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.

 

Well, oh happy day, I woke up early yesterday morning, excited, nervous, full of anticipation for a special day that was a year in the making – it had been postponed for 12 months because of the pandemic – and it was here at last.  A bit grey and cloudy to begin with – the day not me, though that’s a fair description of my usual morning state; not at all like a former flatmate who used to wake up cheerful and chirpy, smiling and singing (in tune no less) and drove the rest of us, all waking grumps, to growls, then howls of fury.

But I digress, as usual.  The Romans liked long, straight roads but I prefer byways to highways and adore twists and turns, nooks and crannies….No wonder I never get anywhere on time nor anything finished….I just stop.  Sometimes even in the right place.

The right place this time was Edgbaston GC, that wonderful green oasis (is that tautology?) in the middle of Birmingham and I arrived in plenty of time, without diversion or deviation, to take my place in the Ladies Am Am as Team McFarland’s MGP  – aka Mystery Guest Pruscilla.  The eccentric spelling, which has irritated the spell check no end, was courtesy of Pat, our hostess with the mostest, who got everything else right.

Pat, nee McFarland, now Hales, is one of numerous cousins from that clan/tribe/nation state, many of them excellent golfers and she had roped in two of the Irish branch, who’d known Maureen and me from our junior golf days, hence my invitation.  (For the long-suffering loyal blog readers who are not golfers, Mo is a professional, so is ineligible for amateur events like, well, am ams.)

Heather, nee McFarland, now Kitson and a member of Cranleigh in Surrey after a life well-travelled (Dubai, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Bermuda – I think, my head was spinning like a globe trying to keep track) reckoned that we hadn’t seen each other for 50 years.  Her sister Marilyn, a Henderson since marrying Gordon in 1976 (I even unearthed some snaps of the wedding) had been marginally more accessible.  Now a member at Craigavad, more formally Royal Belfast, she is also captain of Ireland’s senior women – hard to come up with a designation that doesn’t sound vaguely ageist but she’ll be in charge (?!!; have you met the Irish seniors?) for the home internationals at Woodhall Spa at the beginning of August (4th-6th).

That should be some jamboree because the senior men will be there too – and the girls and the boys and the women.  Let’s hope they allow spectators because it’ll be a feast of golf.  And if my research is correct, Marilyn’s mob, who are the European champions, will be chasing their fourth title in a row.

The crack was good at Edgbaston, the golf less so.  We had one birdie between us (thank you Pat), not too many pars and realised, shamefacedly, that we hadn’t been on the green at any of the four par 3s.  No 2s for us, then, though when we got in, we were told there’d been lots of birdies at the short holes.  Baffling!  Congrats and kudos to Judith Waterhouse, fellow member of WHGC and beginners bridger, for being on the winning team with 83 points.  We didn’t even win anything in the raffle.

Whatever, it really couldn’t have been a better day – there were even hugs.  Thanks team.

Meanwhile, at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, the US Women’s Open is under way and Mel Reid, one of the blog’s favourites (we have a few), had a 67, four under par, to set the standard.  She had a bit of a course/major strategy session with Brooks Koepka prior to the championship and is trying to channel her inner Brooks (he’s won four major titles so far, including two US Opens).  She’s also making a statement, as is her wont, with her headgear.

In the past, she’s gone logo free, to highlight the lack of support for women from sponsors but now she has the backing of PEGA and they’ve gone a step further by giving their logo a rainbow makeover (just about visible in the pic above), in support of Pride Month.  Mel, who is gay and a great advocate of inclusivity and diversity, is proud of the fact that this is a first for golf, notoriously mealy-mouthed when it comes to such matters.  She’s determined to do her bit “to try and change the world and make it a bit of a better place”.

Go Mel and go PEGA.  I’d never heard of them until a few days ago when I got press releases from the European Tour and the PGA of America telling me that Pegasystems Inc, “the software company that crushes business complexity” had become “a worldwide supplier of the 43rd and 44th Ryder Cup”.  That’s this one, at Whistling Straits later this year, all being well and the next one, in Rome, in 2023.

Frankly, the press release was too complex for me but the company will apparently help its clients “stay streamlined, agile and ready for what’s next”.  Interestingly, it also said, “Ryder Cup spectators, golfers and event staff have likely already used Pega in their daily lives, including when they travel, use a credit card, call a company for service or perform other everyday tasks…”  There you go.  Time for me to stop and prepare for whatever’s next.

Delighted to see, though, that Portmarnock GC, that erstwhile male bastion, has voted to become gender neutral.  Don’t quite know how that’ll work in practice but it sounds like a belated move into the 21st century.

Finally and because I’ve had such a good day, here are some wise words from a wee book that always cheers me up and revives my optimism.  It’s by Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D and is the antithesis of a happy-clappy, trite-tripe self-help book.

He reminds us that, “A happy – or happier – life is rarely shaped by some extraordinary life-changing event; rather, it is shaped incrementally, experience by experience, moment by moment…..

“…..we must first accept that ‘this is it’ – that all there is to life is the day-to-day, the ordinary, the details of the mosaic.  We are living a happy life when we derive pleasure and meaning while spending time with our loved ones, or learning something new, or engaging in a project at work.  The more our days are filled with these experiences, the happier we become.

“This is all there is to it.”

Not entirely sure he’s ever played golf but have a good day everybody, let’s do our best to enjoy every moment.

 

 

Well, blog not even started and the blogger is already exhausted, ready for her bed and the big day ahead.  It’s back to Beginner’s Bridge at the golf club – inside, in the clubhouse, attack of the vapours, reach for the smelling salts; then – and this is the reason for the extreme tiredness – visitors are arriving.  TO  STAY.

They’ll need beds (can I find them under the mounds of papers and photos that are in the never-ending process of being sorted but not yet discarded?); food (my cobbled-together lockdown gunges will probably not pass muster); and somewhere to sit (I’m sure there was a sofa here somewhere and wasn’t there a chair squeezed into my small hall?); and just where is the dining room table?

Many years ago one of my younger rellies gave me a copy of Marie Kondo’s book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying”.  Astute beyond her years and knowing that I already had a very tattered paperback copy, she opted for a hard back…..We’re still speaking…..And I’m still tidying, or trying to.

Luckily the (US) PGA Championship has just started at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island in South Carolina, so as I tap away at the keyboard I’m accompanied by 5 Live (Sports Extra now that it’s heading towards midnight and beyond) and Sky Sports on the telly.  Iain Carter,  BBC Radio’s golf correspondent is, shock, horror, actually at the tournament and not sitting watching a screen or three in Salford.  He flew for the first time in 14 months and was so out of training that he forgot to take any trousers with him (apart, presumably, from what he was wearing as he took off).

It’s lovely to see players playing in front of spectators, all in their shirt sleeves (or sleeveless) on a bright, breezy day by the seaside.  Kiawah is looking gorgeous but if you’ve got a card and pencil in your hand and a major trophy to play for, you won’t be doing too much relaxing and admiring the scenery; you’ll be, in the professional vernacular, grinding it out.

This is a tough, tough golf course and, come to think of it, the best players in the world (the top, top players as they’ve become, in football circles at least) are more accustomed to playing courses that they can tear to pieces if they’re on their game, not places that force them to think, create and struggle every inch (or centimetre) of the way.  I don’t want to see them on autopilot week in, week out.  I like seeing them having to pull out all the stops, displaying all those hard-earned skills.

What I don’t like is seeing them (or their caddies) using rangefinders.   Yuk, yuk, yuk.  Rory was asking about a drop for an embedded ball at the base of a wee sandhill on the edge of one of the many sandy waste areas (he didn’t get it) and Harry (Rory’s caddy) was up on the hill peering through a gizmo that made him look like a rank amateur!  Use them in the practice rounds by all means but it’s been a big mistake to allow them in proper competition.  And as for those crib books they use on the greens…..don’t get me started.

In the top, top championships, send them out with ten clubs, no aids (caddy and yardage book apart) and stamp out static summit meetings (discussions should be on the move, approaching shots, ambulatory assessments if you will).  Surely even Bryson DeChambeau, especially Bryson, the prince of precision, can adjust his cogs to work faster, more intuitively, relying on his preparation and memory?  Too late, too late, I hear you cry, that ship has sailed (or whatever) and I suppose you’re right.

I always think of alligators when I think of Kiawah – the one above is just a tiddler compared to some of the primeval monsters lurking deep in the swamps away from the surf and the beach.  I hope they’re still in there somewhere, going about their business quietly, effectively, timelessly.

It’s many years since Dai and I visited the island and did one of the beach safaris – awesome.  We also played the Ocean Course and would have enjoyed it immensely if we hadn’t been lumbered with a playing partner who couldn’t play but insisted on going off the tips.  The back tees provided a ferocious enough test even then and it was so far beyond him – a salesman from Florida, I think – that it was a miracle he only lost 32 balls.  (Dai counted – furiously.)

We played from tees much more suited to our ability and had plenty of time to admire the views and take long, deep breaths of sea air.  There was also undoubtedly enough of a breeze to disperse the steam billowing from under Dai’s hat….I think I won our match but don’t remember having a drink with our salesman afterwards.

The pictures from Kiawah look glorious and I’d love to let Mary McKenna loose there with her camera.  Luckily for us, she’s still honing her skills at home and producing photos that are nothing short of stunning.  Thank you Mary.

Love a duck.

From the sublime to the slightly ridiculous:  this Sunday Maureen, Brian and I are taking part in Cycle Spring 2021 in aid of St Giles Hospice, where Dai was looked after before he died (on May the 19th 2008).  Brian, a proper cyclist, is doing 52 miles and Mo and I are attempting 27.  Let’s hope the weather is kind and my little sister can steer me safely home….

Here’s the link (I hope) to our page:-

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/the3pedallers

 

 

 

 

 

The blog is starting from the bottom up this week, mainly so that I can show off my swanky new Duca Del Cosma shoes, bought with my winnings from the captains’ drive-in.  Now, every time I go out and they catch my eye – they are rather bright and striking – I’ll think fondly of the captains, three of whom missed the fairway, thus ruling out the guesses of the optimists, the majority, who put the aggregate yardage up in the three and four hundreds and even beyond.  I went down because that’s where the spaces were and I reckoned, fair enough, not everyone would hit the fairway.

And so it proved.  After a long run of dry days, the course was fast and hard-running and staying on the fairway with its awkward camber was beyond all but seniors’ captain Phil, whose canny effort matched my guess exactly!  Thank you Phil.

The unexpected windfall deserved a better fate than going on loo rolls or tea bags or even new bridge score pads.  I’d long lusted after a pair of Duca Del Cosma shoes, Italian, distinctive, classy (even the gaudy ones) – ever since circling their stand at the Women’s British Open at Lytham and failing to persuade them that they really should be offering us punters a show discount.  Just by chance, the other week I’d sent them an email asking about their women’s sizes (those of us with big feet still tend to be hard done by when it comes to interesting, stylish shoes) and their reply came in a couple of days after my win.  Is that serendipity?  Whatever, it was very good timing.

The shoes had their first outing on Monday morning early, a gentle ten holes and passed with flying colours.  They also coped admirably with 18 holes the next day, rather better than their wearer, who found her first medal round for months a bit of a shock to the system.  And talking of systems, don’t ask me about the new handicapping set-up, it’s way beyond me.  My index, which I believe is crucial, seems to have shot up from 10 point something to 11.7 in very short order but at least it’s trending in the right direction, towards something more in keeping with what is loosely called my skill level.

My main focus at the moment is on my eclectic score and I’m a long way from having pars on every hole, let alone birdies.  On Tuesday I managed to replace bogeys at the 8th and 9th with pars but that was it.  I think the eclectic runs until the end of May, so there’s still hope of substantial improvement but if it ends today…..

Obsession is an interesting thing and I trace mine with the eclectic back to missing out on winning the last one by 0.5 of a stroke.  And, in my defence, it keeps the interest alive when a round is crumbling all around you.  It’s also a source of extreme frustration when, time and time and time again, one particular hole eludes all your efforts to play it well.

In my case it’s what used to be the 3rd hole but is currently the 4th thanks to HS2 re-routing.  It is a par 4 measuring 348 yards and has bunkers in just the right (or wrong) places for me but even if I avoid the bunkers, even if I reach the green in two, which is a rarity, the best I walk off with is a 5.  On Tuesday it was a 6.  A double bogey.

What made it particularly hard to take was that it came after a reasonable chip to four feet max, probably nearer three.  A par 4 loomed.  The putt was a testing downhiller, so I decided to hit it firmly into the hole – not my usual modus operandi in such situations.  The ball missed the hole comfortably and the next effort, up the hill, was just as wide.  Admittedly, I’d lost a bit of interest after making a hash of my tilt at glory but even so….

It must be psychological.  That hole has got into my head.

There’s only one thing for it, I’ve got to work on my thinking.  It’s more realistic than changing the habits of a lifetime and setting up camp on the practice ground – or even finding out where the practice ground is.  Admittedly, the odd lessons I have with Mo are very enjoyable and I always think “I should do this more often”.  Then the days and weeks and months fly by and my good intentions have flown with them.

Perhaps it’s not too late to turn over a new leaf and make more of an effort.  Don’t the sports psychologists suggest drilling down and being quite specific about your ambitions, not just announcing some vague desire “to play better golf”?  Is it too specific to say that your sole desire is to par the 3rd/4th?  Is that what’s known as an obsession?

So many questions.  Time to find some answers!  Postcards accepted.