This week I was going to write about the new rules, which will be introduced in January 2019 and the new handicapping system, due to come into operation in 2020 but things have been a bit fraught in this household this week and rules and handicapping have never been my forte, requiring as they do a level of concentration and forensic attention to detail that stretch my capabilities beyond their meagre limits.

Like a lot of games golf is intrinsically simple:  you tee the ball up, then pursue it across country and hit it (without teeing it up again) until it disappears into the hole, whereupon you add up how many times you hit the ball (or tried to hit it) and that’s your total for the hole.  Then you do the same again, and again, for 18 holes.  Some people might ask why?  What’s the point of all that?  But if you get the point, if it appeals, that’s you, hooked – not always a golfing outcome to be wished for – and on your way to being sucked into the maelstrom of handicaps, rules and even, heaven help us, dress codes.

There’s also lots of fun, competition and banter with friends, being out in the fresh air and able to play a game that has universal appeal and an injury toll that may involve backs, knees, wrists, elbows and shoulders but is unlikely to include concussion – unless you’re unlucky enough to be hit by a ball or a club.

Michelle Wie and Tiger Woods, two of the most hyped golfers in history, one of whom has more than lived up to his billing, are flying high at the moment, revelling in being fit and fighting again after myriad injury woes.  What’s wonderful to see is the joy they have in competing and performing at the highest level, revelling in showing off their talent for a game that has held them in its thrall since they were kids.

Love of the game, whatever it is, is the key to success because, let’s face it, sport will break your heart if you let it; to keep coming back, time after time, defeat after defeat, injury after injury, you have to love it.  However good you are, however many trophies you’ve won, however many leagues you are ahead of your opponent, the moment you think that all you have to do to win is to turn up, you’re toast.

Ireland won’t be thinking like that at Twickenham tomorrow, when all they have to do to win the Grand Slam (and Triple Crown) is beat England on their home turf, a wounded England at that, hitting the buffers for the first time under Eddie Jones, the bullish Australian and staring down the barrel of three consecutive defeats.  Ireland don’t have a great record at Twickers – few visiting teams do – but gone are the days when Ulsterman Cecil Pedlow, a ridiculously talented all-round sportsman, could turn to Tony O’Reilly, of Heinz fame, as they were lacing up their boots before running out onto the pitch and say, “You realise O’Reilly, this is the 13th consecutive defeat we’ve shared together.”

That’s one of my favourite sporting stories – anathema in today’s professional era of positive thinking – and, no, I haven’t trawled through the record books to check that it’s accurate but it probably is.  It was a wee bit before my rugby conscious time, though I was at Ravenhill when Ulster drew 5-all with the All Blacks in January 1954.  Well, Mum was there and I arrived in June and she thought that that experience and her dreaming that they’d christened me Wembley Stadium accounted for my being such a sports nut!

Ireland are probably better than England at the moment but they’ll only win tomorrow if they turn up and give short shrift to the weight of history (and home advantage).  They can’t ignore the fact that they’ve only won the Grand Slam, that magical, elusive beast, twice:  in 1948 and then in 2009, in Cardiff.  Maureen and I were there and Wales had a kick to win the match in the last minute but, right on target, it fell short and those of us in green went gratefully doolally.

Just because it’s St Patrick’s Day doesn’t mean Ireland are destined to win and there’ll be no disgrace in playing their best and losing but there’s nothing more gutting than a BBU (brave but unavailing), especially one that the players will remember years from now as the Slam that might have been.  Might as well win then.  It’s much more fun!

Finally, on a joyous note, congratulations to Angela and Sergio on the arrival of Azalea Adele Garcia, who puts sport in its proper perspective.

I jumped for joy on the course at Whittington Heath on Monday, before the snow arrived in earnest to threaten life and limb let alone golf.

Bev Chattaway and I were engaged in our Winter Foursomes semi-final against the redoubtable sisters Anne Fern and Rachel Rowe, giving seven shots, on winter greens on the frozen fairways.  A few days earlier, I’d been so vociferous in stating that we hadn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell that our revered president, who hails from Wales, said he’d buy Bev and me a drink of our choice should we lose.  “Done,” sez I and we shook hands.  Rather to my surprise, he did not add that if we won, we’d be buying him a drink of his choice.

Well, again rather to my surprise, we did win and, really, I should buy the pres a drink, not least because Ireland had beaten Wales – just – at the weekend, to have us all trying not to think about a Grand Slam.  After all, if the Scotland that mangled England at Murrayfield turn up in Dublin a week on Saturday, they’ll be hard to beat and England are no pushover at Twickenham.  But I digress, which will come as no surprise to our regular reader.

I didn’t jump up and down because we won – by that stage we were all so cold we hightailed it to the clubhouse as quickly as possible – but because something wonderful had happened at our 8th hole.  It took a while to sink in.  Anne and Rachel had won the 7th hole, so Anne had the honour and hit a decent drive.  I hit next, not in any trouble and we all set off from the tee, Bev and Rachel a few yards ahead of Anne and me.

Suddenly, I did a double take and stopped in my tracks.  Wait a minute, there’s something  different here, what on earth is it?  When I realised what it was, I started screeching and lepping up and down like a mad thing, a bit like watching Ireland v Wales at the weekend, a shameless, unedifying display that mystified my companions, who thought I was in pain.  Ecstasy more like.  Because they’d gone.  All of them.  At long, long last.  Hooray, hooray, hoo-bloody-ray.

For far too long they had been the bane of golfers of all ages and stages, invisible to the longer hitters but far too often the ruination of almost everyone else.  Every round you’d see people, bum in the air, poking around in a desperate attempt to even see their ball, let alone retrieve it.  As for playing it.  No chance.  And now they were no more, scrubbed out, defunct, deceased, destroyed.

The 8th has become a proper golf hole again.  It looks different, better.  You can see its lovely, subtle shape and most of us will still have more than enough trouble getting a par four.  Harry Colt, who designed the original, might even give a satisfied smile of recognition.

The offending gorse bushes, they that no longer have to be feared, that are no more, were just in the wrong place, plonk in front of the tee at a perfect length for the shorter hitters.  It wasn’t their fault that someone, at some time, thought they were a good idea.  Off to the side, right or left, no problem but where they were, in the middle, lots of players could hit their No 1 stonker and where would it end?  Unplayable, in amongst the prickles.  There was no viable alternative route and that, no matter which golf architect you consult or erudite tome you read, is an absolute no no.  You’ve got to give players, whatever their skill level, a route to the hole.

Everybody sees things differently and there are lots of people who hate winter golf.  As long as I’m well wrapped up I love it.  It reminds me of growing up at the seaside and playing a fast, hard-running course, keeping the ball low, pitching and running and using a putter from all over the place.  You learn that the vagaries and irritations of the bounce are an integral part of the game, not a random source of annoyance.  And, as a putter with a longstanding ropey stroke, bad greens with lots of lumps and bumps tend to suit me.

Also, when it comes to foursomes, when it’s your partner who has to get you out of trouble, it helps to have a Bev on your side, a 4-handicapper who can come back from two weeks off, including a skiing holiday and make the game look so ridiculously easy that you wonder why you make it look so ridiculously difficult.

 

 

 

There was a man on the radio the other day who was arguing that we shouldn’t bother with the Winter Olympics because we – countries like Britain, Ireland and, presumably Jamaica and Nigeria – were no good at the sports involved, so we shouldn’t waste our time trying to compete with the snow-deep, mountain-high powerhouses.  What a slushy, wet blanket of a view.

With an attitude like that Columbus would never have put out to sea, the Vikings would never have reached Scotland, the Montgolfiers would never have taken to the air, Michelangelo would never have started drawing, imagining, inventing, it’s the sort of attitude that kept us in the dark ages while the Persians and the Incas and others were doing amazing things.  In short, no one would ever have tried anything remotely different.  So, you’ll have guessed, I think that bloke was wrong, wronger, wrongest.

Don’t get me wrong, most of the Winter Olympic athletes are stark-raving bonkers, putting life and limb in danger every time they strap on a ski, a skate or a snowboard.  How they learn their trade without breaking their neck or falling foul of Health And Safety is a mystery to me.  As someone who loses all sense of where she is after turning in a quarter of a semi-circle on solid ground, I haven’t a clue how those acrobatic half-pipers keep track of where they are or what they’re doing.  I watch, open-mouthed, in awe, muttering imprecations, as they fling themselves about.

As for the tea trayers, well they are truly off their trolley, surely.  And, don’t get me started on the ski jump.  Whatever Eddie the Eagle was – and apparently he thinks GB is spending too much on the Winter Olympics now – he wasn’t a wimp.  Just to stand at the top of one of those jumps is enough to turn me to jelly and there’s more than enough flesh to wobble wildly, if not quite enough to guarantee a soft landing.

The skiing I can understand, more or less, though my knees creak and my heart quails as they plummet downhill at ridiculous speeds with insouciant skill.  And I admire the way they stand at the bottom, heart in mouth presumably, watching the clock and hoping to hang on to a medal by hundredths of a second.  I’d hate that.  The head-to-head racing, however manic, is understandable even to the ignorant and I found myself yelling myself hoarse cheering on a Swede in the cross-country relay.

It’s all exhilarating and fun and you can see why people get hooked.  Just being in the mountains is invigorating and even if you start off at the SnowDome in Tamworth or the dry ski slope in Gloucester, if you keep persevering, you’ll end up in the snow somewhere, be it the Alps or the champagne powder of Colorado.  Even the Norwegians, the cross-country colossi, train on roller skis in the summer, so you can learn to do that almost anywhere bar the beach and some of the pot-holed roads round by me.

“That Elise Christie, she’s obviously no good, she shouldn’t be there,” said the man on the radio after the speed-skating Scot had crashed out of yet another Olympic race.  He’d picked the wrong one there.  La Christie is one of the world’s best and was in form going to the Games but a nudge here, a caught edge there and her dreams were cold as ice.  Sobbing in Sochi, pissed off in Pyeongchang, she was bloodied but unbowed.  “I’ll be back,” she said.

It’s the winning that drives Christie now but the taking part is still the most important part of sport:  without participants there’d be no sport, so every sport needs as many people as possible to play it.  The broader the base, the more likely you are to produce champions, who inspire and nourish a desire to play and compete in others.  Though sometimes it works the other way:  Switzerland and Scotland were hardly places you’d associate with tennis before the advent of the sainted Roger Federer and Andy Murray.

Also, as the All Blacks appreciate, for a sport to be really successful it needs people who understand it and really care about it, irrespective of their playing prowess.  It needs participants with passion at every level to survive and thrive.

Golf is rarely life-threatening – just make sure you’re not hit by a ball or club – or exhilarating in the way that faster sports are and you don’t have to be a supreme athlete or young to play it well.  That doesn’t make it a bad or a dull or a boring game.  Just the opposite in fact, it’s intriguing, exasperating and compelling and it’s good for all of us, especially if we can manage to keep on walking.  And it’s amazing how effective a weird and wonderful swing, devised to cope with various aches and pains, can be.

As you probably know, it annoys me that people think you shouldn’t bother with things unless you can do them well. Frankly, that is utter – and I can’t think of a better word – bollocks.  You miss out on so much fun.  Don’t die wondering:  take the plunge and try something new.

Not all bloggers are writers and not all writers are bloggers.  Patricia is a writer AND a blogger.  I’m just a blogger, but as I sit before an empty screen wondering what to say in my first post of 2018 I’m curious to feel a….well, a bit of a block.  WRITER’s block, I wonder?  Hmm, maybe I’m getting a bit closer to being a real writer after 18 months of blogging, seeing as I’m now experiencing a block?  “Just start writing and see where it takes you”,  Patricia advised.  So, here goes.

When, oh when is Dustin Johnson (not the only culprit) going to stop spitting on a golf course?  I find it nothing short of disgusting and watched his sublime performance in Hawaii last week with one hand over my eyes in expectation of the inevitable expectoration.  It’s a dozen years now since I first started working in the States and I’ve covered countless rounds in that time and walked many miles inside the ropes.  Those miles have been punctuated with several hops and skips as I’ve done my best to avoid the spitting over the ropes from the front row of spectators.  My American friends tell me it’s the tobacco-chewing culture but that doesn’t appease me – it really is awful.

Dustin is the supreme athlete and shot 65 on Sunday romping to an 8-shot victory in a tournament peopled only by winners from 2017.  He has won at least once a year for the last 11 consecutive years and has 8 wins since the 2015-16 season – more than any other player on the PGA Tour.  Last year he was in full flow until the eve of the Masters when he slipped in his socks and fell, injuring his back.  He withdrew the next day and was woeful in the majors,  with a missed cut at the US Open, tied 54th at The Open and tied 13th at the PGA.  Despite bombing out in the most important tournaments on the schedule he still managed to finish the year as world No 1.  Now, THAT was some achievement.

Three players are teeing it up this year with only one major separating them from the prize of completing a CGS (career grand slam).  To date, only five men have won all four modern majors:  Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods.  Rory McIlroy will be the first to feel the full glare of the major spotlight as he tackles Augusta in April in search of a green jacket, the only garment separating him from membership of that oh-so-special club.  Hampered by injury last year he will be a man on a mission and being majorless since the 2014 Open does not sit well with him.  We haven’t seen the best of Rory yet and I predict he will bag one of the big ones in 2018 – I’m just not sure which one, and maybe the CGS will have to wait a year or two.

Next up, attempting to complete his set of majors at the US Open will be Phil Mickelson and I can’t help but wonder if that ship hasn’t already sailed.  Phil has six runner-up finishes in his national Open and would dearly love to win that particular title but time is not on his side as he turns 48 on the Saturday of this year’s championship.  Only one man older has ever won a major and that was Julius Boros who won the 1968 PGA Championship at the age of 48 years, 4 months and 18 days.  Phil needs a miracle.

The final major of the year (and the final year it is the final major because of a change of date beginning in 2019) is the PGA, the only major missing from Jordan Spieth’s resume.  To use one of Jordan’s expressions, this is “very do-able”.  And you would have to think he’s right.  In 2019 the Open Championship in July becomes the final major of the year.  Not for Jordan an agonising 8-month long wait from the last major to the one major eluding him, a fate that Rory has endured for the last three years.  The PGA comes in a run of top tournaments and majors and you can find yourself competing in it almost before you realise it.  If Rory has failed to win the Masters by 2019 he will then have nine long months from July to April until the next major, the Masters, when the focus will assuredly swing his way again as he takes his next crack at that CGS.  That’s a rolling boil of pressure which will build exponentially until he manages it.  I do think, though, that both Rory and Jordan will, at some stage, join the famous five – just not this year.

As I said, I do have Rory down for a major win in 2018.  I have Dustin down for two and I have a feeling Rickie Fowler will break his duck.  But don’t take my word for it – only fools make predictions on golf and, as you know, just about anything can happen.  Why, DJ might even stop spitting!