I don’t know about you but I thought the US Open was terrific, compelling stuff.  Any number of people were still in contention with nine holes to play and it seemed that it was anyone’s to win.  It also seems like a long time ago now, even though it’s not even a week since Jon Rahm snatched his first major title.

Amazingly, he became the first Spaniard to win the US Open and boy (or nino), did he do it in style.  Tiger would have been proud of the ferocity of the fist pumps that followed the birdie putts at the last two holes.  And what putts.  They weren’t straightforward by any means, fast, downhill, curly jobs that were hard enough to read, let alone hole.  Sinking one of them would have been impressive enough but both?….Wow.

(This is where a well-organised blog would have a wonderful photo of Rahm uppercutting madly or beaming broadly holding the trophy.  Sadly, I couldn’t get a single one of the appropriate photos to transfer, so I’m hoping you’ve all seen the images somewhere and will forgive the technical ineptitude.  I was going to tell you what putter the new champ used but…no pic, no namecheck…)

Instead here’s a pic of Rory McIlroy, who was in contention throughout the championship – shock, horror, hooray – and only fell away over the last few holes. He three-putted the 12th and had an untimely and rather unlucky double bogey at the 13th, to scupper his chances.  I think those were the critical holes but I must confess that I dozed off – one minute Rory was on the leaderboard, well in the mix, the next time I looked he’d disappeared.  Such are the perils of late-night golf watching.  Anyway, a revitalised Rory is scheduled to play in the Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club from July 8-11, along with Rahm and any number of stellar names.  Tickets (strictly limited, so hurry, hurry, hurry, as the ads say) are available.

It’s the club championship at Whittington Heath this weekend – from the sublime to the slightly more ridiculous, admittedly – and I’m hoping the greens will be less speedy than the ones at Torrey Pines were.  My spies tell me that the rough has shot up, so from the sound of things I’ll be lucky to find my ball let alone the greens.  I had a club fitting last week but haven’t ordered new clubs yet, so will just have to blame the old ones – and the new trolley Maureen and Brian bought me for my birthday.  Hope I can assemble it in time for the first round tomorrow.

The big day was yesterday, so the big yellow Open scoreboard (pictured at the top of the piece I hope) is sheer indulgence but I couldn’t resist it.  I also got a video message from Hugo Lloris, the Spurs and France goalkeeper (no name check, though he has been a bit busy not saving Cristiano Ronaldo’s penalties) and the promise of a free Aperol Spritz from my local ASK Italian.  I knew there was a reason for signing up to everything and sundry.  Thanks also to everyone for their cards and good wishes.  Also, belated happy returns to two proper players who were born on the same day a few years after me:  Karen Stupples and Juli Inkster.

Another player who is really starting to pack a punch is Leona Maguire, who is now, surely, a virtual certainty to become the first Irish player to play in the Solheim Cup, this year (all being well, pandemic variations permitting, fingers crossed), at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio.  Leona was a close second to Nelly Korda, who is now the world No 3, in the Meijer LPGA Classic in Michigan last week and yesterday had a solid opening round of 72, level par, in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club in Georgia. Lizette Salas was leading on 67, one ahead of Woburn’s Charley Hull.

Still on a bit of an Irish theme (would you expect anything else!), Padraig Harrington has selected Graeme McDowell and Martin Kaymer as vice captains for the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin in September. They have both won major titles and holed the winning putt at the Ryder Cup and join Luke Donald and Robert Karlsson in a formidable line-up.

Maureen has done a tip this week, the first for a while and she assures me that it’s one of the simplest, most straightforward ones she’s come across.  However, a word of warning:  it is not quite foolproof, not least because Mo has found a fool uncomfortably close to home.  I’ll leave you to guess just who that might be.

If there’s a wrong way to do something,  I’ll find it.  I’m inclined to think it’s a skill, a God-given talent but suffice it to say that my sister cannot believe that any of you out there can be as clueless….

Finally, apologies to Suzanne Rundle for not naming her last week.  I was told off by the coach, who said such a magnificent effort deserved proper recognition.  So here’s Suzanne in glorious, free flowing action again, an inspiration to us all.

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.”