It’s pouring outside at the moment. The real proverbial cats and dogs stuff that means it’s perfect blogging weather.  Nothing else to do really but get stuck in, so why do I feel a bit like the weather?

It’s three days since I watched Bison – sorry, Bryson DeChambeau win the US Open at Winged Foot.  Now, as you know, I absolutely love the majors but this one left me feeling a little depressed and anxious.  Don’t get me wrong, there is much to admire about Bryson but in golfing terms I find I don’t feel energised about the game’s future or the path we seem to be inexorably following.

Over the last six decades there have been two dominant players in the men’s game – Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.  Jack arrived on the scene, winning his first major in 1962 and as my late brother-in-law, Dai Davies of The Guardian, wrote, “Jack hit the ball so hard he looked as if he might burst.”  This was golf as we had never seen it before and all kids watching aspired to be Jack.  I’m sure Tiger Woods was not the only youngster who had Jack’s record on his bedroom wall and went to sleep each night dreaming of winning as many majors as his idol.

And then came April 1997 and the Masters.  I was there, courtesy of tickets from Patricia and Dai, and set out to walk the first round with the phenom (horrible word) that was Tiger Woods.  He was all over the place on that front nine, going out in 40 and I thought to myself, “Just what is all the fuss about?”  I sloped off to enjoy a mint julep and watch some of the European contingent.  And, yep, Tiger blitzed the back nine, came in in 30 and was never seen again by the rest of the field.  He won his first major by 12 shots with a scoring record that stands to this day.

His game was impressive.  He had length, he could shape the ball both ways, he could vary his trajectory and his chipping and pitching skills, aided by a vivid imagination, were sublime.  His craft on the greens was equally impressive.  He had it all, so in retaliation “Tiger-proofing” of courses began, which principally meant adding length and, in most cases, narrowing the fairways in order to challenge accuracy.  And that has basically been the trend ever since.  Throw in growing the rough to cabbage-like proportions and you begin to get the picture as far as presentation of courses goes.

Is it REALLY a surprise then that this sort of examination should inexorably determine the path of development that players and, indeed, equipment should take?  Tiger (with apologies to Gary Player) forged the path of golfers training as athletes and these athletes over the past couple of decades have been able to work out how best to tackle the courses they now face on a weekly basis.  Aided by brilliant, cutting-edge research and development in the arena of clubs and balls the game has moved to a position where accuracy is no longer a valued currency.

Twelve months ago, with a committed, visionary team around him, Bryson DeChambeau decided on a strategy to a level never hitherto attempted by a professional golfer.  He decided to bulk up to massive proportions and concentrate on creating speed, speed, speed in his golf swing.  He trained to swing freely and full out every time, recognising through copious study of stats that accuracy was vastly over-rated compared to power.  What he has done is groundbreaking.  He’s trying to do something that hasn’t been done before.  He has already forged a path of having all his iron club shafts the same length and now he is training more like the long-driving champions while attempting to retain those fine motor skills needed around the greens.

As I said, there is much to admire about him, his work ethic, his single-mindedness, his commitment and the skills he has developed.  But is this what we want golf to be like in the future?  Frankly, the US Open was boring to watch.  Nothing but smash it off the tee as hard as you could and then smash it again from the rough somewhere up around the green complexes.  Granted Bryson’s putting and chipping were beautiful to set alongside his oh-so-impressive power but where were the demanding flighted long irons of Tiger’s day, the running shots, the high floaters, the left to righters, the right to lefters  and even, whisper it, the occasional 3-wood second at a par five?

There is an entire set of skills that is fast becoming obsolete and I think that’s what’s depressing me.  There are huge numbers of vastly intelligent administrators in our sport and I can’t believe it is beyond them to carve out the best path for golf.  Fear of possible legal proceedings from equipment companies is not a good enough excuse.  NO excuse is good enough.  Continue as we are and golf fans will continue to do what so many friends of mine did last Sunday – turn off their televisions and go and do something else.

It would be lovely to be able to say that, week in, week out, this blog is a well researched, considered piece but, as many of you will have suspected, that’s not the case.  I sit down at the trusty laptop – thought it’s been behaving badly this week, making the photos perplexingly smaller than they should be, although I might have sorted that, fingers crossed – and start tapping away, waiting to see what emerges.

There’s been a lot going on in golf in the last week, so where to start?  I had to laugh when Jon Rahm picked up his ball and stood there like a statue, stunned, as he and his caddy, gobsmacked, realised what he’d done.  The referee arrived and penalised Rahm one shot and from then on the Spaniard was like a man possessed, concentrating so fiercely that he ended up in a play-off with Dustin Johnson, the world No 1, who had to hole a putt of more than 30 feet to tie.  Rahm then holed from something like 66 feet to win the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields on the first extra hole.

I admit I laughed but only because I remembered that I’d seen Ian Woosnam do the self-same thing – pick up his ball without marking it – in the World Cup in Rome.   I think he was desperate to go to the loo and there was one behind the green, so his mind wasn’t on his golf at all.  It was manna from heaven for those of us covering the event because the World Cup rarely lived up to its title and was often so dull that it made ditchwater sparkle.  There’s nothing like a mega brain fade to brighten up the day.

Even the threat of torture couldn’t have made a wimp like me come up with the winners of that World Cup (in 1991); if you’d threatened my loved ones, I’d have had to yell, “Scatter, head for the hills, run like hell.”  The wildest of guesses wouldn’t have come up with Sweden in the shape of Anders Forsbrand and Per-Ulrik Johansson.  And guess who won the individual title?  Yep.  Ian Woosnam of Wales.  He’d been the leading individual before, in 1987, when he and David Llewellyn won at Kapalua in Hawaii, beating Scotland (Sandy Lyle and Sam Torrance) in a play-off.

The golf at that World Cup passed me by – most of the rounds took a minimum of five hours (or, if they didn’t, they felt as though they did).  What I do remember is the joy of staying in Rome, well worth an hour’s coach journey to the course.  Some of the agency journalists, with multiple deadlines, decided to move to digs nearer the course but that meant being billeted in the middle of nowhere, more or less and those of us with less taxing deadlines opted for a longer journey to work.  And, purely by chance, I discovered the perfect way to cover the World Cup.

If memory (what that?) serves, I was doing the Scottish Daily Record (as it was probably called in those far-off times) and the Scots, who were playing indifferently, were my priority.  One day Dai and I explored the catacombs with Kaye Kessler and his wife Ro, guided by a knowledgeable, witty and entertaining priest from Hong Kong.  It was a magical morning and Kaye, being an American journo of some influence and considerable charm, had organised a courtesy car to take us to the golf course; luxury.  Even more magically, we arrived just in time to see the Scots putt out on the 18th, perfect timing.

I’m not sure if that’s the year that Sam T  tried to avoid talking to me by nipping out the back door of the scorer’s hut – a counterproductive move if ever there was one because it just meant I had to pursue him to get a quote (which I later discovered the office were inclined to improve/embellish if they didn’t like the original).  He’d have saved himself a lot of hassle if he’d just waited and got rid of me in a couple of minutes.   A few years later, more clued up, less mobile, I’d probably have shrugged and made him sound positively eloquent.  Anyway, looking more closely at the results, I see that Wales finished one shot behind Sweden, with the Scots (Colin Montgomerie was Sam’s partner) in third place, three shots behind the Welsh.

The United States, who used to dominate the competition, finished in 12th place, alongside Italy and, stung, sent out their big guns in 1992, in the shape of Fred Couples and Davis Love III, a duo who proceeded to win four consecutive World Cups.

These days Woosie is a newly appointed ambassador for the newly minted Legends Tour, the latest incarnation of what was once the European Senior Tour and then became the Staysure Tour.  Ryan Howsam, who founded the Staysure insurance firm, has taken a majority equity share in the tour and will oversee the commercial strategy, working with Mark Aspland, the head of the tour.  They’ll be targeting wealthy amateurs who want to play with their golfing heroes on a regular basis and Howsam said, “I believe the untapped commercial potential that the Legends Tour has to offer is unlimited.

“Together we will build this into a brand for professionals, including Ryder Cup players and European Tour winners, as well as amateurs, spectators, promoters and sponsors alike.  Golf is unique in that it has high profile and lucrative competitions for players in the over 50s age group.  This is our expertise.  Competitions will be talked about, loved and watched and we will be rewarding and supporting our members with prize money and endorsements each season.”

The tour’s first ambassadors also include Mark James, Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley, Colin Montgomerie, Tom Lehman, Michael Campbell and Paul Lawrie, a distinguished line-up who can still play a bit and have a fund of stories.  Sartorial elegance is still a work in progress.

Lastly but by no means least, congratulations to Erica and Rory McIlroy on the birth of their first child, a daughter called Poppy, who arrived on August 31st.

 

 

 

I’m sitting here writing this with the rain pouring down, feeling very virtuous because I went for a walk quite early this morning and very frustrated because there’s golf – proper professional golf, with some famous players on the starting sheet – at The Belfry, just down the road.  It’s not the rain keeping me away, of course but COVID-19 and the restrictions that prevent any spectators from attending tournaments.  Players, caddies, officials and broadcasters at the ISPS HANDA UK Championship will be in their bubble, the sine qua non of tournaments going ahead.

I switched on the telly when I came back from my walk but there was no sign of anything from The Belfry, so I had to find something else to do and decided I might as well start writing the blog unusually early, i.e. before midnight.  Whether it’ll be finished before midnight is another matter altogether….

At least working at a computer is an inside occupation and there’s something vaguely comforting about the rain bouncing off a roof that seems to be doing its job with no sign of any leaks.  There’s nothing remotely comforting about rain bouncing off an umbrella as your hands and feet, your towels and glove, your clubs and composure get damper and damper, wetter and wetter.

Ross Fisher, one of the last of the early starters, had to play the Brabazon’s treacherous 18th in a downpour, misjudged his drive a bit, found the penalty area, aka water, on the left and wound up with a double bogey six.  He wasn’t unhappy with a round of 68, four under par and mentioned in passing that he’d got his angles a little wrong, not least because it was many years since he’d played the course.  Doesn’t time move on?  Once upon a time the European Tour was always at The Belfry, big events were held there year in, year out, not forgetting four unforgettable Ryder Cups.

The first of those was in 1985 and Europe, who’d come agonisingly close to winning at PGA National in Florida two years previously, lost three of the opening four foursomes.  Oops.  They rallied spectacularly and ended up winning 16 1/2 – 11 1/2.  Remember Paul Way, just 22, who’d beaten the formidable Raymond Floyd in the singles, celebrating on the balcony with great names like Ballesteros, Faldo, Lyle, Woosnam and Langer?  Way lost his golfing way but better, surely, to have had moments of real glory than none at all?

This week Brendan Lawlor, a 22-year old Irishman from Dundalk, a star of the EDGA (European Disabled Golf Association), who only turned professional last September, is moving up a league or three, in a field featuring players of the calibre of Willett, Martin Kaymer and Lee Westwood, to name just a few.  He’s the first professional disability golfer to play on the European Tour and even though he was 1 under par after three holes, he had a tough day on a course playing every inch of its 7,255 yards, finishing with an 84.  The Brabazon can be a bit of a brute, especially when it’s wet but Lawlor was unfazed.

“The back nine was a bit tough,” he conceded, “but I really enjoyed today.  I didn’t shoot the best score but it’s not about the score today.  The coverage over the last few days, people texting and on Instagram, looking at EDGA, that’s the reason why I’m here this week.  It’s really incredible.

“It’s a week to change my life and other people’s lives, so just go out and enjoy it and that’s what I did.  I didn’t have any expectations of scores.  I’m just so grateful to be competing on the same stage as these guys and getting opportunities like this.  What ISPS HANDA represent, they have asked me to be an ambassador this year as well.  It’s a great role for me and I’m enjoying it.”

The International Sports Promotion Society, founded by Dr Haruhisa Handa, who is also the founder and chairman of the Japan Blind Golf Association, is a charitable organisation that promotes sports such as golf, football and rowing, believing that sport “has the power to break down barriers, unite communities and create positive change in people’s lives and society”.  Dr Handa has also been appointed the European Tour’s honorary ambassador of the “Golfers with Disability Programme”.

Lawlor has a condition called Ellis-van Creveld, which he describes as “a type of dwarfism that means I have a shorter stature and shorter limbs but I’ve never let any barriers stop me.  I’ve never thought of myself as any different.”  He was also born with a hole in his heart and doesn’t have any knuckles at the top of his fingers.  “It’s tough to grip the golf club because I can’t bend my fingers in or make a fist, so my two index fingers sort of hang off the club but I’ve adapted because it’s all I’ve known.

“I only got into disability golf two years ago.  My auntie found EDGA on a website but initially my mam was afraid to ask if I would try it because she thought I might be insulted.  I don’t really think of myself as having a disability or being different and everything is so normal in my life but she said would you try disability golf and I thought I’d give it a go.”

And now he’s making his own bit of history.  Go Brendan.

 

You know how it is:  you look in the wardrobe and realise that you haven’t got a thing to wear.  So far, so normal.  A few years ago I read an article about a woman – a stylish Frenchwoman who lived in California – who had downsized her wardrobe to such a degree that the number of items in it scarcely reached double figures.  A sceptical fashion journalist was dispatched to interview this odd bod, fully expecting to be appalled at what she saw and was instead wowed by one of the smartest, most elegant women she’d ever met.

I longed to emulate that woman – no harm in dreaming – and did manage to reduce the number of clothes clogging up my far-from-elegant wardrobe.  That’s as far as it went, however and I fell by the wayside, lacking in key areas such as elegance, imagination and Frenchness.  I did my best to add a bit of colour and a modicum of what a generous soul might call style but recently my wearable world came crashing down, ripped asunder, left in tatters, with me sobbing in front of shelves stocked with the unacceptable.

Imagine the shock when you’re told that the things that you do have to wear are veritable abominations that are killing the planet, that every time you put them in the washing machine and switch it on, you are poisoning the oceans.  So much for the highfaluting notions of a self-styled eco warrior.  The argument that I should be doing all my washing by hand is for another day; after all, having dispensed with an iron and an ironing board, I’m not wasting energy at that end of the operation.  That’s part of the problem, of course, because a lot of those easy-care, drip-dry, non-iron, oh-happy-day, non-crease items are the killers.

And my wardrobe, such as it is, is full of them.

Acrylic, nylon and polyester abound in the form of skorts, stretchy golf shirts and tops, not to mention fleeces and the like.  All easy to pack, easy to wash, quick to dry – and lethal.  Aaaaaagh.

According to my WoolOvers catalogue and I quote verbatim:  “Every time you wash a garment, tiny microfibres are released into the water supply, less than 5mm long.  More than 4,500 fibres can be released per gram of clothing you wash.*  [*Plastic Soup Foundation, ocean conservation project co-funded by the European Union.]”

It continues, remorselessly:  “Polyester, nylon and acrylic are made from plastic.  Their microfibres do not biodegrade for many years.  Recent studies have shown that plastic microfibres have now been found in Arctic ice, Arctic snowfall and on the sea floor.  This suggests that plastic microfibres are airborne.  We are not only eating and drinking plastic, we are breathing it too.”  Aaaaaagh ad infinitum.

You can find out more at WoolOvers.com and WhatsInMyWash.org.uk.  I confess I haven’t studied either of them yet –  respectively, too pissed off with moths munching holes in my cashmere and too scared.  I did have a quick look for whatsinmywash etc, using all lower case letters and was told no such website could be found.  A casualty of the times perhaps or no longer available in the UK because of that EU funding?  Neither, as it turned out.  It just insists on capital  letters in the right place.  Pernickety or what?  In this day and age?  iau.  (I Ask You).  Or should that be wtf or lol?

Whatever.  You’ll be glad to know that Woolovers, hardly surprisingly, are fans of natural fibres like wool, cotton, linen and cashmere, which are biodegradable:  “They do not contribute to plastic pollution.  Yarns such as viscose and modal are made from the pulp of beech trees or bamboo, these also biodegrade…”

So there are things out there that we can wear with a clear conscience but what the hell are we to do with the old stuff other than wear it until it’s so rank that it walks away into the sunset of its own accord…..?

Talking of walking, Thomas Bjorn, the latest in Europe’s long line of winning Ryder Cup captains, is hot-footing it from Surrey to Wales this week.  The Dane set off from Wentworth yesterday, carrying the Ryder Cup and aims to arrive at Celtic Manor in time for the last round of The Celtic Classic this Sunday.  Then, blisters permitting, he’ll play in the ISPS Handa Wales Open next week.

Bjorn was inspired by Captain (now Sir) Tom Moore and is hoping to raise lots of money for Unicef UK’s Save Generation Covid appeal and for the Golf Foundation as part of the European Tour’s GolfforGood initiative.  Donations for the Wentworth2Wales walk can be made at https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/Wentworth2Wales.  Hashtags will come in useful too but my computer and I are getting old together and couldn’t summon up the hashtag symbol between us…..It’s probably not too late to have lessons….Good luck Thomas and safe tramping.

At least it was cool enough to play golf at WHGC yesterday – I cancelled Wednesday’s 1330 tee time for fear of heatstroke – and Mo had a good look at our latest array of diggers and assorted construction paraphernalia.  Far be it from me and Judy Two Shots to say who won the match against Mo and the redoubtable Sue M….No doubt they’ll be after a re-match when the pain subsides…

Finally, Mo and I were shocked and saddened to hear that Gordon J Brand had died, aged 65.  Our condolences and best wishes to his wife Lyn and the family.