We in the UK and Ireland all know this is the time of year when the golf season really starts.  For years it has been the Masters in gloriously technicoloured Augusta that has been the inspiration to shoo us out of doors and dust off the clubs.  For some reason, however, I seem to be trending in the other direction.  As I write, my last 18 holes were at Muirfield on March 25th and barely a clubhead has collided with a ball since then.  There are good reasons for that – speaking engagements; teaching commitments; family get-togethers at Easter; a week’s broadcasting at the Masters; and then, last weekend, two old schoolfriends, Rossie and Tricia, came to stay.

You can’t imagine the amount of chat and blethering from three Irish women who were last all in the same room together in 1984 – or perhaps you can!

Husband Brian was relieved to escape back to work on Monday.  (Yes – he’s “unretired” himself.)  He took himself off on his motorbike on the Saturday while we walked the walls in Chester but his arrival home sparked great interest from our two visitors.  Tricia, in particular, was keen to experience riding pillion after an interlude of several decades and a Sunday outing was planned – Brian and Tricia on the bike and Rossie and me in the car.  Amazingly, Brian has lived to tell the tale – and Rossie and I needed oxygen after uncontrollable laughter overtook us.  Tricia’s efforts to get her leg over the bike left us doubled up.

So, you see, there’s been a lot going on, some of it golf related certainly but not much playing of my own game.

I’m beginning to find it very easy to slip into a mode of “making do” with my golf.  As long as I hit the odd decent shot I seem to be settling for that and not minding too much.  Where has my fierce competitiveness all disappeared to?  Is it simply the logical acceptance of anno domini and of someone who no longer is prepared to practise, I wonder?

That last round I played at Muirfield was foursomes.  Foursomes is the name of the game at the Honourable Company and my partner for the second 18 that day was Gabrielle Macdonald, former Scottish champion and oft-capped International player who is working hard to see if her future will, indeed, lie in the professional ranks.  Frankly, Gabrielle inspired me.  She has reignited some competitive juices and I want to call a halt to putting up with my woeful standard of play and my mindset of the days of being a “proper” golfer being behind me.  It was a pleasure to hear the sound of crisp iron shots leaving the face of the club and to witness a deft touch around the greens.  And I found that I want that for myself again.  I know I can do better and it’s time to put in a bit of effort.  So, I’ve decided to take myself off to Somerset next month and see my old pal and former coach, Lawrence Farmer, who has retired with his wife, Sally, to cider country.

I’ve had a few coaches throughout my golfing life starting with Johnny Hunter at Portstewart Golf Club and P. G. Stevenson (Stevie) at Royal Portrush.  Gentlemen to their fingertips they both spent decades at their respective clubs and were both succeeded by their sons who followed suit in the longevity stakes – a couple of true golfing dynasties.  As I made my way up through the ranks I had half a dozen years coached by the great John Shade at Duddingston Golf Club in Edinburgh before his untimely death.  He coached me to my two British Amateur titles and I still have notes taken during those sessions. My memories are of laughing endlessly with him as we wrestled my swing into shape.

Denis Comboy of Delamere Forest was another who made lessons so enjoyable and spending time with him on the practice ground was never a chore.  But, with all due respect to these fine teachers, Lawrence is by some distance the best coach I’ve ever worked with.  This has sometimes been to his detriment as, during his time on the Seniors Tour he was in such demand from his fellow competitors wanting him to cast his eye over their game that I’m sure his own golf suffered for it.  Anyway, I’m off to see him next month and I just can’t wait.  No more dampening down of my passion for this game.

So, now that the sun has finally made a welcome appearance it’s time to flex those golfing muscles.  No matter what age or stage you are at your enjoyment will be enhanced by a few lessons with a PGA coach.  We can’t do it all on our own – a set of eyes on us does help and, if you choose the right coach, you’ll have a lot of laughs along the way.

You know what they say about buses?  No sign of one for ages and then two come along within seconds of each other.  Well, it seems to me that the same sort of thing is happening in golf as regards change.  Nothing of any great significance happens for years and then a flurry of activity explodes centre stage.

On Wednesday I was the guest speaker at the Hertfordshire County Ladies’ annual dinner at Porter’s Park golf club, a venue and dinner I first spoke at ten years ago.  There’s a lot going on in the county at the moment, what with the men’s and women’s side of things amalgamating and new initiatives and names coming into being.  In my experience this is seldom a smooth path, with the inevitable flexing of muscles on either side but with patience, strong listening skills and an eye on collective goals and aspirations I have no doubt the joining together of the two sections can and will be successful – and Hertfordshire golf will be the better and stronger for it.  With members the calibre of Elaine Radcliffe, former professional and Curtis Cup player, in their midst, Jane Walter, the intrepid captain in this time of change and Lesley Hewitt, the first president of the new collective, there is a strong and stable base for success.  I just hope that there remains room in the new association for some separate men’s and women’s dinners and lunches.  After all, everyone enjoys them and surely we don’t have to be joined at the hip ALL the time, do we?

My evening at Porter’s Park was made complete by meeting up again with Brickendon Grange member Deirdre Martin from my home town. The dinner brought us together after forty years or so!  Our fathers were great pals and had a regular fourball for many years at Portstewart and when they were a man down I was called in to make up the numbers, first doing so at the age of 12.  The boys played off anything from 7 – 12 handicap and, believe you me, it was a tough school – no quarter given.  I loved it and those games certainly helped shape my golfing career.  Meeting up with Deirdre again made the decades slip away and it was just lovely.

At the weekend it was off to Muirfield for our annual match against the members of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers (HCEG) in the Madill Trophy.  Huge change is afoot here too.  Scaffolding is shrouding a large part of the clubhouse as preparations are made for building ladies’ locker rooms and readying the club for the inclusion of the fair sex within its walls as members.

We are homing in on this match’s quarter-centenary celebration and although there has been undeniable momentum towards history-making changes there has been one indisputable constant – the welcome and hospitality afforded us by our impeccable hosts.  That has never altered.  This year we were treated to the club’s famous Sunday lunch and, afterwards, just prior to the trophy presentation, my February landmark birhday was marked by a cake and a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday. This was accompanied by a gift of Peter Brown’s lovely photographic book of the 2013 Open at Muirfield – the one in which Phil Mickelson triumphed.  I must admit I never thought I’d be celebrating a birthday within the hallowed walls of the HCEG but I came crashing back to reality when it came time to present the trophy to secy Stuart McEwan as his team won for the third time in the last four years.  They are closing the gap!

Life is unpredictable and one of the only things we can be sure of is that things never stay the same.  Any change can be scary, uncomfortable and disorientating but as I said earlier, as far as golf is concerned, if we have a positive attitude and collective will I believe we can make our great sport even better and share the fun we all have with even more men, women and children.

All the golf talk is of the Masters and the big buzz around this year’s tournament, which starts next Thursday, weather permitting.  Can Tiger conjure up the comeback to end all comebacks and win again; will Rory complete the coveted grand slam; what chance Sergio celebrating Azalea’s arrival with another green jacket;  is Danny Willett still a major factor or a busted flush; can anyone beat Bubba at Augusta if he’s at his idiosyncratic best; can a fireman make the cut?  [Matt Parziale, a firefighter from Brockton, Massachusetts, won the US Mid-Amateur to qualify.]  So many questions and all being well, we’ll have all the answers a week on Sunday.

Luckily for all of the above, I’m not putting any money on anyone or anything, having learned from bitter betting experience.  My men/women/horses/50-50 chances invariably come to grief, so I’m giving up, even on the Grand National – I think Team Spirit, in 1964, was my last success, a fluke of mythical proportions but I was too young to realise that that sort of luck couldn’t hold.  Lee Westwood, a golfer who likes a flutter and takes more than a passing interest in horse-racing, had an amazing punting run at Cheltenham the other week but I suspect he’d swap it for another four competitive rounds at Augusta National.  I believe he has to win in Houston this week to get in.

In the meantime, over in California, the first major of the season is already under way:  the ANA Inspiration at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, hard by Palm Springs, started yesterday.  Hard to believe I used to go there every year, starting in the days when Dinah Shore’s name was still in the title and she was the hostess with the mostest.  I’d drive across the desert from Phoenix, home of the Standard Register Ping of blessed memory, won four times in a row by the inimitable Laura Davies and the event where Annika Sorenstam posted her record-breaking 59 [I was there!].  The course was called Moon Valley, so perhaps there was a certain mystical magic in the air.  Dame Laura is still competing in California, on the Dinah Shore Tournament course, in an event she has yet to win, a particularly irritating gap in her formidable resume.  Will she win this week?  Doubtful, given that the best players in the world, younger and fitter, make up the opposition and LD started with an 81 but golf is a funny old game.  Keep an eye out.

To lower the tone and the skill level considerably, I am feeling a tad overgolfed this week.  It was the captains’ drive-in at Whittington Heath on Sunday and there was a 9-hole comp, not won by me and my long-suffering partner.  She used to class me as a good player – until she saw my opening effort at the 1st.  I was lucky to make any sort of contact and my ball ended up on the 18th green, a holeable 15 feet from the pin.  I’d driven all of 30, perhaps, being generous, 35 yards.  “I’d have gone and picked it up for you,” my partner said, “but I didn’t want them [the guys playing the last] thinking it was mine!”  Steps: 1,537 [forgot to put my phone in my pocket].

Fortunately, the following day, in the final of the Winter Foursomes, I was playing the evens, though we did start at the 10th because the golfers of the West Midlands Fire Service were out in force.  I made a better fist of my drive and avoided most of the trouble, though my partner Bev Chattaway and I were outhit (well, I, of the non-existent swing speed, was) and outlasted by two of Whittington’s many Sues – Spencer and Sims in this case – who won the final three holes to win 2 up.  Congratulations to them, it was a good battle.  And thanks to Bev for her equanimity in the face of adversity.  Steps:  14,150.

Tuesday was the Grandmothers’ comp, with a stableford for those of us who aren’t grannies.  I played like a particularly decrepit great, great granny whose chosen sport was bowls – or bridge, or bagatelle, anything but golf.  I don’t often change my putter but my stroke had been so peripatetic that I’d rooted out The Little Swan, a minute, aged mallet by John Letters of Scotland, that is dwarfed by the ball.  If you don’t make a decent strike, the ball goes nowhere, so it concentrates the mind wonderfully.  Not that it worked on Tuesday.  Steps:  12,873.

On Wednesday, it was off to Moor Hall in Sutton Coldfield for the first round of the Annodata, a five-a-side team event off handicap.  We had hail, torrential rain, ordinary rain and beautiful spring sunshine, so my opponent and I, who hadn’t the luxury of a caddie between us, were kept busy juggling towels, brollies, hats, gloves, specs, whatever.  No wonder our golf was a trifle sclaffy.  The course wasn’t quite as wet as the Loch Lomond of the 2000 Solheim Cup but it was soggy enough and striking the ball cleanly was cause for celebration.  When spring is properly sprung and everything is blooming, Moor Hall is a lovely place to play golf and it’s where Maureen once had so many birdies that the scoreboard ran out of red numbers.  Oh happy days.

For the record, WHGC won 4-1 and can still dream of the finals in Spain.  Steps:  17,642.

Yesterday, blog day, I contented myself with tai chi and a trip into Birmingham to give blood.  I’m up to donation number 48 – it was a sluggish effort but we blamed the slow flow on the cold – and I’m hoping to hit the half century by the end of the year.  Steps:  10,018.

 

Twenty-five years ago this month I had back surgery to clean up the debris left behind after a disc in my lower back had ruptured.  It was a critical time for me as there was huge uncertainty as to whether I would be able to get back to being able to get out on tour again.  I quizzed my surgeon as to the expected length of recovery time required and, most importantly when would I be able to start putting, chipping, swinging and hitting shots again?  He confessed he had no idea, never having been involved in the rehab of any of his patients and he had simply no clue when, or if, if I could recapture my former skills.  “But,” he said,  “I’ll find out for you.”  And, true to his word, he did.

My surgeon had a pal who was an orthopaedic surgeon in the States and who had conducted similar ops on several PGA Tour players.  Most importantly, however, he had studied the best, most effective and quickest rehab for his golfers.  For those of you of a certain age this was the era of the fax machine and soon scores of pages of advice and exercises were spewing out in my office at home.  This, believe it or not, was my first serious introduction to golf specific exercises and fitness.  Who knew such a thing existed?  Three years later Eldrick Woods, aka Tiger, turned pro and the entire professional golf world was off and exercising.  So, it’s fair to say my tournament career straddled the line between no-one really doing too much, fitness-wise, to virtually everyone doing something.  It was quite a change – no longer was Gary Player a lone voice!

I’ve never been a lover of gyms per se.  As far as I’m concerned they are a means to an end.  In my case that initially meant getting fit enough to take strain off my vulnerable back and play on tour.  Later, as a coach, it meant keeping up with my young players and not asking my squads to do anything I wasn’t doing myself.  But I retired from coaching international squads a decade ago and in the interim I’ve rarely visited a gym, preferring to do a little bit at home instead on the ole exercise bike.  By and large, though, I became lazy.

And then 2017 happened.  I had a poor year health-wise and spent a lot of time at home, drawbridge up, portcullis down, with my 60th birthday looming early in 2018.  Once I began to feel a little better I thought it was time to have a new goal, something to inspire me and encourage me to up the fitness levels again.  I decided to do something I’ve done twice already – namely climb Table Mountain.  I did it with relative ease twenty years ago and thirteen years ago when I puffed my way up to the top I was stung when my husband said, “I can’t believe how unfit you are!”  Well, we are revisiting the Cape in April and, though it may be unrealistic, I’ve set myself the goal of doing the climb once again and seeing if I can make the summit.

I’ve enlisted the help of Annette Stroud, a fitness trainer friend who has written me a couple of non-gym programmes and we only do the odd session in the gym just to check technique and tweak the exercises.  I may well be mad but almost seven weeks in I feel so much better than I have for ages and already I feel the benefits on the golf course.

If you want to help improve your performance on the course, there’s no need to kill yourselves………just try a few power walks and you’ll feel better on the back nine than you could have believed possible.  Give it a wee go – you’ll enjoy the benefits – and watch this space to see if I manage my climb in April!