Hello everybody.  Welcome back and happy new year.  Who knows what on earth we bloggers will find to talk about in 2025 but let’s hope it’s a bit of a magical mystery tour.  It’ll certainly be a mystery to me and is well-nigh guaranteed to be baffling to a lot of you.

For a start, I’m already a gibbering wreck and exhausted having suffered through my struggling, depleted Totspurs clinging on for a much-needed win away to Hoffenheim in the Europa League.  We’re everybody’s favourite opponent at the moment – perhaps just pipped by Manchester United, who are even worse – because as the opposition you’re pretty well guaranteed a goal or two at least.  Even shot-shy Everton scored three against us, so I had to fall back, yet again, on Dad’s mantra:  Every result makes somebody happy….Aaagh.  Gritted teeth out and fixed.

I have friends, eminently sensible people whom I envy immensely, who have no interest whatsoever in football.  They just can’t understand people’s obsession with a game that leaves them cold.  There’s no explaining why it sometimes lights up my life; often plunges me into deep gloom; makes me screech like an enraged banshee; and has me yakking for hours on end to fellow tragics.  I tell myself I don’t really care but the truth is that too often I do.  Ridiculous.

The best day of all, though, was when Spurs came to Tamworth – and I was there.  It was so exciting and as a fellow Spurs/Tamworth supporter said of the Tottenham big names within arm’s length of the fans as they trekked round the ground on the way to the Portakabin that barely passes muster as a dressing room:  “They all look like ordinary blokes when you see them here.”

They could have lost too but brought on some of the big guns in extra time, to wit Son and Kulusevski – the Tamworth players, tiring after an immense effort, had a laugh about that – and won 3-nil in the end.  It’s another local derby for me next, Aston Villa away, so we probably won’t be going any further in the FA Cup this year.

Thanks to Andy Farrington of Bradley Scott Windows for making good on his promise, made on Colin Murray’s show on  BBC 5 Live, to look after me and get me a ticket, £38 well spent.  His company, named after his sons, are big sponsors of Tamworth FC and the company name was proudly displayed on the front of the very smart shirts for millions of ITV viewers to see.

That match was my third in eight days – Newcastle (2-1 to them), Liverpool (1-nil to us, miracle), then the mighty Lambs.         Last weekend I went to Tamworth again, when there was a respectable crowd of 1400-odd (there were about 4,000 at the Spurs game) and we (!) won 3-0 against the Pilgrims of Boston United.  COYL.  Come on you Lambs.

My golf has been a little curtailed by a slightly dodgy left knee and my increasing dislike of manky, grey, damp, bone-chilling weather.  A few swift holes, then in for a hot cuppa, that’s my preference at this time of year.  A wee carry bag, six clubs and you can scuttle round almost without noticing the cold.  We’re playing a revised layout at the moment and it plays merry hell with filling in the scorecard.  Starting at the 6th is straightforward enough.  So you fill in 6, 7, 8, 9.  Then you play 13, 14, 12, 10, 11, 15 and 16 and on in – or if you have any sense you head in and avoid 17, a long, boring, undistinguished nothing of a hole.

There’s been an alert from Portstewart Golf Club that all three courses and the clubhouse will be closed tomorrow, quiz postponed and everybody advised to hunker down in the face of Storm Éowyn.  It’s expected to be one of the most dangerous storms on record in Ireland and the UK won’t be immune.  Keep safe everybody.  Might be a day for bridge in a low building built on solid foundations.

Mega bucks seem to be the order of the day at the top end of professional golf but lower down, at the grass roots, there’s been a wonderful fund-raising effort in aid of Ireland’s National Breast Cancer Research Institute.  The Play in Pink initiative is supported by clubs and societies running charity golf days to raise money for the NBCRI.  The players play in pink and I’m delighted to wear my buff, designed by Lucy Torrey and a pressie from Mary McKenna, at every opportunity.

In the general scheme of things, given the state of the world  – wars, floods, famines, storms, devastating forest fires – losing a trophy can’t rank that highly but a precious possession is just that.  Precious.  Mo Martin, who won the then Ricoh Women’s British Open at Royal Birkdale in 2014, her only big title, kept the trophy at her mum’s house in California and that family home, full of memories, was destroyed by the recent fires.  Fortunately, the people and pets made it to safety but everything else was reduced to rubble.  Sickening.  Devastating.  Hard to take in.  Rebuilding will be a long, slow process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You really couldn’t make it up.  The draw for the third round of the FA Cup was live on the telly and as team after team was picked out, the Spurs ball remained steadfastly in the bowl.  Then, lo, Mark Hughes, looking in fine fettle, drew out No 53.  Tamworth.  The mighty Lambs.  And, yes, out next, produced with a flourish by Dion Dublin, was No 40.  Tottenham Hotspur.

Cue screeching and leaping about in Lichfield, which was a bit embarrassing because I was on a Zoom call at the time – don’t ask me what the Zoomers, in Australia and America, were saying, I confess I wasn’t concentrating.

My phone started pinging as the news spread and the enormity of the contest sank in.  First thought was how to make sure I get a ticket; it’ll have to be at the home end; so will I be cheering for the Lambs? Lots of people want to know who I’ll be supporting and that really is a bit of a tricky one.

There’s no escaping the fact that it’s a game Spurs have to win, to have a chance of a sniff of winning a trophy this season.  Of course they’ll be favourites but the moment a big team underestimates a minnow, look out.  That way upsets and disasters (sporting) lie.  A friend, a Villa supporter looking forward to taking on fellow claret and blues West Ham at home, said, “Can’t think you’ll send any first team players anyway!”

It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that that message made my blood run cold.  If we, as in Spurs, think all we have to do is turn up, we deserve to be stuffed – or beaten 1-nil, or on penalties;  do Spurs know that our (as in Tamworth) goalie Jaz Singh, a building surveyor, is ace at saving penalties?  That’s how we (as in Tamworth) won away at local rivals Burton Albion, just a few miles up the A38, on pens in the second round.

What’s more we (as in Tamworth), are so lowly that we have an artificial pitch, hated by the big boys; a tiny, tight ground that’ll be packed; crappy changing facilities (I have this on good authority from someone who’s been in there, so my advice is:  change on the coach); and, of course, a lot of decent players, including Tommy Tonks and his fearsome long throw; it has all the hallmarks of an FA Cup classic.  I can’t wait.

I have friends who hate football; friends who don’t get it at all, just don’t understand why anyone would be remotely interested; and friends who love it.  Don’t ask me why I love it – and sometimes hate it.  Who knows?  Probably the best explanation is that Mum, when she was pregnant with me, dreamt that they christened me “Wembley Stadium”.

Football, like all sports, is as we know, all about money.  Golf, which I think we all concede is a niche sport, has delusions of grandeur, at least at the top tournament professional level but I suppose we can’t blame professionals for lusting after money.  After all, that’s what being a professional is all about:  earning a living, making money.  Can we really criticise them for that?  The game isn’t just about glory.  Is it?

There’s been a lot of talk recently about Ryder Cup players (American) being paid to play in the biennial contest and I  think I saw that Tiger Woods, who’s been very quiet recently, concentrating on rehabbing from yet another back surgery, suggested upping the $400,oo0 to $5 million, with most of that being passed on to charity.  Now, that may be completely wrong because I confess I wasn’t paying too much attention but, really?  Why not cut out the middle men (the players) and give the money straight to the charities?  Is it a tax dodge?  What’s the point?  Am I missing it?

A lot is made of Ryder Cup players playing for nothing but that’s being disingenuous surely?  They get showered with gifts, their mouths stuffed with gold (that’s how Aneurin Bevan said he persuaded the doctors to sign up to the National Health Service:  “I stuffed their mouths with gold”) and more cashmere than one man could wear in a lifetime.  If a player doesn’t make money from the Ryder Cup, he should change his agent.

Anyway, Ryder Cup Europe and the PGA European Tour (DP World Tour officially on other occasions) have, “in collaboration with IMG and in partnership with Rolex”, produced a documentary about the build-up to the last Ryder Cup, in Rome.  It’s called Una Famiglia (A Family) and “gives unprecedented access to Ryder Cup preparations”.  I haven’t watched it yet but I’m sure it’ll be brilliant, emotional and tear-inducing – and I don’t think money will be mentioned much.  It’s available on Ryder Cup digital channels and will be broadcast in more than 100 countries.

It’s New York next, so let’s hope the contest emerges more or less unscathed, ready for Adare, in Ireland, in 2027….

Quite often the blog finishes with a photo by the incomparable Mary McKenna but this week I couldn’t resist passing on this beauty from my friend Bob Cantin’s latest Fishing For Fun newsletter.  I hope he and Tom Olivo, who took the picture, don’t mind.

Tom is Bob’s – and I quote here because it’s all-American and I don’t quite understand the college bit – “Sig Ep fraternity brother who lives in Bozeman, MT….

“The photo captures the stunning beauty of the Upper Madison River flowing through Yellowstone National Park.  Tom says that his AI paintings have reached a new level of quality as he is finally connecting his superior camera technique in the field with the AI computer work in his lab….”

Well, however Tom, who’s in the picture, managed it and whether he caught any fish or not, the only word is WOW.

 

 

 

Last week a young Thai professional golfer, Jeeno Thitikul, (above) won the CME Group Tour Championship, the final event on this year’s LPGA (Ladies’ Professional Golf Association) schedule.  The last two decades have introduced us to a conveyor belt of phenomenal talent from Asia, so this is surely not all that memorable?

I beg to differ.  Jeeno scooped $4 million for her efforts at Tiburon Golf Club, Naples, Florida last Sunday.  FOUR MILLION DOLLARS!  I never thought I would see rewards like that in my lifetime for a woman professional golfer.  This was the largest first-place prize in women’s golf and one of the largest single prizes in all of women’s sports.  It’s a mind-blowing amount of money and more than many players will make in their entire careers and she will forever go down in history as the player who first won a cheque of that size.

I’m very conflicted at the moment as to how I feel about the money sloshing around in golf.  I’m delighted for the women;  I think they have worked hard, – very, very hard – since the formation of the LPGA back in the 1950s and I know the LET (Ladies’ European Tour) have done the same since they were formed in 1979.  It’s been a struggle.  A long, hard, uphill battle sustained over decades and recognition of their skills by virtue of bigger prize funds is much deserved.

I feel if I were a sponsor I would certainly be putting my resources into women’s golf.  It’s hard to meet a more grounded, humble, hard-working set of athletes.  I’ve been involved as a player, a coach and a broadcaster in the game and signs of entitlement among the women are rarer than hens’ teeth.  You get a lot of bang for your buck with them.

And so, with a sigh, I turn to the men’s game.  It’s a different world, for sure.  Scottie Scheffler’s on-course earnings this season topped $29 million while Jeeno, the highest earner amongst the women, topped out at just over $6 million.  Of course, there will be off-course deals to add in to those totals but I was intrigued to see how these earnings compared with those at the top of other sports’ pyramids.  So, I did a little digging into the three biggest sports in the good, ole USA.

Dak Prescott, the Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback’s 2024 salary was over $100 million.  His SALARY!  Not performance related, therefore.  Steph Curry, basketball’s superstar guard for the Golden State Warriors, banked a salary of $55.8 million for 2024 and Shohei Ohtani, baseball’s wonder boy, had a base salary of $70 million.

Now, consider this.  My theory is that the majority of top world-class golfers live or have bases in the States and it’s a world where successful sportspeople mix with each other often, not least because many stars from other sports just love their golf.  Perhaps this has created an arena where some golfers feel undervalued.  They compare their earnings to comparable players in other sports and they have become discontented.  This is only my theory, remember, but there must have been some malcontent for the LIV golf tour to splinter the tour and the game so successfully.

The golfers, however, are spectacularly missing the point.  Sponsors pour their money in to a sport, largely based on the numbers of “eyes on”.  How many folk are attending the events, but more importantly, how many are tuning in and streaming said spectacles?

Here are some ballpark figures to digest.  More than 20 million tuned into the NFL – PER GAME;  11.3 million watched the basketball finals;  15.8 million followed baseball’s 2024 World Series.  A whopping 123.7 million watched the 2024 Superbowl.  The average Sunday viewership on the PGA Tour, including the four majors, was 2.8 million.  Are the golfers perhaps overestimating their drawing power a teensy- weensy bit?

The cold hard facts are, whether we like it or not, that golf is a niche sport.  There is currently not enough interest to merit enormous prize funds to boost golfers’ earnings to a level comparable with those who participate in the really popular sports.  Golf fans are being turned off by what they perceive to be the greed and entitlement of the players.  The current solution of the PGA tour is to limit the number of all exempt players from 2026 onwards, to increase the purses, introduce more tournaments with no cut and to have smaller fields.

No, no and thrice no!  That cannot be the way to grow the game (ghastly expression!).  Stifling competition can never be a good thing, in my view.  The smaller fields with no cut will do that.  The argument in favour is twofold – the fans want to see the best players in the world play all four days.  Well, I don’t.  I don’t want to see an out-of-form player chopping around for a guaranteed amount of money at the bottom of the field.  I want to watch a journeyman who finds himself in with a chance of a win after ten years on tour.  I want to watch a young player who’s playing with his idol for, for him, potentially life-changing money.  THESE are the stories that capture the imagination – or, at least my imagination.

The second argument coming from the tour is that the smaller fields will ensure that the first two rounds will certainly be completed by Friday’s end thus setting up a riveting weekend.  My solution is to say to the players:  “Get a b….y move on!  Play faster.”  There never has been a collective will to speed the game up and that is, quite frankly, pathetic.  Don’t the players and the powers-that-be realise that slow play is the biggest turn off for the fans?  The TV companies have colluded with this by cutting all the faffing about out and playing everything on a slight delay.  Who can blame them?

The final straw for me is the American Ryder Cup team seems set to receive $400,000 per man for the honour of representing their country on golf’s biggest platform.  Many folk ask, “How can you expect the players, upon whom the whole spectacle depends, to be the only ones who don’t receive any remuneration for their week’s work?”

“Quite easily,” is my response.  These guys earn tons and tons of money – why CAN’T they revel in the purest form of competition there is?  This money grab is grubby and tainting.  That word “entitlement” seems to be at the forefront of everything.

For my part, I know lots of people from all sorts of walks of life who have very little and they give so much time, effort and money to charities and to those less fortunate.  Is it really such a stretch for some of those driving this change to understand that this demand for payment is wrong on every level?

I do not like the way my beloved golf is going but it seems set on a path that will be difficult to arrest.

Turning the Titanic comes to mind.

It’s coming up to five weeks since I took a tumble when out power-walking and broke my right shoulder so, as Dad would have said, society has been on short ration for the last month.  It’s not been a particularly pleasant time – who knew growing a new bone could be so painful? – but last week saw a trip to Lichfield to visit the sister and have a much needed change of scene.  I got out for a few walks for the first time with either hubby or Patricia running interference on my right side.  It was lovely to feel slightly part of the human race again.

It won’t surprise you to learn I’ve spent a fair degree of time in front of the television and have been consumed by the golf over the last couple of weeks.  Firstly, there was the heartwarming story of Paul Waring, from up the road in Bromborough, rounding off a magnificent season with victory in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.  This has assured him of a PGA Tour card next year at the grand old age of 39 and new vistas, opportunities and challenges are opening up for him at a time when many in other sports would already have hung up their boots and racquets.

Also scooping up one of those golden tickets that provides a tilt at glory Stateside is 22-year old Tom McKibbin from Rory’s club, Holywood in Norn Iron.  He’s at the other end of his career from Paul but earned his chance with ten top ten finishes and it was a timely birdie at the final hole of his 2024 campaign that inked in his name on the tenth and final card on offer.  What other sport gives two competitors separated by seventeen years of age such incentives?

By the way, Paul McGinley, former Ryder Cup captain, tournament winner and consummate student of the game, rates Tom McKibbin very highly indeed.  He thinks the sky’s the limit for the young man so I’m expecting him to make quite a mark in America,  How long, I wonder, till American commentators are dubbing him the “next Rory”?

As for the real Rory, it was an emotional one who rounded off his year with his fourth worldwide win of 2024 securing the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, one of his favourite places.  This assured him of his sixth Race to Dubai order of merit title rivalling the one and only Seve Ballesteros, an achievement that obviously meant an enormous amount to the Irishman.  How lucky the European Tour (now the DP World Tour) is to have Rory as an ambassador.  His support of his home tour has been unswerving and his has frequently been the voice of reason during the grubbiness of the money-grabbing of the last two years in the sport.

I’m certainly not in agreement with him in everything – the reduction in field sizes and the lack of a cut in some tournaments goes against the grain with me but how refreshing to hear him declare he “would pay to play in the Ryder Cup”.  This was in response to the news emanating from across the pond that the American team will most likely be paid in the region of $400,000 each to don the red, white and blue in future matches.  There’s a vote due sometime soon at a players’ meeting so let’s see what happens.

When you are striving to climb the greasy pole of success in any business, it is frequently a case of fractions that decides the outcome.  I was keeping a weather eye on the final qualifying school in Spain, a tortuous examination of six rounds of golf that would eventually award the top twenty finishers and ties full playing rights for next season’s DP World tour.  With one round remaining I had two of my horses still up there with a great chance of success.

I had become invested in following the fortunes of Eddie Pepperell because he’s the third wheel in that wonderful podcast “The Chipping Forecast”,  alongside Andrew Cotter and Iain Carter.  Although I’ve never met Eddie I have had the pleasure of working with both Andrew and Iain and so I feel I know Eddie at least a little through them.  Heartbreakingly, he doubled his 15th hole in the final round and came up one shot shy despite a closing birdie on the 18th.  Sometimes there are just no words……..

My second horse in the race was young Irish amateur Max Kennedy, who shot a magnificent closing 64, birdieing five out of his last six holes.  Alas, it was too little too late and he, too, finished one shot away from arguably the biggest celebration of his life.  In all, 21 players earned their cards.  The rest didn’t but, depending on where they finished, some opportunities should open up.  Max has just announced he will turn pro and compete on the Challenge Tour next year where he has a full card.

Finally, I can’t close without a salute to the late Jim Farmer, aka Mr Golf, who died late last month and whom I first met back in the 1970s.  Born in St Andrews and steeped in the game from his earliest years, Jim was an outstanding player, coach and retailer who held numerous high-profile positions throughout his career.  Perhaps one he enjoyed the most was that of Honorary Professional to the Royal & Ancient golf club of St Andrews.  He described it as an easy role to fulfill because, basically, it was “eating, drinking and being merry most of the time”.

Since 1864 only six people have held this position and it takes a special person to add their name to the list.  And Jim was special – ever the gentleman.

Condolences to his friends and family.