We have Opens coming out of our ears at the moment:  the big one at Royal Birkdale, the senior men at Royal Porthcawl and this week the Ricoh Women’s British Open at Kingsbarns, a scenic gem just outside St Andrews.  Perhaps it’ll get a mention on 5 Live but who knows?  No sign of a preview that I could see in the Daily Mail, supposedly a paper aimed at women.  But then their golf correspondent, one of the best, is concentrating on the men and Rory’s reasons for dispensing with JP as his caddy.

The women’s football is all the rage at the moment – which is good, but I can’t help thinking that we golfers are missing a trick and not getting in there, elbows out, fighting our corner.  We have to rely on side issues – like dress codes – to boost the numbers and generate interest.  And since our recent rant, the LPGA have instituted their own new dress code, laying down the law, concentrating on the don’ts, the no thises, no thats that make me detest dress codes with a passion.  It’s like kneeling on the floor at school so they can measure how many inches/centimetres the skirt is above the ground.  Does it pass muster?  Does it heck as like.  (Have never been quite sure what that means but it seems right for the occasion.)

Anyway, the women seem to be playing well at Kingsbarns, with Michelle Wie, a proper golfer whatever the hype and brouhaha of her early years and her subsequent trials and tribulations, leading the way with a 64, eight under par.

I’m getting the train up to Leuchars today, to see how the weekend pans out and who hoists the trophy on Sunday.  There’ll also be the announcement of the Solheim Cup team for the match at Des Moines Golf and Country Club in Iowa later this month.  Make a note of the dates:  Friday 18th August – Sunday 20th.  It’s a big deal in Iowa and it should be a big deal over here.  The LET may be wobbling (not a state it’s unused to) but Europe can still put a good team together and I’d be astounded if Annika Sorenstam, the European captain and her players don’t give Juli Inkster, the USA skipper and her team a scare.  The Americans, the holders, are overwhelming favourites, as they usually are but they would do well to guard against complacency.  If I can find a bookie who’s heard of women’s golf, my money’s on Europe….

At a less elevated but no less important level, at least to those of us battling away on fairways far from the madding crowd, it was the Whittington Heathens’ ladies’ captain’s stay-away (not so sure about the hyphen but hope Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves and Get Her Off The Pitch! among many other things, would approve of the apostrophes) this week.

We played at Llangollen and Henlle Park and stayed at Lion Quays Resort, just in England, Gobowen way, Ian Woosnam territory and we more or less avoided the rain, bar one torrential plump in the middle of our round at Llangollen.  Both courses were hard work because they didn’t give you an inch:  there was no run because of the rain and we had to work hard for our points but we all had a ball and there were lots of laughs, not least because there are times when laughing is better than crying.

I’m on tour at the moment because after the stay-away it was on to Wrexham, to play in another Open.  An Open that was open to women at my level – and much better.  In fact, thanks to my team, from Wrexham and Fairhaven, all better than me, we won!  I did my bit and we all tried hard, hit more good shots than bad, holed some putts, missed some we shouldn’t have, got plenty of exercise, yakked a lot and laughed a lot.  Isn’t that what golf’s all about?!

The other day someone asked me how many Opens I’d been at and, not being a numbers bod, I hadn’t a clue.  Quite a few is the answer and it is still, I think, my favourite championship.  The world and her husband are here at Royal Birkdale and if you stand still for long enough, you’re likely to bump into almost everybody you’ve ever known in golf:  from Ireland, Japan, America, Sweden, Spain, Australia, wherever, you name it.  It’s wonderful.

Even on Tuesday the train to Hillside was full of golf fans, male, female, young, not so young and the buzz and excitement were palpable.  We streamed into Birkdale and big bruiser of a course though it is, with space to spare, we still stood out.  We were absorbed easily but not swallowed up.  Just another golf tournament?  I don’t think so.

I had a front row seat in the grandstand in 1998 when Justin Rose, a talented, gangly teenager in a baggy jumper, holed out from the rough at the 72nd hole, to give notice of his taste for the big occasion.  There was pandemonium but it was Mark O’Meara, aided, if memory serves, by a lengthy, officially sanctioned search for a missing ball, who won the title.  His reward this year was to open the proceedings at 0635 on a pretty filthy morning.  I confess I wasn’t there to see the start but perhaps I’ll make it this morning, when Beef is first off….

Dai died in May 2008, so Birkdale was the first Open I attended without him and it was a bit of an odd, bittersweet experience, albeit quieter than normal, with no husband to demand why I wasn’t getting a (blank) move on.  The traditional Open ice cream didn’t taste quite the same that year.  However, Greg Norman’s blast-from-the-past performance enlivened the proceedings, as did the presence of Chris Evert, who was, briefly, Mrs Norman.  Ian Poulter also got in on the act in fighting style but it was Padraig Harrington, always one of my favourites, who retained the claret jug he’d snaffled at Carnoustie the year before.

Padraig, whose endlessly inventive thought processes are probably a mystery even to himself, went on to win the USPGA later that year and I didn’t see a shot of his final round.  Assuming that he was too far adrift to have any chance, I went to bed and woke up to hear on the news that the delightfully doolally Dubliner had become a major miracle worker.  It taught me never, ever, to take anything in golf for granted and it should be an object lesson to every player, at whatever level, to keep on plugging away, whatever the conditions, however hopeless things look, until the holes run out.

Even here at Birkdale, watching the best players in the world, it’s amazing how dire some of the body language can be, how quickly players of immense talent seem to be floored by the slightest setback, ready to slump after a missed putt or a misjudged pitch and responding sarkily or swearing sulkily if a shot goes awry.  We all have days when we’re out of sorts but being a professional is surely all about damage limitation when the timing is out of sync or the biorhythms have gone walkabout.  It’s often a question of mind over matter.

Ask any Open champion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My heart is bursting!  “What with?” you may ask.  The answer is with pride.  PRIDE.  Nothing more, nothing less.  My home town, my home course, Portstewart Golf Club, where I’ve been a member all my life, is the venue for this week’s Dubai Duty Free Irish Open hosted by The Rory Foundation.  The place I’ve played thousands and thousands of rounds with friends and family, the place I’ve hit millions of practice shots, the place I’ve dreamed my dreams, is front and centre stage of European golf for a week.  I so wish Mum and Dad were here to see it.

The week started on Tuesday with an invitation from the matchless Barry Funston, the big shaker and mover of The Rory Foundation to an evening with Rory, James Nesbitt and Pep Guardiola.  Heaven!  Forgive my exuberance, but when you’ve had a lovely, golf-imbued life as I have…and then met oodles of these players….and then they come to your own stomping ground!  Well!  You can just imagine!

The incomparable Michael Moss, the recently retired secretary manager of the club, but the current, very busy, tournament guru, is working every hour imaginable with panache, humour and efficiency.  His successor as secy/manager is Judy Hutton and she has certainly hit the ground running, supported by the collective golfing community along this north coast.  It’s a true community effort. But perhaps the true, largely unsung, hero is Bernard Findlay, the man entrusted with preparing the links for the world’s great players. He and his team have truly delivered, so limitless congratulations to them all.

Patricia and I have been lucky enough to travel the world with this sport and this week it’s like having all your best mates from the players, caddies, media and managerial side all gathered together alongside your other mates and family who couldn’t break 100 if you gave them lessons from now to Domesday.  That takes a bit of getting your head around!  But it’s delicious!  Forgive me for the paucity of words this week, but as they say say, a picture says a thousand words, so here are a few of my favourites from the first two days.

 

 

How will we ever return to normal?

 

For the second week in a row I feel completely redundant.  Maureen had, as usual, got her blog in first, I read it and thought: can’t do better than that, she’s said all I wanted to say, with passion, panache and photos.  Time to put the wine away and go to bed.

None of us has ever seen Portstewart the way it is this week.  No cars on the beach for a start, unheard of in the summer but a real bonus for the photographers, with the sand at its most pristine.  You have to drive past the golf club to get to the beach and this week, with the European Tour at its biggest and best in town, you probably have to be Rory McIlroy to drive onto the sand – or a policeman on a quad bike.  I’d have taken a photo but he’d zoomed off before I could press the requisite buttons.  Too slow on the uptake as usual, which is not such a problem for us scribblers who can arrive late on the scene and still catch up.

Mind you, it’s still nice to be on the scene, if only to try and puzzle out later what on earth was happening before your very eyes.  I tootled round the first nine after a leisurely breakfast of seafood chowder and wheaten bread by the world’s best 1st tee and realised again just how beautiful the place is.  Did we really grow up here?  How lucky were we?  Aren’t all golf courses like this?  And Portrush?  And Castlerock?  The short answer is no.  Not only are our home courses some of the best in Ireland, they’re some of the best in the whole wide world.  So why shouldn’t Justin Rose, the Olympic champion, be striding down the hill at the 1st?  Or Hideki Matsuyama, who must surely become the first Japanese to win a major and open the floodgates?  Or the latest explosive Spanish talent that is Jon Rahm?

Chema, Jose Maria Olazabal, twice Masters champion, one of my favourites, is here and I’m ridiculously delighted to think of him, the man from Fuenterrabia, at Portstewart.  Wee places that can launch people out in to the wider world.  The place is littered with them this week:  wee boys – and girls – who had big dreams and discovered they really could take on the world.  Some go on on to believe their own publicity and think they’re better than they are but a goodly number remain grounded and, mostly, level-headed whatever the adulation  and remember that they’re human.  They’re the ones who are loved and respected, faults, foibles and all.

“Rory’s a bit grumpy this week,” someone who failed to get an autograph said, before adding, “Beef has time for everyone.”  Yeah, but.  Beef (sometimes aka Andrew Johnston) is not hosting the event on his (more or less give or take a few miles) home turf, trying to be all-singing, all-dancing, all-things-to-all-men-and women as well as all-swinging.  He only has to concentrate on his golf – and selfies with one and all, including fellow beardies.  Rory, the defending Irish Open champion, is donating his prize money this week to the Rory Foundation and he’d really rather like to make the cut.  As it is, he’s lightly golfed this season and his practice time is limited by the nature of the week. Even for a young, fit human dynamo, something’s got to give and if he had any sense, he should just check out Mo’s “Drive Up, Drive Off Sandra” tip and forget about the practice ground altogether, though that goes against the professional grain.

Of course, he could also read Be A Player, Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott’s latest book, as insightful, thought-provoking and full of good sense as ever.  Or, even quicker, he could talk to Jude O’Reilly, Ireland’s answer to Pia and Lynn.  If you’ve dug enough dirt and made the hands bleed enough, making the mind work better is the final frontier.

Mention of the mind brings me to Padraig Harrington, who has his own unique way of thinking and is warming up for Birkdale, where he won the Open so magnificently in 2008.  I was on the spot yesterday when Padraig launched his drive at the 7th (his 16th) well left into thick, tangly, inhospitable rough.  He took a drop, hammered his recovery well up the fairway and narrowly missed his putt.  Wonder what that added up to, I thought.  Nothing more than a par 5 according to the scoreboard.  Huh?

I bumped into Caroline Harrington at the next hole and she explained that it was a free drop because the ball was plugged.  Not only that but the spectators, being helpful, had picked up the ball to identify it and then diligently stuffed it back into the rubbish to try and ensure that it was lying as it had been.  So there is such a thing as the luck of the Irish!  And nothing like being there to see it.