympic Women’s Golf Championship – Mel Reid.  Has always viewed herself as an athlete first and a golfer second.  Suspect she would cherish this above a major.

AIG Women’s Open – Lydia Ko.  This former world No 1 has had a revolving door of coaches and advisers over the past few years but has stayed in the game with endless grace and class.  Carnoustie may well give her the opportunity to show off her supreme shotmaking and re-enter the major winners’ circle.

Solheim Cup – Europe, of course.  To hole the winning putt and achieve only the second ever victory on away soil – Emily Kristine Pedersen,  Europe’s No 1 player.  This would help erase the unhappy memory of her Solheim debut in 2017.

Ryder Cup – Europe.  Need you ask?  To hole the winning putt – Bob McIntye and another special golfing moment for the bonny country.

And that would conclude my perfect golfing year.  What about yours?

The 75th US Women’s Open Championship started yesterday, at Champions Golf Club in Houston and it has a very different feel in this pandemic-disrupted year.  It’s being played in December for the first time, on two courses, the Jackrabbit and Cypress Creek, for the first two rounds, with two-tee starts.  The final 36 holes will be on Cypress Creek and, of course, there are no spectators, so those of us glued to our telly screens will have a great, unhindered view of the action and large brown swathes of dormant Bermuda – the grass not the island; it’s described as having wiry rootstock and it’s tough to judge your shots out of it, so look out for a few glares and frustrated swipes as players seeking perfection have to accept that Dr Bob Rotella is right and golf is not a game of perfect.

This looks like being a proper US Open test, favouring patience, pars and from the look of Cypress Creek’s huge greens, a sublime touch with the putter.  At the end of the first round, the leaderboard was a vexillologist’s delight, featuring, in no particular order, the flags of the United States, the Philippines, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Germany and England – come on you Charley Hull. The total purse is $5.5 million with a first prize of a million dollars, well worth staying in a bubble for before heading home to celebrate.

Back in Staffordshire, at the less rarified level of WHGC’s Christmas comp, we were colourful and creative in our attire but our scoring was less festive and we finished well down the leaderboard despite hitting plenty of decent shots between us.  Suppose it was that Eric Morecambe thing:  all the right shots, just not necessarily in the right order….Most of you will have the good sense to realise that that is a bit of an exaggeration, verging on gross….And playing 18 holes again was a bit of a shock to the system after several weeks out, it could take a while to get back to match fitness.

Talking of shocks, a few days ago I looked a bit too closely in the mirror and decided to treat myself to a facial, telling a friend who’d never had one that they were wonderful, so relaxing, a real indulgence, pampering at its best, a real winter reviver.  I opted for something called the Caci Synergy signature facial that promised simultaneous skin rejuvenation and facial toning.  Just the ticket, I thought.

Well, it pays to read the small print.  What I’d failed to notice was the phrase:  “using microcurrent, microdermabrasion and LED light therapy”.  There I was, comfortably settled, waiting for some deep cleansing, followed by delicious lotions and potions, applied with the sure, soothing touch of an expert in her field.  What followed was more like torture, perhaps devised by the people who designed the electric chair.  There were electrodes involved, designed to tighten and tone and at one stage an amazing light show, like being at the optician’s.  I did make the mistake of opening my eyes at one point, to see bundles of wires descending towards me.  I didn’t open my eyes again until it was all over.

I concede that there may have been a firming up of a bit of cheek at one stage but I spoiled it by bursting out laughing, although mostly I was thinking of dungeons and the Gestapo and how it wasn’t at all what I’d expected.  As I was leaving, I picked up a brochure and read phrases like “non-surgical face lifting”, “tiny electrical impulses that mirror the body’s own natural bioelectrical field”.  Ah.

The FAQs section started with “how many treatments should I have?”  The answer?  “Although a remarkable difference is seen after the first treatment, the benefits are cumulative and typically a course of 10-15 treatments will be required for optimum results….After a course of treatments you will see real improvements in how your skin looks and feels.  Your facial contours will look lifted and toned with a fresher, more youthful appearance.  A monthly top-up treatment is then recommended to maintain results.”  Aaaagh.

The brochure is now in the recycling.  I’m close behind.

Talking of recycling, the LET have just launched a sustainability initiative called “Celebrating the Green”, presented by Dow and also supported by the GEO Foundation for Sustainable Golf.  The aim is to make a real difference, helping to conserve “our fragile biodiversity; reduce pollution of air, water and oceans; and address climate change….”   Among many other things, they’ve teamed up with OCEANTEE and will be using the company’s bamboo golf tees.  I’d never heard of OCEANTEE but founder Ed Sandison has big plans:  “By working with the LET not only will we continue to increase the use of bamboo sustainable tees but we will also be able to educate the golfers of tomorrow about the importance of sustainability and the impact of pollution.”  They’ll also be working with the Marine Conservation Society and all being well, several events are planned for next season.

Have a look at the LET website for more details, it’s quite impressive.  All that flying about is not too eco friendly but, for instance, Aberdeen Standard Investments offset all player and caddy travel to and from this year’s Ladies Scottish Open and is working with ClimateCare to support the Golf Rainforest protection appeal in Sierra Leone.   So, we can all do our bit, the planet is not yet lost.

Sadly, we have lost the incomparable Peter Alliss and Mo pays her own tribute to a lovely man.  As the lowly editorial assistant at Golf World (UK), I used to have to transcribe his tapes and corral his flights of fancy into some sort of order.  Not always easy but great fun and great training.  In memory of those days Dave Oswald, GW’s former art editor, posted this picture on his Facebook page.  He recalled that it was an Open preview recce at Royal St George’s in 1981, very windy and he and Alliss played from the roped-off championship tees and barely reached the fairway at the 1st.  Still, Peter managed a 75.

If you get a chance, have a look at Alliss speaking at his induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2012 and his priceless pay-off.  I won’t spoil it for you – it’s too delicious to butcher – but it involves Mrs Weymouth (sp?), the teacher who told his parents that Peter would never amount to much…..

Finally, if you’re finding it hard to drag yourself out on these grey, winter days, wrap up warm, head out and revel in the conditions on a round with Alice.

Season’s greetings and all the best for 2021.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s amazing how you can chug along quite happily without something when you know it’s off the agenda altogether but then you can’t wait to get back in there again once permission is granted.  I found it remarkably easy to get out of the way of playing golf during lockdown – all those notions of using the orange whip on a daily basis, perfecting my turn, acquiring a backswing, practising my chipping and putting?  Lost on the road to hell like many a good intention.

Nature, I’m told, abhors a vacuum, so plenty of things popped up to fill the gap:  walks; lots of Zoom bridge; chats with friends; virtual singing via Zoom; more chatting; Christmas lists; cooking; watching cricket, footie, golf, rugby; reading; daily exercising with Esther Gokhale in an attempt to reverse decades of rubbish posture; virtual pep talk with Esther Rantzen….  This weird year has hurtled past faster than the promised speeds of HS2 – blink and you’ll have missed two of the buggers, empty more than likely.

Even so, the moment we in England were allowed back out on the golf course, I was off, with a tee time of 0740, alarm set for 0613, so I had time for some exercises, a bit of tai chi and a smoothie – organised, would you believe.  Except I wasn’t that organised.  I arrived at the golf club in the dark, got the clubs out of the car, then searched for my newly spiked golf boots – and searched again.  They weren’t in the boot, they weren’t on the floor, on the back seat, they weren’t anywhere.  So where were they?  Back home, in the kitchen, sitting shining on the floor, ready for action, just where I’d left them!

It was getting light, so there was no time to rush home.  I played in my trusty, super cosy Celtic & Co sheepskin boots, made in Cornwall and they were ace, comfortable, warm and, amazingly, ideal for golf.  After a shaky opening drive, using a fluorescent Callaway, I played surprisingly well – or, more accurately, hit quite a lot of decent shots.  On the greens it was a different story.  My partner and I both specialised in what Mum used to call “ultras” – as in ultra pathetic, efforts that were woefully short.  Never one to mince her words, Mum.  And, as mums are wont to be, she was usually right!

Some of you may have noticed that one of the blog’s loyal readers poured scorn on the very notion of winter golf, likening it to summer skiing, a daft, idiotic pursuit that no sane person would consider.  Much though it pains me to agree with him, there are days that are not made for golf.  Yesterday was one of them and my plans to play a few holes before going to the osteopath (routine maintenance, nothing too dire at the moment) were ditched the minute I peered out the window and saw the rain tipping down and ever-expanding puddles on the road.  It was also, according to the radio, very cold, with snow up in Scotland – in Ayrshire, for goodness sake, not too far from the coast.  I cried off the golf and had a cuppa in bed, thumbing through my tatty copy of Bridge For Complete Beginners in the hope of getting a nugget or two to stick.

It’s the Friday Frolics this afternoon, weather permitting – most of us are well beyond the stage of playing in the pouring rain unless we absolutely have to, no matter how good our waterproofs – and we’ve already had great fun sorting out our tee times.  Everybody is desperate to get out again, so we’re restricted to two advance bookings a week and we’re down from 10-minute intervals to 8.  There have, of course, been moans and groans, so the club sent out an email explaining, very reasonably I thought, why things are as they are:-

“We are fully aware of the limitations created by the booking system and know just how frustrating it can appear, when all we want to do is play a game of golf at our own club.  However, we currently remain duty bound to continue with a booking system – which allows us to open the course in a safe and compliant manner, by providing a robust recording system for COVID tracing.  Without such a system, we would not be seen to be protecting our members and could face fine, sanction or shut down for the duration of the pandemic….”

We now also have volunteer starters whose job is to keep us on time and, if possible, the straight and narrow……Good luck with that!

There’s still loads of professional golf going on around the globe and I was wondering where Dai and I would have been at this time of year – probably Australia after a couple of weeks in Japan.  It seems a lifetime ago, at a time when golf was a mainstay of the sports pages and there was no internet with never-ending coverage and enough websites to make you dizzy.  Happy days.

Finally, congratulations to Annika Sorenstam, who’s been elected president of the International Golf Foundation, successor to Peter Dawson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What to write about this week?  Well, I’ve polished up the trusty winter boots, taken them to our long-suffering, ever-accommodating professionals – nothing is too much trouble – and had some new, proper, old-fashioned spikes put in, ready for the out-of-lockdown off next week.

I hate soft spikes in the winter, don’t you?  They don’t give enough grip, they get clogged up too easily – even Whittington’s been a bit mucky lately – and that makes them positively lethal, plus they don’t make that wonderfully evocative, click-clackety noise as you’re walking to the 1st tee.

People are champing at the bit to get back out on the course, so we’ve introduced 8-minute intervals – down from 10, a very civilised gap – and are asking people to play in fourballs if possible, preferably quickly, so everyone has a chance to get in as many holes as they can before it gets dark.   I’m out, weather permitting, at 0740 next Wednesday, when golfers in England are allowed on the course again.  I’ll be studying Maureen’s tips over the weekend, in the hope of finding the secret and trying to remember where I’ve stashed the clubs….

Or perhaps there’ll be a Black Friday/Weekend/Pandemic deal on a new set?

There’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask for a while but haven’t got around to looking up:  what’s the difference between speaking and singing?  And, what exactly is a note?  Thanks to the inspiring Helen I know a lot more about singing than I used to.  For instance, in attempting Over The Sea To Skye the other day I realised that I could hear the waves in the music – well, those of us lacking soul are a bit slow on the uptake – but I also know that I’ll never be a singer, notes are quite beyond me.

It’s  a salutary day when a show-off has to concede that she really does have no outlet for her exhibitionist streak.  Cue sighs of relief from her family and friends.  Until they realise that Tyrrell Hatton is about to launch a John Daly inspired line of multi-coloured hoodies.  Hope it’s not just a rumour because if they fit John, they’ll certainly fit me….And, hallelujah, Abba dabba doo, there’s always karaoke of course.

It was pouring with rain in the south of Spain on Thursday, as the LET players sloshed their way round the Real Club De Golf Guadalmina on the first day of the Andalucia Costa Del Sol Open De Espana.  It was reminiscent of some of the weather during the Ryder Cup at Valderrama and brought back happy memories of all those tournaments in that neck of the woods and meeting up with the Ancient Britons, family and friends who lived on the Costa del Sol and now live on in our hearts.

Excuse me while I have a bit of a self-indulgent blub but I’ve been softened up, as always, by the late, great Maeve Binchy.  A friend lent me her book Evening Class, which I hadn’t read for years and there I was devouring it late into the night, just like the old days, despite swearing that I was only going to read a few pages and WAS NOT going to keep going into the wee small hours.  But I did.  I’m a sucker for a happy ending and Maeve drags me in every time, the characters so well observed, the dialogue brilliant.

Out in South Africa, at Leopard Creek Country Club, Adrian Meronk, of Poland, was doing a bit of trailblazing.  He led the Alfred Dunhill Championship after a first round of 65, to become the first Polish player to hold the lead in a European Tour event at the end of a round.  And last Sunday, Ondrej Lieser, of the Czech Republic, won the Challenge Tour Grand Final and topped the Road to Mallorca Rankings.  Good golfers are cropping up everywhere, which can’t be anything but good for the game.

Dai, who knew a good golfer when he saw one, despite falling a bit short of that category himself, paid a flying visit to Leopard Creek a few years ago, being whizzed the 500-odd miles there and back in Johann Rupert’s private plane.  There’s no hanging about if you’re invited to play a few holes with the owner of the course, one of South Africa’s richest men, an entrepreneur with a love of sport.

Not sure if Dai saw a real leopard, the member of the Big Five that is notoriously difficult to spot – even I have seen the other four, elephant, Cape buffalo, lion and rhino, on my one visit to South Africa – but it was a memorable trip nonetheless, not least for its whirlwind quality and he took pictures to prove it.  In the bottom two snaps, Johann is, according to Dai’s captions, picking his way back to the 9th hole, which he played, inadvertently, via the 18th.

I think even the professionals find it hard to concentrate on their game at Leopard Creek, which is on the southern border of the Kruger National Park and is a haven for wildlife.  It makes perfect telly viewing on a chilly winter’s day, even without David Attenborough to provide the commentary.

Finally, many congrats to Stephanie Meadow on finishing third in the Pelican Women’s Championship in Florida, five shots behind the winner Sei Young Kim and two behind Ally McDonald.  Mel Reid continued her good form with a share of 12th place.