Watching runaway leader Brooks Koepka wobble then recover to win the US PGA Championship for the second successive year, I started doing some research.  Shock!  Horror!  Surely not?

First of all, I thought I heard someone say that no one ever had lost a 7-shot lead in the last round of a major championship, so I scurried upstairs and rooted out ‘A Golfer’s Life’ by Arnold Palmer with James Dodson.  Hadn’t Arnold once been seven shots ahead with nine holes to play in the US Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco and, to the horror of his adoring Army, ended up losing in the 18-hole play-off to Billy Casper?

He had indeed.

Playing with Casper, who’d been US Open champion in 1959, Palmer admitted that he was more worried about Jack Nicklaus, who was a couple of strokes further behind but in reality he was so unworried by either of his pursuers that he started thinking about beating Ben Hogan’s Open record, set in 1948.  “In retrospect, it was the biggest mental error of my career.”

Palmer reflected:  “In daring to think about breaking Hogan’s record, I violated the very rule Pap [his father Deacon] had spent all those years drilling into my head – never quit, never look up, and, most of all, never lose focus until you’ve completely taken care of business.”

Palmer describes in gruesome detail how his lead started dwindling, recalling the last nine holes “like some ghostly newsreel playing in my head”.   Playing the 18th, Casper and Palmer were level, tied, on the same score, whatever the correct terminology is these days.  Casper splits the fairway with his drive, Palmer, taking a 1-iron for accuracy, hoicks it left into thick rough.  “Walking down the fairway, shaken to the core, I doubt if I have ever felt as alone or as devastated on a golf course.  I know what a train wreck the world is witnessing, but I tell myself that I am still in the thick of it.  I can glance at faces in the gallery and see their shock and grief, too.”

Palmer has to hole a slippery, sidehill 6-footer for his par.  “As Bill and I shake hands, all I really feel is a sense of deep relief and perhaps a bit of disbelief at what has just happened…….I sign my card and walk slowly to the press tent, where a hundred unanswerable questions await…..”

Casper won the play-off with a 69 to Palmer’s 73.  “In the high drama of my collapse, it’s sometimes forgotten that Bill Casper played almost flawless golf down the stretch……..I didn’t just lose the 1966 US Open – Bill Casper’s brilliant play won it.”

Arnold Palmer was an icon, a superstar who transcended golf and was adored by millions.  He had a long and distinguished career but his seven major titles were condensed into the years between 1958 and 1964.  “The same go-for-broke kind of play that won me seven majors perhaps cost me at least that many more,” he said.  “But that’s life and that’s golf.”

Fortunately for Koepka, Dustin Johnson couldn’t quite manage flawless at the end but it was a damned close-run thing.  With the confidence (deserved) of someone who has won four of the last eight major championships that he’s played in, Koepka didn’t see why he couldn’t reach double figures in major titles.  The odds, however, are against him.

Jack has 18, Tiger has 15 and Walter has 11.  Walter?  Walter Hagen, a showman supreme, never knowingly undersold,  who won two US Opens, four Opens and five US PGA Championships between 1914 and 1929 and didn’t know what a major was.   The PGAs were all matchplay and the Masters, started in 1934, came a little too late for the Hagen heyday.  Next come Ben Hogan and Gary Player with nine and Tom Watson with eight.  Palmer, Bob Jones (legendary amateur), Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead and Harry Vardon are credited with seven and Nick Faldo and Lee Trevino have six…..You get my point.

In these days of mega money, when a couple of wins – or even none at all – can make a careful player with no expensive addictions more than comfortable for life, majors have become the measure of a golfer, almost to the point of obsession with some.  They are, when all’s said and done, a bit of an artificial, modern construct but there’s no denying that they are exciting and in most years the biggest events of the season.

Meanwhile, further south, in North Carolina, in the more sedate surroundings (Bethpage Black during a tournament is about as sedate as bedlam) of Pine Needles Lodge and Country Club, Helen Alfredsson was winning the second US Senior Women’s Open.  The Swede kept her nerve to win by two shots from long-time friends and adversaries Trish Johnson and Juli Inkster.  Go to usga.org and look at the pictures; the old dolls are as competitive as ever; winning still feels wonderful; losing not so wonderful.  They’re trying their spikes off and having a ball; catching up with old friends; trying to beat the heck out of them; salving the aches and pains with gels or whatever; cranking the swings into serious action.  JoAnne Carner, aged 80, missed the cut but walked all 36 holes…….Far be it from me to insert the words PGA, John Daly, arthritic knee and buggy at this point.

Finally, across the Atlantic, at Rosses Point, God’s own country as Dad invariably called it, James Newton from Macclesfield won the Flogas Irish Amateur Open Championship by five shots from Conor Purcell, of Portmarnock.  Newton started the final round five shots ahead of the field and was still five ahead at the end despite starting with three bogeys and having a triple bogey at the 16th.  It was that sort of day, with lots of wind and rain (sorry Dad!) but the inimitable Pat Cashman, photographer extraordinaire, set up a wonderful trophy pic as the cloud enveloped Ben Bulben yet again.

 

 

Sporting excellence is in short supply in this part of the blog but you don’t need to be good at something to know quite a lot about it, especially if you’ve been around for a long time and have been paying attention.  You know those people who say that you can’t understand the pressure/tension/whatever that top golfers, top footballers, top players of whatever are under unless you’ve competed at the highest level?  Well, not to put too fine a point on it, I’ve always thought that that’s arrogant bollocks.

It’s a matter of degree of course but any of us who’ve played a match at however lowly a level, especially for a team, knows about nerves, tension, shortage of breath, trembling hands, knocking knees, siren voices of doom and disaster.  We’ve succumbed or found ways to counteract the doubts and the nerves – just like the Ryder Cuppers, the Champions’ League or Wimbledon finalists, the players who are much, much, much – ad infinitum – better than us.  At the most basic level, we understand, we can empathise.

Last Sunday, we, the middle-ranking Whittington Heathens, the 12-24 handicappers, won a first-round match for the first time for quite a few years (it’s inter-club, 5-a-side, straight knockout, full handicap, no second chances).  My opponent and I were well matched – I had to give four shots – and after all these years I can recognise a competitor when I see one.  Fortunately, thanks to growing up in a hard school playing against Dad and his friends – they’d concede nothing and if you chipped in and waited expectantly for a congratulatory grunt, you’d be chastised for holding up play – not much fazes me.  I still lose, of course – hardly surprising when you have to ask where the practice ground is – but this time I managed to win on the 18th.  It could’ve gone either way and it was mostly luck and home advantage that got me over the line.

The next morning I woke up with a foot so sore that I could hardly hobble to the bathroom.  How had that happened?    I had to cry off golf on the Tuesday and hirpled into the club feeling very sorry for myself.  A bad foot, no matter how minor, is bad news because it limits you immediately.  Aaaagh.  Woe is me.  Then you look around at people who’ve coped with much worse and feel like a wimp.

Up at Hillside, where Tommy Fleetwood is hosting the British Masters this week, EDGA (the European Disabled Golf Association) launched a book called “Mulligan” that put my aching foot in perspective.  Inspirational isn’t the word for it.

After the events in Liverpool and Amsterdam earlier in the week, it’s been hard to calm down and concentrate on anything else.  I must admit I didn’t doubt that Liverpool could score at Anfield but I didn’t think they’d stop Barcelona/Messi scoring.  I was playing bridge that evening, with a Liverpool supporter who’d got her dates confused – in her defence she’s a peripatetic person and had been doing a lot of travelling, just back from one trip, preparing for another – and was blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding further north.

I met her in the pub the next night and she couldn’t believe her blunder, her face as red as her team’s kit.  “Good luck,” she said as she left me to cheer on the team Mum always called Totspurs.  Why do I support Spurs?  Well, it’s Pat Jennings’s fault.  Chelsea are playing Spurs in the 1967 FA Cup final and you’re in Portstewart.  Who do you support?  Ah, Pat Jennings, the pride of Newry and Northern Ireland, is in goal for Spurs.  Spurs win 2-1 – Jimmy Robertson and Frank Saul I think (I checked and I was right!) – and I’ve been lumbered as a Lillywhite ever since.  Hooray.

Apparently I used to cry when Spurs lost (I learned!) and Mum would come home from the newsagent’s laden down with Shoot, Goal and Football Monthly, regarded as odd when everybody knew she had two girls.  I learned about Arthur Rowe, Alf Ramsey, push and run, Jimmy Greaves, Danny Blanchflower, John White, Bill Nicholson, the legendary Double team, all of that.  When Mum and Dad moved to England and Mum refused to accommodate my collection of Charlie Buchan Football Monthlys and Spurs scrapbooks any longer, I wanted them to go to a good home and gave them to Mike Ingham, who became BBC Radio’s chief football commentator, in exchange for a few bottles of wine.

I had a long period as a bit of a Spurs tragic.  I won a bet (think it was about Spurs’s chances of avoiding relegation or winning promotion; it wasn’t one of our glory periods) with a friend at RPGC (Portrush for short) and used the £15 to become a life member of the Spurs’ supporters’ club – now defunct I fear but I’ve still got the badge and the wee booklet.  I tried to buy a seat in the new stadium but the internet connection was so slow and the demand so great that the £800 seat I’d targeted had disappeared and the remaining ones started at £2000.  Ah!  Sense – and the bank balance – prevailed.

Barring something exceptional I won’t be in Madrid for the final – though, come to think of it, I know someone who once worked for Joe Lewis; wonder if he’s still got Joe’s number……Joe is one of those billionaires, based in the Bahamas these days I believe, who started off modestly enough and is now often described as “mysterious” simply because he’s not a flash git with a penchant for publicity but essentially he owns Spurs or as near as dammit.

We few Spurs stalwarts who frequent the Horse and Jockey in Sandford Street in Lichfield will be outnumbered by the Liverpool fans come the final but I won’t care as long as we win.  They’ll be super-confident, quite rightly but we’re no pushovers and if we can keep our nerve and 11 players on the pitch (lucky to finish with as many as 9 against Bournemouth) – what’s that saying:  heart on fire, head in the freezer?…….Who knows?  Anything could happen.

Didn’t someone famous once say, “Football, bloody hell.”…………..

COYS.

It was only to be expected, I suppose – all the hyperbolic, over-the-top reaction to Tiger’s win at The Masters – and, of course, it has reignited the debate as to whether Tiger can overhaul, or even equal, Jack Nicklaus’ tally of 18 major wins.  Well, he can’t and he won’t, in my opinion.  The big cat currently sits on a total of 15 majors so he still requires what for most would be a whole career’s worth of major wins simply to draw level.  It’s not going to happen.

Tiger is 43 years of age and has undergone four knee surgeries and four back surgeries.  He is the one who was convinced by a Harley Street specialist two years ago that there was one more back procedure worth trying.  There won’t be any coming back from his next injury, which, considering the strains put on the body by the modern golf swing is almost inevitable, bearing in mind what he’s already been through.  The slimmed-down schedule he now plays means that he may very well not tee it up between the majors, coming as they do at near monthly intervals.  Consider as well that there are at least two handfuls of players capable of winning any major and they are not ALL going to capitulate again and allow a final round of 70 to scoop the big prize as they did at Augusta.

In my view Tiger, given a fair wind, may have around a dozen major appearances left in him and we should enjoy them, luxuriating in watching a supreme sportsman for as long as we can.  We are all on borrowed time here so let’s sit back and enjoy whatever it brings and not stress about records that are not going to be broken.

This year, prior to the Masters, Augusta National Golf Club hosted the final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and the 30 out of the 72 women who made the cut became the first females to tee it up competitively at this erstwhile men-only establishment.  One such player was world No 18, Olivia Mehaffey, currently studying at Arizona State University and a member at Royal County Down Ladies Golf Club.  The only Irish invitee, Mehaffey acquitted herself with her customary style and grace and was effusive about her week in Augusta.

“This was such a special week and being part of it and seeing the support for women’s golf means a lot. It really motivates me to continue to make a difference in this sport and compete at the highest level.”  She added, “All in all, this was a week I will never forget.  I’m just so grateful to have had the chance to play in this historic event.”

It’s a special time for Royal County Down Ladies Golf Club.  Not only is their favourite daughter’s star in the ascendancy – Olivia won the prestigious collegiate Pac 12 Championship ten days after her Augusta debut – but this year they celebrate 125 years of women’s golf at Royal County Down and I’m delighted to be going over to speak at their dinner this weekend.

The club and the place have always been special to Patricia and me and was very much interwoven into the fabric of our own golfing education.  Patrica used to travel to the club to have lessons from the pro, renowned coach and player, Ernie Jones.  The pair of them would head off to the practice ground for a couple of hours and chortle and laugh for a good hour and a half with a total flurry of golfing activity for a mere 30 minutes.  They both loved the time they spent together on the course and Ernie, ever the gentleman, was never anything but fulsome in his praise of her efforts.

For my part, I played in a couple of Ulster Championships at Newcastle and remember once taking a local caddy for the week.  As we were doing quite well a press photographer came out on to the course to snap a few pictures.  One appeared in the local paper the next day of me striding down the fairway with my caddy.  I thought it was a pretty good picture but he was apoplectic with rage – how was he going to be able to go and collect his dole money next week when he was plastered all over the sports pages?  He seemed to blame me and I recall the next few rounds being played in a frosty silence as his flat cap was pulled ever lower over his face!

Twenty-five years ago the club produced a lovely booklet – a “memoire” of their first 100 years – beautifully researched and written by Mary Bruce and Harry McCaw.  The tale told was of a group of resourceful, strong, independent-minded women.  I look forward to future additions to this memoire covering the last 25 years. It will be a pleasure, too, to meet the current members of this special club that has played such a significant part with its contribution to the game in terms of both golfing talent and administrative ability.  There’s a fun weekend in store.

It’s Monday and it’s the morning after the night before.  The rest of my colleagues from WestwoodOne radio have departed and I have a little bit of time to draw breath and reflect as I wait in our rental house for my lift to Atlanta airport.  I’ve switched off the television and the endless post game shows the Americans like so much and, silence really IS golden, especially when you’ve spent the last four days with headphones clamped to your head and a dozen voices ringing in your ears all day long.

What, oh what have we just witnessed?  At its simplest, we’ve seen Tiger Woods win his fifth green jacket, his 15th major and a whole lot of cash.  Did I think I’d ever see Tiger win again after the trials and tribulations (mostly self-inflicted) of the past decade?  No, I didn’t.  Did I WANT him to win again?  Frankly, no, not particularly.  I had too often witnessed him being arrogant and rude, acting with a huge degree of entitlement and scant regard for others.  While his golf has always been mesmerising and a privilege to watch, especially in his prime, it has been hard to warm to the man himself.

Life, however, has a way of knocking the corners off us all and that is certainly true of Tiger Woods.  Two years ago he needed a nerve blocker just to make it to the traditional Tuesday Champions’ Dinner and he confided to a few that evening that he felt he might never play golf again.  He left that dinner, boarded a flight to London and visited a Harley Street surgeon who convinced him that all might not be totally lost. There was one more surgery to try.  Fast forward twelve months and Tiger was back at Augusta, but this time he was travelling with his clubs.

There were so many unknowns.  How would his body hold up?  Could he ever be competitive again and in a major at that?  The answers at the end of that week were cautiously positive.  He finished in a tie for 32nd but the good news was he was getting stronger physically and ready to see if he could get a full season of playing under his belt.  All through 2018 he was like a man setting out to walk across a frozen river, testing to see if the ice would hold his weight. The further he got into the season the more confident he became. The ice was holding!

The walk, then the golf, became more assured and by the time he had finished 6th in the Open, was runner-up in the PGA and had won the Tour Championship most of his questions had been answered, emphatically.  His dismal and exhausted Ryder Cup performance in Paris, however, served as a reminder to him that future scheduling would be key.

So, back to Augusta twelve months later and only one of that raft of unanswered questions was remaining – would he ever win another major, the yardstick by which he, and therefore we, measure greatness in the game?

Now we all know the answer to that.

So, normal service resumed, you might say?  Actually, no.  Did you see the players waiting to congratulate him at the entrance to the recording area?  Bubba, Brooks Koepka,  Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele, Ian Poulter and Bernhard Langer amongst others?  That welcome committee from his peers had been absent at his previous 14 major triumphs and is a huge clue as to how his interaction with his rival competitors has altered.  Indeed, he paid tribute recently to the young American players for inspiring him to get out there and get playing again.

It’s a very neat circle as Tiger was the one who originally inspired them as children to think that golf would be a really cool thing to try.  It was also the first time his own two children, Sam and Charlie, had had an opportunity to see their father do what he used to do routinely.  This may well be the major Tiger savours most – for lots of reasons.

I was there in Augusta in 1997 when Tiger won his first major and I was there at his 14th win in Torrey Pines when he won playing on a broken leg.  I was also there at loads of the ones in between.  I didn’t expect there to be a 15th and I didn’t expect to be pleased for him, yet I am.  The golfer is familiar but the man I see behind the golfer is different and for that I’m glad.

I travelled to Georgia hoping to see an historic Masters, having in mind a Rory win which would make him the sixth member of that oh-so-exclusive club of players to complete the career grand slam.  That wasn’t to be and it was a different narrative that was rolled out this second week in April.

No matter, I can wait another twelve months – or as long as it takes – for Rory’s undoubted destiny because this week was special…..very, very special.