It’s been a busy week, an unusually busy one for me these days, not least because it involved a trip to Scotland, where I played golf, attended a memorial service and caught up with friends.  Brill.  Must get out and about more often.

The golf was at Dundonald Links in Ayrshire, not too far from Troon, albeit not so venerable, on a glorious day.  I played most of the round in shirt sleeves despite so many years in the Midlands, as far from the sea as it is possible to get in England, that I’m probably now classed as a southern softie.  My golf was less wonderful than the weather but it was a joy to be on a links again and we even got to play a hole with Catriona Matthew, of Solheim Cup fame.

 

 

Catriona has retired from the day-to-day grind of tournament golf – it’s usually the travel that takes its toll – but is far from done with the game and one of her many roles is as tournament ambassador to the Trust Golf Women’s Scottish Open.  It’s at Dundonald at the end of July, 28th-31st, with a prize fund of $2 million.  Dr Prin Singhanart, the physicist who founded Trust Golf, part of a Thai-based technology enterprise, said, “We look to enhance and grow this historic event to sit alongside the best tournaments on the schedule….we aim to to grow the game and create the best opportunities for female golfers.”

There were two other very special females – not golfers – on hand to support the tournament, taking a brief break from their countrywide tour with their manager Andrew Cotter.  Yes, it was the global social media stars Olive and Mabel, labs without limits.  They’d been performing in St Andrews and, I think, Troon and were preparing to head for the ferry to cross to Belfast and then, passports permitting, Dublin.

With the labs, very down to earth for superstars, busy scavenging for food – don’t forget they’re the breed that put the nick into picnic – Andrew said, “With a lot of their family nearby in Troon, they look forward to this sporting event above all others.”

After a lovely, luxurious night at Dundonald Links, it was off to St Andrews for Renton Laidlaw’s memorial service.  Renton, who died last October at the age of 82, spent his life on the move as a writer and a broadcaster, radio and television, supreme.  He had the gift of the gab – everything invariably beautifully judged and paced, rarely lost for the mot juste – but above all he had a gift for friendship.  In a notoriously bitchy, backstabbing business, no one had a bad word to say about Renton.  Occasionally he’d be teased for his propensity to go on a bit – whenever he was accepting an award, say, or hosting a dinner – but he had a never-ending fund of great stories, so why not tell them?

He was a multi-tasking workaholic who wrote, broadcast, edited (The Golfer’s Handbook of blessed memory, a great resource) and still had time to be secretary, chairman and president of the AGW.  I used to joke that he was like a shark – he had to keep moving to keep breathing.  He’d fly to Phoenix for the day, then the south of France, Sunningdale, St Andrews, Augusta, Australia, there was nowhere he wasn’t known.  He was kind, generous, twinkly and was much loved.  He never married – he never stayed still long enough – but his friends, female and male, were devoted to him and gathered from all over the world to pay tribute to him.

The stands are already going up around the Old Course in preparation for a very special Open, the 150th, this July and nearly 300,000 spectators are expected during the week (10th-17th), with the whole show expected to generate around £200 million in total economic benefit to Scotland according to the SIRC (Sport Industry Research Centre) at Sheffield Hallam University in a report commissioned by the R&A.

This is an all-ticket Open – not quite so open then?  Gone are the days when you could pitch up on the day and buy a ticket at the gate.  Apparently when the ballot opened there were more than 1.3 million applications.

 

One of the great things about St Andrews is how compact it is and how cosmopolitan – it’s packed with students from all over the world as well as golfers.  It’s also home to hordes of gulls, big buggers who swirl around with malice aforethought, ready to outdo the greediest labradors as nickers of picnics and, afterwards, splatter whatever lies beneath – be it pavement, pedestrian or car.  If you’re a driver, make sure you have a big bottle of water and some kitchen roll to hand.  You’ll need it!

Some of the golf writers were on the tee on Tuesday, part of the pre-Open briefing and recce and they got a dry, grey and chilly morning for their game.  I was lucky enough to capture Derek Lawrenson’s opening drive (below).

Derek, golf correspondent of the Daily Mail, former chairman of the AGW and a happy Liverpool supporter anticipating an unprecedented quadruple, has been on my road-to-hell conscience for nearly three years.  He won the Golf Writers’ Championship in 2019 (at Royal Liverpool, Hoylake), for a record-equalling fourth time and I meant to send him a note welcoming him to the club – but never did.  Sorry Derek. Well done.  Welcome.

 

 

 

It’s been a long time coming and there’ll be no shortage of people wishing it wasn’t happening at all, convinced that it must be some sort of nightmare, an aberration.  Some mistake surely?  More than 60 years after being told to stand at the back and mime, I’ve found my voice and a choir that is willing to allow me to sing with them in a concert.  It’s a proper concert at a proper venue, this Saturday – that’s tomorrow – and the enormity of it all is beginning to overwhelm me.

It’s not Carnegie Hall (though it might as well be) and I won’t be centre stage like the wonderfully deluded Florence Foster Jenkins, a role that tested the considerable acting skills of Maureen Lipman, who is musical and can sing, to the limits in Peter Quilter’s play Glorious!.  Apparently it’s terribly hard to do singing badly well if you can sing – if you’re still with me.

Florence, a wealthy socialite, has been described as the world’s worst opera singer and author Stephen Pile wrote:  “No one, before or since, has succeeded in liberating themselves quite so completely from the shackles of musical notation.”   She was ok on the piano but the general consensus was that basic vocal skills like pitch, rhythm and sustaining notes and phrases eluded her. I know that feeling.  Flat pretty well sums it up.

Nevertheless, Florence, ever determined and flamboyant, remained defiant:  “People may say I can’t sing but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.”

There was no denying she was a showwoman and Cole Porter was one of those who tried not to miss a recital – although legend has it that he had to bang his cane into his foot in order not to laugh out loud.

Many thanks to Wikipedia for most of the info above, some of it undoubtedly accurate.  Fortunately, tomorrow I’ll be surrounded by people who can sing and there’s no danger of me being asked to perform a solo – unless they need the hall cleared in double-quick time.

Having been to an extra, utterly exhausting rehearsal on Thursday, my head hurt and it and my heart were telling me that I was an eejit to be contemplating this bonkers endeavour.  But I’ve said I’ll do it and a few long-suffering friends with nothing better to do have bought tickets on the proviso that I’m on stage, with the choir.  If I chicken out and join them in the audience, I’m paying for their tickets – and probably all the drinks…

Dai, who could sing, couldn’t tolerate my woeful efforts at warbling in the shower, so I can’t quite get my head round the fact that Helen, whose passion Social Singers (Everybody Sings!) is, doesn’t visibly cringe when she hears my efforts.  (Sometimes there aren’t even a dozen people in our group in Lichfield – Covid and other commitments have taken their toll – so there’s no hiding place; I’m not miming in this group, that would be missing the point.)  Perhaps she does inwardly flinch but at least I show up most weeks and make an effort, even though proper singers like Helen, who has perfect pitch (whatever that is), can’t possibly understand that some of us haven’t a clue what a note is.

It’s probably not audible to the naked ear but I’m sure I’ve got better, not least because I’m learning more about music, breathing (blimey, it’s hard), about listening and looking – at the conductor, who’ll be doing her best to keep us together – and my only regret is that I’m really no good at all.  Singing really is one of the great joys and to do it well or even half decently would be fabulous.

We’ll be finishing with Abba’s “Thank You For The Music” – audience as well, so the pressure will be off – and one of the lines is:  “…I have a talent a wonderful thing ’cause everyone listens when I start to sing…”  Well, it would be wonderful but many millions have bopped to it with delight and murdered the tune, so what the heck:  thank you for the music for giving it to me…

A few years ago a singing teacher told me that she thought I’d been “badly served” and that I “had a range” and even mentioned Kathleen Ferrier, a contralto nonpareiI.  I walked back home roaring with laughter at the very thought.  The range, by the way, was an octave, which is bugger all but what the heck!

I did play golf this week – the weather was gorgeous, the company was good, so were some of the shots but the scoring was indifferent at best and my excuse is that I was distracted by the endless toneless humming in my head as I prepped for the big sing-song.

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye…

 

 

 

Phew, well, where to start?  That’s always the problem I suppose, especially when there’s no obvious beginning.  Unusually, I feel almost overgolfed this week, having played two days in a row, followed by a wine tasting (lady captain’s orders), so perhaps it’s hardly surprising that I’m feeling a little weary – all that fresh air and exercise…

Nerves are also exhausting even at my lowly level, more so maybe because I’m not quite sure where our new practice ground is, so every shot is a mystery – though I did take to the practice putting green for a short, desperate session after the winter foursomes trouncing.  And Mo will be giving details of my lesson with her.  The most difficult part of that, for me, was trying to remember what the ball actually did – I’m not the most forensic when it comes to my own game.  Like Peppermint Patty (above), one of Charles M Schulz’s marvellous characters in Peanuts, who is more often away with the fairies than paying attention on the fairways.

You’ll note that Patty is carrying her clubs and we at WHGC have been encouraged to carry during the winter months but honestly, it’s a lost cause, isn’t it?  I carry when I can but I only have eight clubs and a wee-ish bag and usually foist any extra gear on my long-suffering, trolley-manoeuvring playing partners.  If you’re getting on a bit (and who isn’t), you need a lot of gear, waterproofs, gloves, hand warmers, bananas, cake, flask of coffee, extra fleece in case it goes even colder, umbrella – who, bar a professional caddy, can carry that?

I used my trolley on Monday – no partner just an opponent, a very pleasant, hockey-playing person, the visiting team’s captain, who was playing her first 18 holes since November and was quite surprised to be competing in March, a muddy, claggy month at her home course.  At Whittington, by contrast, we didn’t have to go anywhere near the shoe-cleaning machine after the match.

We had a ding-dong battle, which I won, by an outwardly comfortable scoreline but it could quite easily have gone the other way and even before the match I’d decided that my competitive days were over.  Too much responsibility, a flaky putting stroke (fixable but never likely to be reliable, destined to be streaky at best, depressingly dodgy at worst) and a growing dislike of competition – except when it’s friendly…

Time to leave all that to others.

Rest assured, I’m not giving up golf, just golf where I have to think, make a real effort, worry about the result.  If I become more Zen, or rediscover The Lost Art of Putting (great book by Gary Nicol and Karl Morris, which I should re-read closely) or develop an urge to find the practice ground, I’ll be a great partner in friendlies!  Although not everybody will be able to cope with my new, ready-for-summer hat.

Talking of Zen, meditation, that sort of thing, what’s Rory thinking about these days?  From what I saw of Bay Hill he seemed at times to be channelling his inner Tyrrell – the mangling of at least one errant wedge made it big on social media.  Except that Tyrrell kept his game and his infamous temper together in fiendishly tricky conditions and finished with a 69, in a tie for second, just one shot behind Scottie Scheffler, winner of the Arnie red cardi.

Rory slipped to a share of 13th with two rounds of 76 to finish, a bit of a reverse from his first round of 65.  “I feel punch drunk,” he said.  “The weekend, it’s like crazy golf.”

It was close to mayhem on the last day, with all sorts of weird and not-so-wonderful shots on view as whipping winds and glassy greens caused havoc but I hope Rory reads the rest of what he said and has a bit of a think about it:  “Sort of the way conditions are, it makes you feel as if you’re not playing as good as you are.  Like, I’m playing good.  I’m hitting good shots.  I’m swinging the club well.  I’m chipping well.  I’m putting well.  But it can knock your confidence whenever the conditions are like this.  I’m certainly playing better than shooting eight over over the weekend.”

That’s golf Rory.  Look at the figures, they don’t lie.  And if you can’t get your head round it, you haven’t a hope of ever winning the Masters, where keeping your cool and grind, grind, grinding away is paramount.  The phrase “flat track bully”  keeps coming to mind…

Perhaps a few chats with Tiger, the ultimate grinder, wouldn’t go amiss.  He was inducted into the Hall of Fame on Wednesday evening, introduced by his daughter Sam, an ultra poised 14-year old.

In honour of Crufts, which is on in Birmingham this week, I’ll leave the last word to Snoopy, whose enthusiasm for golf usually far exceeded his skill but, like all of his us, he had his moments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This blog’s interests are wide-ranging but its area of expertise is, if not quite non-existent, paltry at best.  As far as golf goes it does not stretch to holes-in-one, although I have had two in a golfing lifetime that is staggering into its 56th year.  Not much of a return for all those swings and, in the early days at least, all those lessons and expert advice.

Even worse, I never saw either of them!  The first one was in a club match    at Oxley Park, just up the road from Molineux and the tee was a bit below the level of the green, which was guarded by a bunker, so I hit some sort of finagle with a wood.  When we got up to the green, there was no sign of my ball, so I looked in the trees behind the greens.  Still no luck and it was only as a last resort that I looked in the hole – and there it was.  My first ace.

It was also a bit embarrassing because I was already a lot up and when we got in, there was hardly anybody there, so I bought a bottle of sauvignon blanc and twisted the arm of the lad behind the bar, who agreed to have a lemonade or cola of some sort.  A cheap gig but a  disappointing celebration of a momentous (for me) occasion!  The rest of the family welcomed me to the club and wondered why it had taken me so long.

My only other hole-in-one was at the old 13th, currently the 12th, at Whittington, always my least favourite hole.  It’s not long but is surrounded by bunkers, so I have to take a wood, do a bit of fiddling and hope for the best, usually a good bounce off the slope on the lefthand side of the green.  This time I hit it well, there was no sign of it in the bunker to the left, so I thought it had kicked merrily on and over the green, down the dip.  Still no sign, so my playing partner, on the way to her ball, had a look in the hole and, glory be, there it was.

Yesterday morning, on that self-same green, my partner and I shook hands with our opponents in the Winter Foursomes, beaten by 7 and 6, known as a dog licence by older readers who remember the days of shillings and pence when pets did not require insurance.  The consolation was that they played well – 8 over par for the 12 holes, by my count, including a double bogey at the 11th, where we had a shot and I had a tiddler to win the hole and missed.  The darned computer kept wanting to put “toddler”, something even more costly than my tiddler…

This talk of holes-in-one was prompted in part by Miguel Angel Jimenez’s latest victory on the senior circuit in America – officially the PGA Tour Champions.  The colourful Spaniard, still going strong at the age of 58, won the Cologuard Classic in Tucson by four shots from Bernhard Langer, even more evergreen than Jimenez, and Woody Austin.  En route to his second victory in three events, Jimenez had two holes-in-one, one in the first round and one in the third and final round.  He’s now had 13 in tournaments.

If you think about it, it’s pretty amazing that there aren’t more holes-in-one in professional events, given the level of skill and the number of players having four goes per round (at least; that’s not counting drivable par 4s). The conclusion must surely be that an ace is, essentially, a fluke?!  A happy fluke, deserving of celebration and commemoration but a fluke nonetheless.

At the top of this piece is a picture proudly featuring the three holes-in-one achieved by Moor Hall’s Tony Clayton, whose funeral was last Monday. (Note that for one of them he used a ball from the Masters, cool or what!)  TC, a great friend, who died just short of his 84th birthday, was an enthusiastic golfer but didn’t always give it his full concentration.  One of his regular playing partners, whose wife did all their cooking, complained more than once that Tony was more interested in sharing the intricacies of his latest recipe for black bean soup than giving a putt his full attention.

Tony was a Villa fan, so I’m sure he’d have enjoyed this picture, WhatsAppd to me by a friend after Tottenham’s exit from the FA Cup at the hands of Middlesbrough.  Boro were at home but they’re a division down from Spurs and most neutrals would have expected us to win, flaky though our form has been.  Boro won 1-nil, in extra time and it looked to be thoroughly deserved.  Not one of the Spurs fans I’ve spoken to was surprised….

A glutton for punishment, I entered the golf writers’ PYP (Pick Your Pro) competition again this year in the hope of improving on my most notable performance thus far – finishing last and getting my entrance money back – but things aren’t looking good.  My choice for this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational?  Bryson DeChambeau, the defending champion, a man who was bound to play.  Wasn’t he?  Well, no.  He’s got some sort of injury and has withdrawn.  Nul dollars this week.  Unless Lydia Ko plays well in the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore….Go Lydia.