All sorts of season-ending trophies, titles and bonuses are being handed out at this time of year and the professional tours have been recognising the best of the best.  Meanwhile, the amateurs up and down the land are trotting forth to try and win a Christmas turkey, braving all sorts of adverse weather conditions and perhaps being inspired by their heroes.

In this most disruptive of years in the professional game we have had some really heart-warming stories and there’s no better place to start than in the women’s game with New Zealander Lydia Ko.  Now 25 years of age, Ko amazingly has just completed her ninth season on the LPGA tour.  In her early days she swept all before her, becoming the youngest ever world No 1 back in 2015 at the tender age of seventeen.  For a while she could do no wrong but an extended period of a revolving door of instructors and caddies derailed her to the point that she slipped outside the top 60 in the world.

Many a player would have been thrilled to have owned Lydia’s record during these “off” years.  She “only” recorded two victories on the American tour between the 2016 and 2022 seasons but her work ethic and innate charm never wavered despite her travails on the course.  I remember interviewing her after one of her rounds in the 2016 Women’s Open and not looking forward to it as she had driven OB at the last and finished with a double bogey.  Players can be very thorny after a finish like that and need to be approached warily (think Colin Montgomerie or Darren Clarke or almost anybody).  Lydia, however, couldn’t have been more courteous or co-operative and added a sparkle that I wasn’t expecting.  I’ve never forgotten it.

And now she’s back to her best, tucking away a cheque for $2 million dollars last Sunday – the largest first prize in the women’s game – for winning the CME Group Tour Championship.  This was her third win of the year enabling her to scoop up the Vare Trophy for the season’s low scoring average as well as the Rolex Player of the Year award.  In her own words it has been a “dream season” and with her wedding to look forward to on December 30th it will be a year she never forgets.  She’s a class act.

Finishing runner-up to Lydia last week and pocketing the biggest cheque (US$550,000 or thereabouts) of her four and a half year professional career was another class act, Ireland’s Leona Maguire.  She notched her first LPGA victory back in February and had three other top five finishes, most notably a fourth place in the AIG Women’s Open at Muirfield.  This has all been instrumental in propelling her to a career best eleventh place in the world rankings.

Leona’s 2022 report card has not been the only positive one produced by European players, which must be very pleasing for Solheim Cup captain Suzanne Pettersen, who is undoubtedly already sizing up the contenders for the match in Spain in September.  For golf fans from these islands the maiden LPGA wins of Jodi Ewart Shadoff and Gemma Dryburgh were real high points, as was Charley Hull winning for the second time on the American tour. There was also continued good play from Celine Boutier and Georgia Hall, two stalwarts of last year’s Solheim victory.

The ever reliable Swedish production line seems to be rolling along nicely with the phenomenal new talents of Linn Grant and Maja Stark and I was particularly pleased to see Anna Nordqvist finish highly last week after a difficult season.  So, all in all, I’d suggest that it’s quite a rosy picture for captain Pettersen to contemplate.

And perhaps things aren’t quite so bad for Luke Donald either as he ponders his selections for the Ryder Cup, also being played next September and also a home European fixture.  Rory reigns supreme, having climbed the world ranking mountain to the No 1 spot again, at the same time finishing top on both sides of the Atlantic.  In my, clearly unbiased, opinion he has been No 1 both on and off the course, assuming the role of chief spokesman on behalf of the PGA tour and its players in the ongoing LIV saga.

Sterling performances from Matt Fitzpatrick, the US Open champ, the ever formidable Jon Rahm, and the resurgence of Tommy Fleetwood, Dubai’s newest resident, will surely gladden Donald’s heart.  And whenever he casts his eyes towards American shores, he’ll see Ireland’s Seamus Power sitting proudly atop the standings.

Seamus has had a golden month, starting with winning for the second time on the PGA tour at Bermuda.  He followed this up by being in contention in his next two starts, finishing third and fifth and growing ever more comfortable in the heat of being in contention.  It’s a long time till the Ryder Cup in Rome but it’s a great start.

Viktor Hovland, Shane Lowry, Alex Noren and Tyrrell Hatton will all surely be noted in Donald’s little black book but I’m sure he’ll also consider the super talented Hojgaard twins from Denmark and Scots Ewen Ferguson, Richie Ramsey and Bob McIntyre.

Perhaps Europe’s Ryder Cup team will be less affected by the LIV desertions than the Americans.  After all, who are we losing?  Sergio, Westwood, Poulter, Casey…?  All in their forties with, dare I say it, their best golf behind them.  On the other hand the Americans will be without DJ, Koepka, Dechambeau, Patrick Reed and Phil Mickelson, all but the latter potentially in their prime.  Somehow, come Rome, I don’t think we the golf fans will be giving any of the aforementioned a single passing thought – we’ll be caught up yet again in an enthralling Ryder Cup tussle.  So, no, we won’t miss them.

I started with a Kiwi and can’t finish without the mention of another Kiwi, Ryan Fox, who finished runner-up to Rory in the DP World Tour rankings.  His has been an outstanding year which is all the more heartwarming coming after difficult Covid years when he could barely get back home to see his wife and young family, so difficult was it to travel in and out of his native land.  It seemed like he was in contention every week – two wins, four seconds and a third place bear testament to that – and a meteoric rise from 213th in the world rankings at the start of the season to 27th (one ahead of Seamus) assures him of starts in all the majors for 2023.  His is a very well-deserved off-season.

I must add one PS for fear of not being allowed back into Ireland if I don’t mention Padraig Harrington’s stupendous maiden campaign on the US Seniors’ tour.  With four wins under his belt there was no one to touch him…..except Steven Alker, who also notched four victories and played golf of the highest order.

And, oh yes, Alker is another Kiwi.  There’s clearly been some sort of magic dust sprinkled on the men and women from the land of the long, white cloud in 2022.  Wonder if we could bottle it too?

Congratulations all.

Christmas has come early in this house with the unexpected, joyful arrival through the door the other day of the tome Peter Alliss was working on when he died.  For me, that was the end of all meaningful accomplishment for a few days as I nestled down to enjoy PETER ALLISS:  REFLECTIONS ON A LIFE WELL LIVED.

I don’t know quite what I was expecting.  In truth, I hadn’t given it much thought but Jackie, Peter’s wife, had confessed to me that it was a difficult project to bring to a close and that the family was keen that it should be done as a lasting testament to Peter.  On opening the first pages I discovered that Peter had enlisted the talents of fellow Norn Irish person Bill Elliott in this, his final project.

I whooped with delight.  This must surely be a marriage made in heaven.  Bill is as skilful with the pen and keyboard as Peter was with his impeccable timing and mastery of the spoken word.  The irreverent, observational Elliott humour has been capable of holding court in a multitude of media centres around the world and when you add this to an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of golf it is a delightful mix.  And as Patricia drily reminded me, “Bill has been around for a very, very long time!”

The book only very loosely follows some semblance of a chronological timescale but, rather like its author, it rambles hither and thither, just exactly the way good conversation does with an old friend.  There’s nothing wishy-washy about Peter’s opinions, however, and in a wonderful chapter near the end of the book he discourses on a range of subjects from Brexit to modern day education to Gary Player to Love Island.  Where else would you come across such a range of diverse topics, all in a clump?  No punches pulled, but a gentle questioning wonderment as to how on earth did we arrive at this point?  Peter always left you with food for thought.

I was privileged to spend quite a bit of time with Peter over the years and be in his company when he was in full flow.  A number of my favourite stories are absent from this book, which just goes to show the extent of the treasure trove of yarns at his disposal.  How Bill and Peter corralled their collaborations inside the covers of a manageable book is a mystery.  No worries about lack of material here, I’d venture to suggest, so ruthless censorship must have been the order of the day.

One of my own favourites is the tale of Peter going to the Dublin area for a tournament after which he decided he’d stay an extra day with some friends.  When he did get home he had somehow “misplaced” a whole four days of which he had zero memory.  Four weeks later an important looking envelope arrived in the post – the deeds to a tract of land he seemed to have purchased in Wicklow.  When he did get round to visiting it some years later he discovered it was situated on an almost vertical hill and was neither use nor ornament to anyone.  He assured me, however, that he was positive he’d had a wonderful time while acquiring this useless field!

Censorship notwithstanding, the book bounces merrily along discoursing on such topics as the Masters, the Ryder Cup, television and rubbing shoulders with the stars of stage and screen.  Underpinning it all, however, is a great sense of the support of family and especially Jackie, Peter’s wife of many years.  The closing chapter is a touching epilogue on “My Peter.” by Jackie, an enabler of the highest order.  She kept everything running so Peter could go off and do what he did best and when mobility became an issue for him in later years she was his constant companion, waiting in our BBC production office for the day’s commentary to come to an end when we could all be released back into civilisation and, with a bit of luck, to a nice evening dinner.

The book is a wonderful read, thought-provoking, funny, poignant and beautifully written.  Enjoyable for those who never knew Peter personally and enjoyable for those of us who did.  It’s hard not to delight in his obvious zest for life itself and his disarming acknowledgment that things came rather easily to him down the years amazingly never seemed to produce rancour or envy in others.

Jackie states that she was “so very blessed to have shared over fifty years with such a unique and special man”.  I feel that we are the lucky ones – lucky that the family so generously shared Peter with the rest of us down the years.  They have done so again with this book.  Buy it, read it, treasure it.

And now that I have taken care of all your Christmas shopping, what are you going to do with all this free time?

What a glorious autumn this little part of our world is enjoying in terms of female players from these shores triumphing on the LPGA tour.  Scotland’s Gemma Dryburgh (top) is the latest to become an LPGA champion (and the first Scot since Catriona Matthew in 2011) winning  the TOTO Japan Classic last weekend.  She joins Englishwomen Charley Hull and Jodi Ewart Shadoff in giving us three winners on that tour in the space of the last four weeks.  That’s a first, so let’s enjoy it and celebrate these players, not forgetting Ireland’s Leona Maguire and her win earlier in the season.

Gemma is in her fifth season on the LPGA and prior to this tournament her best finish had been a fifth place.  She smiled her way round the golf course, seemingly impervious to the relentless pressure exerted by numerous, logo-bedecked Japanese players who kept hitting hybrids in from around 200 yards and holing the putts.  Gemma just smiled and followed suit and even the thundering sight of a rampant Linn Grant in her rear view mirror, a winner six times in the last fourteen months, didn’t shake her.

Prior to this tournament the Scot’s aim was to make the season-ending CME Championship which takes place next week and for which the top 60 players on the LPGA tour qualify.  That’s nicely checked off the list now and there are a few other experiences from the week in Japan that will stand Gemma in good stead.  Playing professionally in that country for the first time, she found herself leading an LPGA event for the first time in her career.  That was late in the third round during which, by the way, she was playing with Atthaya Thitikul, the 19-year old sensation from Thailand who is the current world No 1.  Unfazed, Gemma shot 65.

The Japanese fans just adore their golf and despite understandably pulling for the home players the respect afforded to all the competitors was something the players all mentioned in their post-round interviews.  Whatever the reason, it was apparent that the Scotswoman was very comfortable out there in the heat of battle and when the pressure was at its greatest she covered the closing eight holes in five under to put the finishing touches to a superb second 65.

I asked Lawrence Farmer, Gemma’s long-time coach, if this win was out of the blue and he told me that she’d been playing very well since the end of July, had been a very solid player for quite a while, so, no, not really.  Having coached major champions, Lawrence is someone whose opinion I value and he agreed with me when I said Gemma reminded me of Cristie Kerr, the nine-time American Solheim Cup player, who was the bane of many a European Solheim Cup team.

When the celebrations die down, the Solheim Cup will now undoubtedly be on Gemma’s radar and I’m quite sure that Europe’s Solheim Cup captain Suzanne Pettersen will have been paying very close attention, particularly to the Scot’s calmness under pressure.

We’re honing in at a rate of knots on January 2023…………which means a revision of the Rules of Golf.  For years and years nothing seemed to change but in the last decade and a half or so since I did the R&A rules exam quite a lot has changed.  And when you’ve had a year like me without dusting off the clubs at all, the new rules can quite easily pass you by.

I took note therefore when the sister forwarded me an article highlighting a couple of changes and clarifications coming into play in January.  Firstly, Rule 10.2b(4).  This states that a caddie must not “deliberately stand in a location on or close to an extension of the line of play behind the ball for any reason”.  There was always the implication that a player’s partner shouldn’t crowd the line of a player either in order to see what way his own putt might break if on a similar line.  This has now been made much more explicit and is worth remembering if you play a lot of foursomes or fourballs at your club.  It’s simply not allowed and the penalty in stroke play is two shots (Rule 22.6) and in match play loss of hole (Rule 22.8).  Do read the rule for a fuller explanation.

Now, perhaps some of you recognise the putter in the picture above?  The implement, I mean, not the person.  Maybe you even have one in the bag, or perhaps in the garage?  Yes, it’s the self-standing putter – that club which enables a player to set the blade down, walk behind the putter to check the aim and then return to take his stance happy in his alignment.  From January you may no longer use the putter to aid your alignment. This is completely consistent with the rule banning caddies from lining up players.  Quite rightly too.  Aiming is a massive part of the game and psychologically removing that doubt is an enormous help to the player, taking away a large part of the skill of the game.  NB however, the actual putter is not banned, only its use as an aid to lining up.  This is similar to the broom handle putter not being banned, rather there are restrictions on how it can be used.

Finally, before I fall into the trap of moaning about the rules and how they still seem as complicated as ever, the following, doing the rounds of Whittington Heath members, served as a great reminder to me of how golf really does teach you to take the good breaks with the bad and just get on with things, no matter how difficult.

Now, any complaints about your current circumstances?….

It’s that time of year, isn’t it, when you start readying yourself for winter by checking off all the maintenance jobs.  The chimney sweep’s already been and done his thing and this week the man came to service the boiler, rather confusingly bedecked in shirt sleeves and a woolly hat.  They do say, however, that we are about to leave this unseasonably mild weather behind us and experience a drop in temperature as we move further into November.  Oh dear.

Across the other side of the world, however, temperatures were very pleasant for the players at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship but they had to contend with swirling, gusting winds that played havoc with golf swings and putting strokes and, of course, hearts and minds.

The man who outlasted them all was Ireland’s Seamus Power (top pic) who knows a thing or two about playing in breezy conditions.  He needed all his experience and knowledge of the course to best Ben Griffin, a North Carolinian in his rookie year on the PGA Tour, who held a two-shot lead with seven to play.  The man from West Waterford was equal to the task, however, and squeaked home by a shot, recording 28 birdies (a new tournament record) for the four rounds.  This, his second PGA Tour win, shoots him up the world rankings to 32nd, pretty much assuring him of a spot in the first three majors next year and he also gains an exemption for the tour through to the end of 2025.

The icing on the cake, though, is a fast start in his quest for a place on Luke Donald’s Ryder Cup team next autumn in Rome.  I’m excitedly contemplating the idea there might be three Irishmen on the team (that’s including Rory and Shane-O), something that hasn’t happened since 2006 and the heyday of Darren Clarke, Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley.

That was arguably the most emotional match I’ve ever been at, taking place as it did at the K Club in Ireland, a mere six weeks after Clarke’s wife Heather had died from breast cancer.  Talk about thousands of spectators combining to carry Darren in his grief through a difficult week – it was quite something to be part of and truly unforgettable.  Darren defeated the current American captain Zach Johnson in the singles on the 16th green, at which point the grandstands rose as one to serenade the Ulsterman with “The Fields of Athenry”.  There wasn’t a dry eye in the house and I remember thinking at the time how classy the US rookie Johnson was. The last 16 years have only reinforced that opinion.

Lowering my sights ever so slightly from the prospect of Ryder Cup golf, I can report that I have now officially set foot on a golf course – for the first time in a year.  No, not playing yet but walking round seven holes and spectating at Whittington Heath’s Friday Frolics.  The sister was drawn with Jayne Fletcher and June Organer and so I was afforded my first look at the new holes at this Staffordshire gem.

The first things to strike me were the panoramic views, the feeling of space and how quickly the course and the greens in particular were bedding in.  The surfaces were true, and fast, and looked a treat to putt on.  The bunkers were beautifully built and difficult to escape from – in fact, I think I’d take a couple of them out altogether.  I was always a fan of giving a player options but having a route allowing you to run (or scuttle) the ball onto the green doesn’t seem too popular these days.  I think sometimes designers forget their duty is to create a course that challenges and is fair to the entire membership – not just the best players.

The new clubhouse is impressive, to say the least and has a commanding view of the aforementioned new holes.  It is the polar opposite to the old, quirky, slightly ramshackle (and reputedly haunted) building used by the club for more than a century [not sure it was that long – ed] but there is one thing that hasn’t changed one iota – and that is the warmth of the welcome and obvious enthusiasm for the game.  That is always the essence and heart of a club and so much more important than fancy buildings, newly-designed holes and copious planting.

My day was made complete by bumping into Andrew Clark, one of the members, who used to work as a tournament director on the women’s tour in the 1990s.  We hadn’t seen each other for around thirty years but the time just melted away and we had a great catch-up.  That’s golf for you, though.

Finally, well done to our Women’s PGA Cup team for finishing third out in New Mexico last week.  Apparently the teams battled some very low temperatures, so it seems the girls were getting an early taste of what’s in store here for us.

Better go and root out the hand warmers.