It’s hard to miss a castle if you’re in north Wales, which is more or less the fault of Edward I (1239-1307), completing a scheme he inherited from his father Henry III and adding his own amendments and improvements, in an attempt to keep the Welsh in order.  I’m indebted to the website castlewales.com (which is indebted to any number of learned historians) for anything approaching a fact on this matter and I did a lot of looking up at the castle when we were playing Harlech the other day.

The golf club, several centuries younger than the castle, was established in 1894, in the reign of Queen Victoria and the first name on the honours board is James Braid, one of the great triumvirate (along with Vardon and Taylor), golfing royalty indeed.  He won a “Professional Tournament” in 1903, no names, no pack drill but undoubtedly there would have been money handed out at the end.  It was scary how many of the winners we knew between us – I even saw Cecil Leitch, winner of the Ladies’ British Amateur Championship in 1926, in the flesh when she presented the trophy to Cathy Panton at Silloth in 1976….

A round at Royal St David’s Golf Club, to give it its official title, is always a treat and it was a lot less windy and the rough was a lot less penal, in a relative sort of a way, than the last time I played there.  Steve, the pro, is from Newcastle, Co. Down; we were playing with Pam Valentine, a good friend who’s a member (such a good friend that we forgive her for supporting Liverpool); the weather was benign; the castle peacefully hosting visitors from England and elsewhere; and we could scarcely have had a more enjoyable day, slow pace of play notwithstanding.

It gave us time to chat and enjoy the views (though Snowdon itself was hidden by cloud) and Mo admitted that during her years on tour she’d been guilty of paying little or no attention to her surroundings.  That’s the trouble with professionals, they have to be obsessively single-minded (or feel they have to be) to be successful.  Still, I challenge anybody to fail to notice the beauty around them when they’re playing up in the mountains at Crans-sur-Sierre, in Switzerland.

Dai and I used to love going to Crans, where the golf course is right in the middle of everything, a bit like an Alpine St Andrews and there was always a special buzz when Seve Ballesteros and co were in town.  The course, a skier’s playground in the winter, has its quirks but it has been a fixture on the schedule since 1923 (starting as the Swiss Open) and the list of champions reads like a veritable who’s who of world and European golf:  Bobby Locke, Kel Nagle, Bob Charles, Dai Rees, Seve (several times), Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam, Jose Maria Olazabal, Colin Montgomerie, Lee Westwood, Ernie Els and Sergio Garcia, to mention just a few.

Now Rasmus Hojgaard, a 20-year old Dane with talent to burn, has added his name to the list, winning this year’s Omega European Masters with a final round of 63, seven under par.  It was his third win on tour and only Matteo Manassero and Seve managed to win that many at a younger age.  “I’m very proud,” Hojgaard said.  “With some of the players who have won it, it’s very special.  It’s an amazing place and I can’t wait to come back again.”

We’re now gearing up for a splurge of Solheim, defined as “any boisterous or extravagant display”, which should just about cover our behaviour as we spectate at home, showing appalling bias and a distinct lack of decorum as we cheer on Europe. The neighbours have been warned.

Let’s hope it’s a good omen that Europe’s Junior Solheim Cup team, captained by Annika Sorenstam, stunned the Americans with an amazing comeback, winning the singles 9-3 to snaffle the trophy for the first time since 2007 and for the first time ever on US soil.  Brilliant effort everybody.  Inspirational.

It’s a good thing that there’s no premier league football this weekend, so I won’t be torn between savouring the Solheim in comfort or schlepping down to north London to watch Spurs.  Last Sunday I headed off again, for the game against Watford, clutching my season ticket (it’s on the phone somewhere, along with proof of my COVID vaccinations and I live in fear and dread of losing them altogether, of them vanishing in to the ether or some sort of black hole of lost connections).

There was more method than madness in the planning this time:  drive to Milton Keynes station and get a coach to the ground, letting someone else take the strain.  Only problem was that no one at MK Central knew anything about my coach or the bus stop it was supposed to go from…Still, I’d given myself plenty of time for once, didn’t panic, bought a coffee and a croissant and after a reconnoitre or three settled on the only possible pick-up place.

By this time, two other pedestrians had turned up, one with some sort of massive kitbag that ruled him out of a supporter’s role, the other, oh happy day, with a clear plastic duffle bag with a cockerel on it….He turned out to be John from Derby and he was indeed waiting for the Spurs coach.  An old hand at this trekking-to-Tottenham lark, he was kindness itself, took me under his wing and made sure I didn’t get lost.

It turns out he has three season tickets:  one for Spurs, one for Derby and one for Burton!!!  Not altogether surprisingly his partner plays golf.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, we’ve had to wait for more than a year because of the pesky virus (nothing like a bit of understatement to start with) but at last the Curtis Cup returns to Wales.  The United States team have bounced in to Conwy keen to retain the trophy they won in crushing style at Quaker Ridge three yeas ago but the beauty of team matchplay is that nothing’s ever won on paper.  The game, remember, is played on grass.

Maureen and I got up at 0500 yesterday (well, she did, I was a little bit later being lighter on the ablutions) because we wanted to be there for the off at 0745.  It was the first day after all and we knew how important it was to a lot of our friends, how long-awaited and there is something special about the start of a big match, be it Curtis Cup, Walker Cup, Solheim, Ryder, whatever.

There isn’t a Welsh player on the GB and I team but as Gerald Micklem once said of a Walker Cup team, rebuking someone moaning about a lack of one nationality or another:  “There are no English, no Irish, no Welsh, no Scots…”  It’s like the Lions really:  one for all, all for one.  If you haven’t heard of Micklem – and the people who knew him well are now few and far between and pretty long in the tooth – look him up.  He may seem like ancient history but there’s far, far too much to Gerald, a real golfing visionary and benefactor, to squeeze into a few words.

For several hundred of us, maybe more, in a little corner of north Wales it was a lovely day, catching up with any number of old friends (well, I suppose, if truth be told, most of our friends are old now…), watching some very good young golfers battling their hearts out on a lovely golf course in benign conditions.  They’ve become part of something special and will probably only really appreciate just how special years from now.  There’s probably nothing better than attending a Curtis Cup as a “past player”.  Much more relaxing than being a current player!

There were enough spectators to justify the presence of numerous white-jacketed marshals, mustered from clubs from all over Wales and possibly beyond, to keep us in some sort of order.

Quite a few people who would never miss a Curtis Cup have had to stay away for a variety of reasons, not least the current restrictions, so Mo and I took as many snaps as we could, to give a flavour of the day.  Also, modern technology means that not only can you watch the action on Sky and the Golf Channel but on the R&A’s digital platforms, live streamed (I think that just means live, as it happens) through YouTube and Facebook as well as randa.org.

A picture is worth a thousand words, allegedly and if we were to recount all the tales told yesterday, this blog would never end!  It’s a miracle we got back home at all.

GB and I, confounding the odds and the perennial pessimists, had the best of the opening day, so their captain, ever affable, didn’t have the worry of scrabbling around to put a positive spin on things.  She just had to smile and look at the scoreboard, well aware that today is another day entirely.

Sarah Ingram, captain of the USA, had a less comfortable day – being 4 1/2  – 1 1/2 down is not the start you dream of – but she probably had no need of a team talk last night, the scoreboard said it all.

The choice of an action photo is completely random – Mo just happened to be there at the time, trusty phone in hand and we both liked the image and the colour.  No Irish bias here of course….

Finally, as a homage to the incomparable Mary McKenna, who is at home in Ireland, we include a water shot, of Conwy Marina.  No birds in flight in sight admittedly but our photography is a work in progress…Stationary boats are hard enough.

 

I noticed that the old codgers, sorry, seniors, sorry, sorry, legends (probably with a capital ‘L’) were playing in Ireland last week, in Donegal – if you’ve never been, don’t delay, GO – and Thomas Bjorn won the Irish Legends presented by the McGinley Foundation at Rosapenna Hotel & Golf Resort.  It was the Dane’s first win on the Legends Tour and he beat Phillip Price of Wales at the second hole of a play-off after a final round of 65, six under par.  They finished a whopping six shots ahead of Peter Baker, Peter Wilson and Mauricio Molina.

“It was nice,” Bjorn said.  “As a sportsman there’s no greater feeling than Sunday afternoon.  It doesn’t really matter where it is, I really got into it…I recognised myself and I haven’t seen that person for quite a while, which is nice.  It’s pretty special winning any golf tournament….I’m really glad I came.  It’s a wonderful part of Ireland and a wonderful part of the world.”

And I thought the trophy, which was what really caught my eye, was worth winning.  It was handmade in county Offaly, from old Irish native beech.  There’s no way that’ll be ending up in the back of a cupboard!

Here we are at last – the 149th Open Championship, 24 months after the 148th.  I’m sure it won’t disappoint and that it’ll be well worth the wait.

It’s 21 years since I worked at my first Open Championship as a very raw, nervous summariser for Radio 5 Live.  I was shepherded around by the inimitable Tony Adamson and learned so much from this master of nuance, teller of tales and expert at engaging an audience.  He knew when to provide biographical detail about the players, when to develop a thought or idea, when to clinically report solely on the current score and when to give way to flights of utter fancy.  I really didn’t quite appreciate then that I was learning from a golfing black belt.  What I did know was that I loved being with Tony, loved listening to him and recognised him as an empathetic golf fan to the very inner fibre of his being.  I would have paid to be with him.  Instead they paid me.

Later, a decade or so later, in fact, I moved exclusively to a television contract and my new mentor wasn’t too bad either:  Peter Alliss, the doyen of TV commentary.  Peter was helpful in every way but never shirked from telling you what he really thought.  The entire production mattered to him, not just his part in it and if you were willing to learn, he was a willing mentor.  He didn’t mind being challenged either – he rather relished it, in fact, and many’s the “spirited discussion” we enjoyed.  My last event with him was the 2019 Solheim Cup at Gleneagles.  I would have paid for that decade-plus of being with him.  Instead they paid me.

I didn’t work at the Open in 2019 – purposely and with great intent.  A member of Portrush for more than 50 years, I wanted to return to being a fan at this particular major.  I wanted to drink in the experience from the proper side of the ropes, experience the Open “in the raw” for the first time in two decades, unfettered by hours and hours of research and the requirement to present a neutral and unbiased front.

And so it was that I walked every step of that final round with Shane Lowry, in amongst the rest of the Irish population, in the cold, in the strong winds and driving rain right up until that final, triumphant surge up the last fairway to the 18th green, encircled by a giant horseshoe of a 7000-seater stand that was bristling with pride and pulsating with energy.  The sounds of the “Fields of Athenry” rang out along with “Shane-O” and “Ole, ole, ole”.  An unforgettable experience.  And this time I wasn’t being paid for it!

And so to Royal St George’s and my first thoughts turn back to 2011 and that famous windswept links on the Kent coast.  I seem to remember that that was the first year that readmittance to the course for spectators was not allowed.  In other words, if you returned to your rental house or hotel room or just nipped into the town for a cup of coffee, you were barred from re-entry that day.  I never did like that particular edict, smacking as it does of the humble fan getting the thin edge of the wedge yet again.

That year it was another triumphant Irishman on a victory march up the 72nd hole.  Darren Clarke had taken his lifetime to harness his mercurial skills, his stubborn temperament and his years of golf and life learning, bringing everything to a climax on that July Sunday afternoon.

I stood at the back of the final green for the closing half hour with Darren’s parents, Godfrey and Hettie, lovely, lovely people.  Hettie had on her “lucky” earrings, emerald shamrocks and nervously chatted on about this and that.  Finally, when Darren’s ball rested on the last green and he had several putts for the win she allowed herself to breathe, bursting out with an emotional, “I’ve waited 20 years for this.”

By contrast, Darren’s Dad stood silently by, tall and still.  I don’t think he’s a man of many words and certainly at that moment when his son become the “Champion Golfer of the Year”,  he had none but emotion and pride oozed from every pore.  Private, private moments when your offspring achieves incredible things and you are in full public view with no hiding place.  It can’t be easy.

This year will be very different for me, and lots of others, as I’ll be watching from my sofa, frankly not too disappointed to avoid pandemic bubbles, rules and regulations and the like.  Of course, that’s easy to say when you harbour a treasure trove of Open experiences and memories but I can’t wait for the possibility of a potential life-changing, unforseen drama unfolding on our screens come the weekend.

Perhaps we’ll have a two-horse race a la Mickelson and Stenson at Troon a few years ago;  perhaps it’ll be a full-throated roar greeting a home winner again; perhaps Royal St George’s will usher in another complete outsider as champion as it did in 2003 when Ben Curtis took the spoils.

Whatever it may be, the Open has a magic about it, unmatched by any other major and is enjoyably riveting from a whole host of different perspectives.

Yes, even from your sofa.

 

My week usually starts off with wondering what my blog topic will be for the rapidly advancing Friday.  This week took a little less head scratching than normal when I realised that this is the week the European Ladies’ Team Championships are being played.

Royal County Down is the stunning venue, making this the second occasion that Ireland has played host to the best women amateurs in Europe.  Nineteen teams have been testing themselves and their games over one of the finest links in the world and although Sweden may be favourites, going as they are for an unprecedented four wins in a row, there are many talented sides who are eager to seize their crown.  It’ll be a week of great golf, of that I’m sure.

When I had reason to brave the wobbly pull-down steps to the attic to search for something completely unrelated to the blog it seemed serendipitous when I accidently unearthed the clippings and photographs from a certain magical week back in the day.  This tournament was the most fun I had in the game as an amateur, bar none.  Six players make up the team and everyone plays strokeplay over the opening two days, five scores counting towards the team total each time.  The top eight teams qualify for the championship flight and the knock-out matchplay section of the week.  Two foursomes and five singles matches are then the order of the day with only the winners progressing to the next round and, if all goes well, you will have had five gruelling days of top level competition with the prospect of being named European champions at the end.

That was the happy outcome for the Irish team in 1979 when playing on home turf at the delightful Hermitage Golf Club.  Thousands of avid golf fans swarmed the fairways as they cheered the home side to their first victory in this arena.  It was a week I’ll never forget.  Those were the days of column inches (and lots of them) in the newspapers as you can see below in a pot-pourri of headlines heralding our victory.

Victory is special at any time – and you take those wins when you can – but a home turf win is indescribable.  I think it’s a combination of overcoming the extra pressures on you (perceived or otherwise), but the crowning glory has to be the joyous sharing of the victory and celebrating with friends, family and enthusiastic golf fans.  And we have a lot of those in Ireland – just ask Shane Lowry.

Those were new international blazers we acquired for that tournament and I recall that when meeting in Dublin airport to travel to subsequent away venues we were frequently stopped and asked where the Aer Lingus check-in was for such and such a flight.  I don’t think for one moment we were ever quite as immaculate as real flight attendants – and we certainly were not quite as accurate with our directions as we should have been!

In 1981 we went to defend our title in Troia in Portugal – in those days the championships were played every other year – and a shift in the amateur golfing landscape as we knew it was apparent for the first time.  Sweden were there with seemingly multiple uniforms, sponsored team bags and, whisper it softly, individual funding for their players.  They each even had a daily allowance.  It was the first taste of professionalism that I can recall creeping into the game and from that point on Sweden has done so much to lead the way for the rest of Europe in preparation, approach and funding.

And now a seismic shift of epic proportions is about to take place as regards the rules of amateur status worldwide.  Last week the US Supreme Court ruled that collegiate athletes could be paid for the use of their name, image or likeness.  In other words, they can be sponsored by any commercial enterprise, represent multiple companies and receive payment for endorsements.  The only difference from the professional athletes is the college player cannot have a contract that pays out dependent on his or her performance – so no increased earnings for a top-ten finish or a win.  It does mean, however, that the best players will be allowed to make considerable sums before they turn professional.

Sports Illustrated have intimated that a young Louisiana State University gymnast, Olivia Dunne, who has 4 million TikTok followers and a million on Instagram, will be the first to become a millionaire this way.  It certainly lends new meaning to the phrase “working your way through college”.

What will be of interest is to understand the route the R&A will choose to plot their way through this latest challenge, committed as they are to maintaining both amateur and professional codes, as opposed to being “open” like tennis.  Interesting times ahead for our sport.

In closing, I must indulge myself by congratulating Carol Wickham on her stunning victory in last week’s Irish Senior Women’s Amateur Championship.  Carol was a teammate of mine in a  winning Irish team in the European Team Championships in 1983 in another lifetime.  I can guarantee that there won’t be a more popular winner of a national title and while she may not be tucking away a million in endorsements, I bet the title – and the party – was worth just as much to Carol.