We appear to be awash with golf tournaments at the moment with men’s and women’s majors coming thick and fast.  Despite the undoubted talent on display and the exciting playoff victory for South Korea’s Mirim Lee in the ANA Inspiration, the second of the women’s majors, it was another tournament altogether that set my heart racing last weekend.

I was looking forward to a quiet Saturday afternoon doing a little cooking in preparation for friends coming round for dinner.  I decided to put the telly on to keep an eye on the European golf from Switzerland (the women) and Portugal (the men).  The next two hours passed, on the one hand, in a blur and, on the other, excruciatingly slowly, as I watched Amy Boulden achieve her dream of winning on the Ladies’ European Tour.  It took me by surprise – no, not that she won – but because I was unaware at first that it was a Saturday finish.  I was busy thinking Amy was setting herself up nicely for Sunday when the penny dropped and it became a television broadcast that demanded more than half an eye on it.  This required full attention, concentration and proper undivided support.  The kitchen didn’t see me again until the final putt was holed and Amy was holding the trophy as the VP Bank Swiss Ladies’ Open champion.

Not many will be surprised by Amy’s victory, rather the surprise is how long it has taken her to win on the main tour.  An extremely accomplished amateur record led seamlessly into a great opening year on tour, winning Rookie of the Year honours in 2014.  Then the pause button was pressed and it stayed that way for quite a long time.  And some players never do manage to hit the “play” button again.

“Nothing weighs you down like great potential,” my sister is always saying to me.  Possibly, for Amy, that huge expectation, well-founded though it was, began to affect her negatively the more tournaments she played without that expected first victory.  And once a little bit of confidence seeps away it can be hard to stop that trickle turning into a waterfall.  So many of us, no matter our level of skill, have experience of fighting our demons.  It’s not easy… and OUR livelihoods don’t depend on it!

As I listened to my better half clashing around in the kitchen, having taken over dinner duty, my phone was blowing up with text messages and WhatsApps from the length and breadth of Wales.  Most of them were from folk who had known or been involved with Amy at some stage or other during Golf Wales’ coaching back in the day.  All were biting their nails, holding their breath and were totally invested in the result.  I think Amy would be completely astonished at the pleasure that her win has brought to so, so many people who in the past have walked a small bit of her golfing journey with her.

How I wish my great friend, the late Sue Turner, could have been here to see Saturday’s win.  Sue and I took a ten-year old Amy and some other Welsh Juniors to the Under-16 Championships in St Andrews.  It was blowing a proverbial gale and the rain started soon after.  No player was allowed a caddy and in those days the trolleys were ones you pulled, not the push ones or electric ones of nowadays.  Amy was hardly the size of her bag and my abiding memory was of this little mite bent double into the storm hauling her clubs after her.  Amy didn’t win that day but she displayed there and then the quality of every champion – stickability.  Talent is secondary to staying in the arena.  You’ve got to be in it to win it and Sue and I both saw that desire all that time ago.

Fast forward to the breathtaking scenery of Switzerland and seventeen years later there’s Amy, once again caddy-less – but this time because of COVID-19.  The trolley, however, is electric, thank goodness.  Not many flat spots in Switzerland.  The opposition was intense, with Swiss left-hander Kim Metraux, the local favourite, reeling off five birdies in a row from the 9th.  Amy responded with four birdies of her own in a five-hole spell from the the 10th and Aussie Steph Kiryacou couldn’t make any inroads even with a scorching 65.

When Amy tapped in for a final round 64, the waiting and wondering were over.  The whole family is absolutely steeped in the game with both Dad Simon and elder sis Kim highly-respected professionals.  Mum Gill and middle sister Hayley have both had low single-figure handicaps and I believe the competition for a spot in the family fourball only lessened when Hayley began to concentrate on her nursing career instead.  Such a talented family whom I have had fun knowing.  Boy, do I hope they are enjoying these celebrations!  It’s been a great week for them all……….and a great week for quite a few of the rest of us too.

Who knows where the expression “Gordon Bennett” came from?  It indicates mild surprise, astonishment even annoyance and according to my trusty Chambers probably comes from James Gordon Bennett (1743-1827), a US journalist.  Sadly, the explanation goes no further, so, really, we’re none the wiser and more research is required.  Suffice to say, though, it means that the admirable Sarah Bennett, just announced as the next PGA captain, successor to Bernard Gallacher, has always been Gordon to me.

The nickname is lacking in imagination but the appointment is not.  It’s quite, quite brilliant.

Bennett, head teaching professional at Three Rivers Golf & Country Club near Chelmsford and a Fellow of the PGA, was astonished when she was asked to take on the role.  “It was a complete and utter bolt out of the blue,” she said.  “It’s not something that’s remotely on your radar.  I kept thinking, ‘Really?  Really?  Is that right?’  I was stunned but I am extremely honoured, humbled and immensely proud to captain this historic association.”

It was more than 100 years before the PGA, founded in 1901, appointed a woman as captain (in 2005), the late, much loved, much missed Beverley Lewis, an Essex girl like Bennett.  “It means so much to me following in the footsteps of my role model Bev,”  Bennett said.  “If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be where I am today.  She used to coach me in her garden when I was 15 and we used to discuss my swing in her kitchen.  I really tested her knowledge!  She was always there for me as a mentor and friend, offering advice, support and encouragement during my career and my illness.”

The illness, a severe form of vestibular impairment, which affects the inner ear, meant that Bennett was bedridden for nearly three months in 2005 and couldn’t work for nearly five years.  She lost 95 per cent of her balance and was told she wouldn’t play golf again.  “It was pretty grim,” she said.  “I still have it but I just deal with it.  I kind of know when it’s coming.”

Bear in mind that this blog is not in the least bit medical but I think that Sarah is more of a Blimey O’Reilly than a Gordon Bennett when it comes to her recovery, a bit of a medical miracle from the sound of it.  She went through the sort of rehab that soldiers who’ve suffered severe head injuries and head trauma go through, exercising three to four hours a day “wearing a hole in the carpet” and eventually becoming involved in the Golf Fore Recovery initiative, using golf to help wounded and sick members of the Armed Forces.  She’s also involved in Canine Partners and has raised more than £20,000 to fund research into thymic carcinoma, a rare form of cancer that killed her close friend Wendy Lodder.

How on earth did she cope with it all?

“I’m a bit tenacious and gritty – not stubborn, no, I will admit when I’m wrong but I don’t give up.  And I love what I do.”

In the blog’s humble opinion, the PGA couldn’t have made a better choice.

The U.S. Open is under way on the West Course at Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, New York and I have to say I’m glad I’m not one of the ball spotters.  The rough is brutal, not long (and apparently an inch shorter on day one than it was during the practice rounds) but thick and all-consuming, gobbling up golf balls like some voracious predator in an Attenborough wildlife doc.  The spotters did their job well because I didn’t hear of anyone losing a ball, not even Phil Mickelson, who scarcely found a fairway on a calamitous day.  Safe to say, he’ll not be breaking his U.S. Open duck this year.

Really I just wanted an excuse to use this photograph from early in the week, showing just how hard it was to extricate your ball if you were a bit wayward.

Winged Foot is tough but at least its 18th hole is not disfigured by an ill-conceived backstop in a show-stopping shade of blue, an excrescence that played a far-too-prominent part in the ANA Inspiration at Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage, California, last week.  My understanding is that it was constructed to compensate for the lack of the grandstand that’s usually there behind the green and prevent balls from rolling into the water on the other side.  I think it was Laura Davies, commenting on television, who said that she’d always thought the grandstand should be on stilts, so that the water beyond the green would come into play, as it was designed to.

Of course, players going for the par 5 in two used the backstop as a failsafe, knowing they’d get a free drop and Mirim Lee, the eventual champion, did just that, then chipped in for the eagle 3 that secured her a place in a play-off with Nelly Korda and Brooke Henderson.  Lee and Henderson used the backstop again in the play-off, as they were entitled to but, really, when you think about it, the hole had been emasculated.  On the plus side, it kept the rulings and the drops relatively simple.

Couldn’t find a decent, useable photo of the blue advertising hoarding but here’s a remembrance of Dinahs past.

And, finally, some photographs from the archives, simply because I came across them, of the Curtis Cup at Western Gailes in 1972.  Belle Robertson, on the right, has put her partner Diane Frearson (nee Robb, now Bailey) in the sand but notice what Diane is doing after extricating the ball:  she is smoothing out her footprints.  This was in the days before rakes, so will today’s inconsiderate trampers, too young to remember such privations, please take note…..

 

…..and learn.  PLEASE.

 

I was reading an article the other day about Lydia Ko.  You remember her?  The bespectacled Kiwi schoolgirl burst onto the women’s golf scene at the age of 15, winning her first LPGA start, the 2012 Canadian Women’s Open.  She was the youngest player, man or women, to win on a major tour and this accomplishment preceded a host of other “youngest ever” achievements.  Later that year she won the New Zealand Women’s Open on the Ladies’ European Tour (LET) – the youngest-ever winner, of course, and the youngest-ever multiple winner on any professional tour.  She amassed four professional wins before actually joining the paid ranks and playing full time on the LPGA in 2014.

As night follows day more successes followed and the report card in 2014 read 26 tournaments played, 26 cuts made, three wins and more than $2 million in the bank.  She was 17 years of age.  If anything 2015 was even better.  Lydia became world No 1 in February, the youngest player, male or female, to do so.  She won five times that season, including her first major and continued to break every record in sight, displaying very few weaknesses, either technically or mentally.  She was seemingly more tiger-esque than Tiger.  The following year she rattled off four wins, including a second major and won a silver medal at the Rio Olympics.  In total she spent 130 consecutive weeks at the top of the world rankings and had 14 wins and two majors to her name.

There is still a Ko at the head of the women’s world rankings but it is a different Ko.   As I write, it is Jin Young Ko of South Korea  who is atop the mountain.   Lydia has only won once in the last four years and has slipped to 55th in the Rolex Rankings.  How can this happen to a player who seemingly had it all?  Is she burnt out at the age of 23 because of playing at such an elevated level so early in her life?  Will she recover to have a second top-class career as Lee Westwood, Steve Stricker and arguably even Tiger Woods have done?

A couple of things happened.  Lydia’s body shape changed quite a bit with increased work-outs in the gym – that may or may not have had something to do with her loss of form.  Never the longest hitter, she was seeking more power – and then there was the merry-go-round of coaches and caddies whom she seemed to hire and fire at an ever quickening rate.  As an amateur in New Zealand she worked on her game with Guy Wilson.  As a professional she has worked with David Leadbetter, Gary Gilchrist, Ted Oh, David Whelan, Jorge Parada and now Sean Foley.  All top-class coaches but SEVEN (that I know of) by the time you’re 23??

Despite her eternally impeccable demeanour, her outward calm and her sunny disposition this constant changing seems to be indicative of confusion and lack of focus in her mental game.  Unfortunately, she seems to be turning to swing gurus to help her out whereas it would seem to me to be her mind that needs changing, not her swing.

She has lost trust in what she used to do so well and so instinctively and her mind is busy searching for answers.  Her mind and body are out of sync and top-class performance cannot be accessed when that is the case.  If she can clear her mind of interference and regain her clarity, commitment and composure, she will start hitting those world-class golf shots again – her body hasn’t forgotten how to do it, it’s just her mind isn’t letting her do it at the moment.

All very easy to write and not so easy to do but there’s nothing I’d love more than to see the Kiwi find her winning form again.  She is one of the most generous and likeable sports stars and having declared several years ago she would retire from golf at the age of 30 that only leaves us seven years to watch this artist at work.  It’s all within her – if she can unlock her mind again her best may well still be ahead of her.  I certainly hope so.

Since writing that last paragraph, and as I continued my research into Lydia, I came across a clip from last year where she reveals that she has taken up yoga and meditation and is enjoying clearing and “freeing” her mind and learning to stay “calm and quiet”.   I sincerely hope this will be the catalyst that allows  her to unlock all of her superb skills and talent.   I am so much more heartened by this news and suspect it could be much more important than yet another change of swing instructor.  Fingers crossed.

There’s lots going on in golf at the moment, at all sorts of levels but there’s only person to start with this week:  Ryan Brooks – or Mr 56 as we’ll have to start calling him.  Remember when Annika had her 59 at Moon Valley in Phoenix, Arizona?  She was known thereafter as Ms 59.  Admittedly Ryan’s 56 at Whittington Heath was not in the white heat of competitive action but a 56 on a proper, if not long, golf course is still a remarkable feat.  It’s something to be proud of, to shout about from the rooftops.

So, how did I, a member of WHGC, hear about it?

A friend, another golf tragic, rang me the other night because they’d read about it and thought, quite rightly, that it was marvellous, a real talking point and wanted to hear my take on it.  What?  A 56?  At WHGC?  Don’t be silly.   No, you must have got it wrong.  I’d have heard.

Well, it was right.   And I hadn’t heard.  And to make matters worse, this stellar round had happened eight days previously…

And my mate was ringing from Ireland…

Seems 56s are ten a penny round our way, barely worthy of mention.

In all honesty, I can’t remember the last time I had a 56.   I did go out in 50 in qualifying for the Irish Championship once – at Rosses Point – and I handed my card in for two reasons:   because I had to (NR’s not allowed, against the family religion) and because I’d come back in 38 (it might have been 36 but that seems unlikely and at least it proved I could play a bit – sometimes).  Much good it did me.  I qualified, probably last or near to it and ended up being tonked by someone called McKenna.

You’ll notice that Ryan’s card includes a hole-in-one at the 4th and some wag said:  “That’s hardly surprising with all the practice he had with his charity challenge!”   That stamina-sapping effort took him more than 700 goes to make his ace.  The only other eagle in his 56 was a three at the last where he holed a putt of 20-odd feet.  “We were just laughing,” he said, having holed almost everything he looked at.  He was playing with Liam James, his coach, who is part of Robert Rock’s highly respected coaching team and works with Matt Wallace, among others; Amy Boulden, who plays on the LET and has recently joined Whittington (hooray); and Matt Dale, who plays off one, had a 66 and knows what it’s like to be tonked (the smart-aleck computer insisted on writing “toned” but I don’t know Matt, so can’t comment).  My thanks to Ryan’s big brother Jordan, our long-driving maestro (ranked world No 17), for the details.

Ryan, who’s 23 and from Tamworth, turned professional towards the end of last year and talented though he is, it’ll be a while before he’ll find out if he can even sniff the European Tour – no qualifying school this Corona year.  There’s the Clutch Tour, the Jamega Tour, the EuroPro Tour, then the Challenge Tour, to mention just a few of the places aspiring tournament pros can hone their skills.  Earlier this week, Ryan finished third in an event at Hollinwell (a mere 2 under par) and at least earned some money.

Out in Arizona, or in Sweden, wherever they are at the moment, the unique coaching duo of Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott are, I hope, jumping up and down with delight.  They’re the founders of VISION54, a coaching philosophy that stresses possibilities, not limitations and sees no reason, really, why you can’t birdie every hole (on a par-72 course, admittedly).  If you don’t know about Pia and Lynn, you’re missing a treat.

This is what David Leadbetter, no slouch in the coaching department, had to say about them in a testimonial for their book “Play Your Best Golf Now”:  “Their passion for the game is second to none.  The VISION54 approach is far more than just pure golf technique; it allows an individual to unlock their true potential by opening their mind and believing anything is possible to achieve.  Golf games and, more importantly, the game of life, benefit through their teachings.”

Someone who knows a bit about playing a lot of golf at the very highest level is Miguel Angel Jimenez, the flamboyant Spaniard who is making his 707th appearance on the European Tour, overtaking Sam Torrance’s record.  Even better, he had a 64, 8 under par, in the first round of the Hero Open at Forest Marriott Hotel and Country Club. “It’s been a wonderful day,” Jimenez, who’s 56, said.  “I enjoy everything about my life here…..this is a way of living.  Golf is my life, you never remember any bad moments.  You can understand that you’re not going to be in a perfect mood and make a perfect score every time.  You can have a bad game but not a bad day, that’s the difference.”

Jimenez’s fellow Ryder Cupper David Howell is playing his 636th European Tour event and David Drysdale is making his 500th start, only the 43rd player to do so.  The Scot, now 45, made his debut in 1999 and has yet to win (although he’s won twice on the Challenge Tour and lost to Jorge Campillo at the 5th hole of a play-off in Qatar this year).  “It’s kind of strange to reach this milestone,” he said.  “It means I’m getting old I guess…..I don’t think I’ll catch Miguel…..but I’ll keep playing as long as I stay fit, a few more years I hope.”

Last but far from least, the LPGA Tour is back in action today (Friday 31st July) with the Drive On Championship at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio.  They’ve been off the fairways for 166 days because of COVID-19.  Closer to home, after a mere 150 days without a cut, I’m off to the hairdresser – if I can find the way through my fringe…