My sister blogger is sometimes very critical of how little golf there is in these blogs but sometimes there are very good reasons for that.  There’s no denying that, at base, I’m a golf tragic but even so, time after time, I’m reminded how little I know about the game and that you have to make room in your life for other things.

Normally Mo and I would spend Masters week together, leaving Brian to escape the endless, ultra-nerdy golf chat as best he can but this year covid intervened and we didn’t get together until the final day, the Sunday that I tested negative at last and felt safe to travel.  How I’d missed our usual pass-remarkable major-watching binge, poring over the runners and riders, checking the progress of our choices and wondering just how on earth Harry Kane (wearing Nike off the pitch as well as on) had made it from Brum on the Saturday afternoon (Spurs away at Villa, 4-nil to us somehow) to the fairways of Augusta National on the Sunday.  Harry’s a 4-handicapper apparently, whatever that means these days:  don’t give him too many shots I suppose.

Seven of us, via Zoom, from Inverness to Lichfield to Wrexham to Nairn to Cheshire, paid a tenner each and got six picks.  We drew cards to determine the order of choice and I swithered between Scottie Scheffler and Cam Smith first up but plumped for the Aussie.  Wrong!!  Pam, next up, picked Scottie and scooped the winnings.  Brian, whose men performed woefully (Spieth, Schauffele and Koepka) or not at all (Casey) got his stake back because of Rory’s final round fireworks.

Thank goodness I’m not a gambler because nowadays it’s too too easy to bet on the proverbial flies working their way down the window pane; the score at 63 minutes; the second corner; the third throw-in; the first penalty; the lowest score in the threeball; closest to the pin at the 13th or wherever; number of bunker shots holed at the 18th, whatever.  You can’t escape it, it’s insidious and dangerous.  Gamble responsibly.  Yeah.  Right.  Of course.  That’s why it’s a multi-billion business.

I first had a bet on the Grand National when I was nine, just shy of ten (Team Spirit in 1964) but it never developed much beyond the odd annual punt.  I realised I wasn’t cut out to be a gambler when I had a fiver to win on Red Rum one year and found myself shaking ever more uncontrollably as the race progressed.  He won but ever since then my punts have been few and far between and very modest.

It also helps that my picks are usually far from inspired, mostly rubbish in fact.  Admittedly, I had fairly sustained interest at Augusta this year thanks to Smith, Shane and, more briefly, Sungjae Im.  Adam Scott made the cut but perhaps I now have to file him and Justin Rose and Gary Woodland, my other two choices, under “been and gone and done it”.

The golf writers have this competition called Pick Your Pro (PYP), which Dai always thought was daft (which it is ) not least because you have to choose your winners at the start of the season before a shot has been struck.  There’s a certain tolerance for the congenitally tardy but it’s a tough task – and my best effort was the year I came stone last and got my money back!

Whenever I enter, my first ambition is to have my picks actually play in the event; then I want them to make the cut and some money; and, finally, miraculously, I want to pick a winner.  So far this year, I’ve fallen short on all three counts but on the bright side, I’m far from last and there’s still hope.  I may have picked Bryson DeChambeau to defend the Arnold Palmer Invitational (didn’t play) and Nelly Korda to win the Chevron Championship (ditto), Spieth to win The Masters (missed the cut) but how do you think I’ll fare with my other major choices, top three, men only?

US PGA:  Dustin Johnson, Koepka, Rose.

US Open:  Rory, Max Homa, Justin Thomas.

Open:  Shane, Francesco Molinari, Patrick Cantlay.

Mmmm.  Yes.  Well.  Bear in mind that you can’t pick a player multiple times (bar end-of-season tour championships).  I see I have Scottie Scheffler winning the Memorial Tournament at the beginning of June – can his run last that long?

Ever optimistic, for the truly historic AIG Women’s Open at Muirfield I’ve gone all European:  Leona Maguire, Georgia Hall, Anna Nordqvist.  Now, that really would be brill and amazing.  But, really, who knows who’ll be doing what at the beginning of August?

This week, a bit further down the playing chain, the Rose Ladies Series, founded by Justin and his wife Kate to help women make their way in professional golf, continued at Sunningdale New.  Georgina Blackmann won in a play-off against Ince Mehmet and picked up a cheque for £10,000.  Nothing to the Saudis and Greg Norman but a handy sum nonetheless.

 

 I was looking forward to going to St George’s Park for the first time last Tuesday, to watch England’s under-19 women play Belgium in a qualifier for the European Championships in the Czech Republic later in the year.  Covid killed that outing but England won 3-nil to secure their place in the finals, so I’ll be cheering them on this summer.

 

I don’t know how many of you have tried disc golf but apparently it’s one of the fastest growing sports in America, which means it’s pretty big.  There was an article about it in The Times (London) last month, by Will Pavia, who told us that Ricky Wysocki, 28, from Arizona, is making a pretty good living from launching his frisbees into a chain-strewn basket.  He’s earned more than $500,000 in prize money (not sure if that’s per season or over several seasons – forensic research is no longer this blog’s area of expertise) and has a contract worth more than $1 million with a frisbee manufacturer.

There’s a disc golf course in Beacon Park in Lichfield but not for long because the council are going to close down the golf course and the disc golf (not that long installed itself) and put in a zip wire or some such.  It’s difficult to know quite what they have in mind because they seem disinclined to pay any attention to what their parishioners have to say on the matter and still haven’t re-opened the council offices – not so much fear of Covid now, I suspect, more the relief of avoiding face to face meetings with the people they’re supposed to represent.  Be still my inner cynic.

The local disc golfers were competing here last Sunday – no advertising, so we (not the royal we, we the dog walkers, although admittedly I’m only honorary) found out about it by accident, being nosy and wondering why the golf course was closed for the day.  We chatted to bods who were practising for the big comp and discovered that there’s quite a thriving disc community in the Midlands.  They were fairly complimentary about the Lichfield track and gutted that it was earmarked for closure.  One of the stalwarts has a daughter who is No 1 in the world in her age group and will be competing in the world championships in America later this year!  And we’re closing places down.

Moving up the pay scale, Greg Norman and his Saudi-backed circuit have announced a schedule, starting at the Centurion Club in Hertfordshire in June, just before the US Open.  The prize fund is £25 million.  For that one event; over 54 holes; no cut; 48 players.  Well, if you want to attract the attention of any professional sportsperson, you offer them money.  We play for fun (!), they play (work) for pay.  And at the last count the LIV Golf Invitational series of eight events was offering a total of $255 million, an eye-watering sum to most of us, a drop in the desert to the Saudis.

When DP World, the Dubai based logistics company, became the title sponsor of the European Tour, it was exciting news that the 47 events in 27 countries were worth $200 million.  An absolute bargain, it would appear.  Mind you, I’m reliably informed that DP World, who own P&O Ferries, owe the Seamen’s Pension Fund nearly as much, in which case it’s a very substantial sum.  Funny what you can do with numbers – though more often than not it’s not funny at all.  Just ask Robert Maxwell’s Mirror pensioners or the sub-postmasters shafted by the Post Office.

When it comes down to it, tournament golf may be a business, sometimes very big business but it’s not essential, the world wouldn’t grind to a halt if it disappeared altogether.  It can add to the gaiety of nations and some of us would miss it, Paddy Power and co more than most – though there’ll always be raindrops racing each other down a window pane somewhere.

Moving on to more important matters, we had our ladies’ captain’s first charity comp on Tuesday, a 9-hole Texas Scramble, followed by a fashion show (brave members doing the modelling) and lunch.  We raised quite a bit of money with a raffle and an auction (boosted by telephone bids from Cheltenham)  – more than £500 I think – and I’ll keep you posted on progress over the next few weeks and months.  I’ll also give you the full proper name of the charity, a variant of muscular dystrophy which affects children, including the gorgeous grandson of one of our members.  Some things are far more deserving of mega dollars than golf tournaments.

You may remember 50 Shades of Grey, a very successful trilogy, which, I hasten to add, I never read.  However, when I was ladies’ captain (nearly ten years ago now), I wrapped the three books in brown paper and auctioned them, sight unseen, for my charity.  The lovely John Tipper, whose funeral was yesterday, won the bidding with his characteristic generosity and accepted the surprise with his trademark laugh.  I never asked him if he read the books.

John loved his family, his friends, his sport (a wide variety), appalling puns, bright ties, any number of things, including Matt, the Daily Telegraph’s genius of a cartoonist.  I roared with laughter when I saw this cartoon on the back of the order of service, not least because it was, for me, the essence of the man.  It was John Tipper to a tee.  Thanks so much for the laughs.

To finish on a brighter picture (literally), here’s a glimpse of Lichfield’s three spires, one of my better efforts?  Well, the sky’s a great colour.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a cardboard tube in my kitchen and rolled up inside it is one of Lee Wybranski’s posters of the Open Championship’s return to Royal Portrush.  Hard to believe it’ll soon be three years since that momentous day in the driving rain on the Dunluce links when an Irishman won the Open in Ireland…..and I was there!

Said poster had been purchased early in the week.   It was, after all, a momentous, historical happening to have the greatest golf tournament in the world return to a club I’d been a member of all my life.  I’d grown up in a place no one wanted to visit and people were afraid to come to, and now, against all the odds, the golfing world was beating a path to our door.  After Shane Lowry had been declared “the Champion Golfer of the Year” Patricia suggested holding off on framing the poster until I had asked Shane to sign it for me.  Working as I was at that time at all the majors, and having access to a great number of the players, this seemed to me to be a great idea and the trip to the framers was delayed.

Seven majors have come and gone since then and I haven’t been able to attend a single one.  Six have been in the States and Covid  travel restrictions meant I was unable to attend with the result that the poster is still in the tube, unadorned by Shane’s scrawl.  The wonderful Americans I work for have long memories, seemingly, and they have asked me to work for them again this year at all the men’s majors – but my pesky Long Covid complications mean it’s highly unlikely I’ll be fit enough to manage a transatlantic crossing this year.

So, it’s all going to rest on this year’s Open at St Andrews, one of my favourite places.  My goal is to be fit enough to work there, go armed with the poster and find Shane – I’ll even have a sharpie at the ready!

I formulated this plan while watching Shane in the final round of the Honda Classic at the weekend.  The burly Irishman was bidding to win for the first time since that magical day in Portrush and after three rounds he was five shots behind overnight leader Daniel Berger, who was playing superlative stuff.  Berger, however, went to bed on the Saturday night and got up the next day with somebody else’s arms on and after only five holes the pair of them (the two players, not Berger’s arms!) were tied.  The American, good enough to play, and win, the anchor match in the Ryder Cup singles last year, was at odds with his game all day, finally shooting 74 to finish fourth.

Meanwhile, Shane played beautifully round the demanding Champions course at PGA National in West Palm Beach, where he now lives, and found himself two ahead with six holes to play.  Golf – and tournament golf in particular – has a habit of producing blow and counter-blow.  Just as a Lowry victory was seeming assured enter stage right the talented Austrian Sepp Straka who had been hanging around all day on the leaders’ coattails.

A blistering run through the famous stretch of holes known as the Bear Trap contributed to a final flourish of three birdies in the last five holes for a 66 and a ten under par total.  That left Shane needing a birdie at the last to force a play-off and in a monsoon of a downpour he could only manage a par.  Sad for all the Irish supporters but historic for Austria who now have their first ever winner on the PGA Tour.  No doubt Straka will now be focused on following his countryman Bernd Wiesberger on to the Ryder Cup team, thus becoming only the second Austrian to achieve that feat.

Talking of Ryder Cup matters, last Monday the worst-kept secret in the game was confirmed when Zach Johnson was announced as the 2023 American Ryder Cup captain.  In accepting the top role this five-time playing member and two-time vice-captain of the American team will be attempting to win overseas for the first time in thirty years.  That’s a tall task but I suspect Johnson may well be up to it.

No word yet on the European captain but the smart money seems to be on Luke Donald.

Zach seems to fly a bit under the radar as far as the public is concerned but I’ve always liked him.  He has a green jacket and an Open title, won at the home of golf, tucked away in his locker so his playing credentials are tip-top.  I always found him courteous and thoughtful when interviewing him and I’ll never forget him at his Ryder Cup debut at the The K Club in 2006.  He was drawn to play in the singles against Darren Clarke who had tragically lost his wife, Heather, to cancer six weeks previously.  Darren sealed an emotional win on the 16th green in front of an emotional home gallery that rose as one from their seats in the grandstand to serenade him with the “Fields of Athenry”.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house and such scenes had never hitherto been witnessed at a Ryder Cup.  The rookie Ryder Cupper Zach Johnson was the perfect gent.  He fully embraced Darren at the end of the match, completely getting the bigger picture and supporting the Irishman as best he could, one human being to another.

It was one of those times you realise there are just so many things bigger than you………….and golf.

 

It’s over three months since I was up at the golf club.  I can hardly believe it but that’s the length of time it’s been since I caught Covid and my life changed.  A golf club is not just a place for playing golf.  It’s a place for meeting up with friends, as well as new people, and for many it’s a social hub.  I miss it.

The club was where, in pre-pandemic days, I bumped into my friend Karl Morris, the eminent sports psychologist, who was just coming off the course with one of his stable of touring professionals. The two of them had been doing a bit of work on the golf course, working on the six inches between the ears.

This was the first time I had met Ryan Fox (above, with trophy), the amiable Kiwi, son of Grant of All Blacks fame.  Now, there’s a potential mental albatross if ever there was one!  Imagine always being referred to as so-and-so’s son, daughter, parent, sister, whatever.  Not a great start, surely, for a professional sportsperson who is constantly striving to build a bank of confidence and maintain it in the face of all odds?

We exchanged a few pleasantries and went our separate ways but that small interaction was enough for me to take a proprietorial interest in Fox and his performance out in Ras Al Khaimah last weekend.  A classy 65 in the third round, which the New Zealander modestly described as a performance in which “everything worked well”,  furnished him with a six-shot lead going into Sunday’s final round.  How would his three years of work with Karl hold up through a long night, followed by a long morning, followed by a long round of golf?

His lead was down to three by the turn and down to two with seven holes to play and as one of the fastest players on the tour he had to deal with having a really deliberate (in other words, slow) player in his group and a group ahead that slowed to a snail’s pace because of the strong breezes and the small matter of having a title, and much dosh, on the line.  Three years removed from his last win, this was a huge mental test for Fox.

Boy, did he rise to the challenge!  Birdies at the 12th, the hardest hole on the course and the 13th restored his lead to four which he held until he mounted the tee at the last.  A final birdie saw him win by five, which sounds a lot more comfortable than it was.  The chasing pack of eighteen players within three shots of each other meant there was never a moment’s relaxation.  How often do we see a lone bod out in front sucked in to the pack by a relentless peleton?  Not this time, I’m glad to say, and it’ll be a joyous Ryan who flies back to New Zealand to ten days of hotel quarantine before joining his wife and fourteen-month old toddler.

This was Fox’s sixth professional win and the first wire-to-wire winner for the DP World Tour since Lucas Herbert won last year’s Irish Open.  It was a performance of immense composure despite admitting to not sleeping well and then pacing around so much on all the greens and tees that he reckoned he’d walked twice as far as anyone else.  Well done Ryan and well done Karl.

Perhaps Ryan will be looking for a reading list to help him get through his quarantine stint.  That’s exactly what one of my Welsh friends, Janet Doleman, is seeking.  Prolonged tendon trouble is leading to an operation and another twelve weeks minimum out of action.  Meanwhile, a brand new set of Mizunos is resting unmolested upstairs.  Ah well, at least they’re not learning any bad habits at the moment.

Janet was asking me about some of my favourite golf reads so I thought I’d list a few to help some of you while away the hours.  First up, ANY book by John Feinstein.  Two of my favourites are “A Good Walk Spoiled” and “Tales from Q School”.  These give a great insight into the  behind the scenes stuff of tournament life and I found them both thoroughly enjoyable.  Another is “Who’s Your Caddy?” by Rick Reilly and finally, “Who’s that with Charlie?” by Charles S Mechem Jr.  Charlie was the much-loved commissioner of the LPGA for a five-year stretch at the beginning of the 1990s and reading his book is akin to spending a wonderful evening with a friend and consummate storyteller.

If it’s help with your game that you seek while in your armchair, look no further than any of Karl Morris’ books or those by Vision54 founders Lynn Marriott and Pia Nilsson.  You won’t go wrong with a Bob Rotella book either.  They are mostly slim volumes, easily digestible and packed full of the secrets the best in the sport strive to incorporate into their own games.  They are not technical but full of common sense advice.

Happy reading to all, but especially to fellow golfers confined to barracks at the moment for a variety of reasons.