There’s golf all over the place this weekend – Los Angeles, Morocco, San Antonio, Zimbabwe, Aston Wood, to mention just a few of the venues.  Closest to me will be Aston Wood in Sutton Coldfield, where we Whittington Heath women will be trying to get through to the second round of the Taskers Trophy.  We won the first leg at home, by the narrow margin of 4-3, so it’ll be a tough ask.  It’s 7-a-side, off handicap and from the look of the weather forecast, we’ll have to root out the sun hats and sunscreen, hoorah.

It’s also the London Marathon this weekend and I’m not sure the thousands of runners will be cheering at the thought of sizzling in the sun for mile upon tortuous mile.   Last weekend, unexpectedly, I found myself watching the end of the marathon at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, where the hot and humid conditions turned the race into a bit of a war of attrition.  A Scot called Callum Hawkins was leading by some distance, so I didn’t go to bed but kept watching, intrigued that a Scot was about to win gold in such alien conditions.  How on earth was he managing?

In the end, he didn’t manage, collapsing with heat exhaustion just over a mile from the finish.  An Australian, the defending champion, won, a Ugandan was second, another Scot came third and, blimey, a guy from Northern Ireland was fourth.  They all looked shattered.  And where were their hats?  Hadn’t they heard the old Aussie mantra of “slip, slap, slop”?  (Slip on a shirt, slap on a hat and slop on the sunscreen.)

It was distressing to watch as Hawkins started weaving and wobbling, crashed into a barrier, pushed himself off, wobbled on, threw off his cap, hit the kerb, tried to get up again and, at last, stayed down.  I, like many others, was screaming at the telly as the medics seemed conspicuous by their absence but marathon runners are a hardy, sometimes foolhardy breed and help means disqualification, hence, presumably, the reluctance to intervene too soon.

 

Dorando Pietri, of Italy, was disqualified in the 1908 Olympics in London when he staggered and fell several times and was helped over the line at White City after reaching the stadium well ahead of the other runners.  Queen Alexandra insisted on meeting Pietri and presented him with a cup and he became more famous than if he’d won.  At least Pietri and Hawkins survived, thank goodness.  The first marathon runner, the bloke who ran from Marathon to Athens with news of a famous victory, completed the 26-odd miles, then collapsed and died.

Never having been much of a runner – too lacking in puff, 100 yards was about my limit – I am in awe of those who tackle long distances.  I also think they’re cracked but there’ll be loads of heart-warming tales in the run-up to London and I still laugh about our friend who nearly had to run carrying one of his Dandie Dinmonts.  That’s a small Scottish terrier with a long body and short legs and it wasn’t quite a case of “the dog ate my homework” but “the dog ate my microchip”, the chip that identified its owner as a bona fide entrant in the race.  They believed him in the end and the offending Dandie stayed at home.

Perhaps I really should just make a bit more of an effort and try breaking into a shuffle before I seize up altogether?  I’ll give it some thought….

For those of you who doubt my athletics credentials, I have rooted out one of my most-prized possessions:  the badge that denotes a winner of the All-Ireland schools relay.

It was the 4 x 100 (still yards in those days I think) and I ran the first leg, from a standing start, no blocks (too technical for me).  We were in the outside lane but one and I ran like crazy round the bend but didn’t feel I was making any real impression on the girl outside me.  I passed the baton without mishap and turned round to see that the others were all still running, still some way from making their handovers.  Sheila Weir, Sally Lelievre and I had to give our last runner a good lead because one of the other last leggers had won the individual 100 and 200.

I legged it across the infield to see the finish and a couple of priests asked who they should be cheering for.  “Carol Ann,” I wheezed.  “Come on Carol Ann,” they roared and come on she did, holding on to win by a Grand National nose.

Marvellous memories and Gwladys Nocera, who has just announced her retirement from the fray of tournament golf,  should also have plenty of those.  I think I first met her at the Ladies’ British Open Amateur Championship (to give it its full title) at Little Aston in 1998, when she was beaten in the final by Kim Rostron.  Gwladys trained on to become one of France’s most successful professionals, winning 14 times on the women’s European Tour and playing in four Solheim Cups.  Now, at the age of 42 (43 next month), she is expecting her first child and will be working with the French Federation to encourage and support the next wave of players.

“You can go through the best and the worst things in golf,” she said, “so my best memories are my victories, my friends on tour, all the countries I visited, all the people I met – and I have been pretty lucky.  I will miss it, especially the travelling and my friends but I don’t have the fighting spirit I had.  I will still play golf but I will play for fun.  You don’t play for fun when you are an athlete.  The fun comes but you play to win and to get the best from yourself.  It takes a lot and I gave a lot and now I’m ready to give to the young ones and show them that it’s possible.”

 

It’s all Masters fever this week, more fervid than ever given Tiger’s return and the stellar form of a host of hopefuls, including former champions but let’s not overlook the mammoth achievement of the first major champion of the year:  Pernilla Lindberg of Sweden.

I hope you noticed that she won the ANA Inspiration in far-off California because it was a victory worthy of acclaim, though there seemed to be a dearth of spectators at Rancho Mirage, at an event that used to attract large, sometimes raucous crowds.  Perhaps they’ve all grown up to be just too large and too old to walk the golf course, which is a pity because it’s a lovely spot, with some spectacular views of the San Jacinto Mountains and plenty of houses to gawp at too.

That said, the people who returned early on Monday morning to watch the continuation of the playoff between Lindberg and former world No 1 Inbee Park made plenty of noise.  The two players had finished with a 72-hole total of 273, 15 under par, alongside Jennifer Song and the three headed off for a playoff that proved to be not-so-sudden death.  Song bowed out after three holes and Lindberg and Park managed one more hole before it got too dark to carry on.

On Monday, they started at the 10th, which was halved in par 4s; at the par 3 17th, Park holed a 15-footer for par and Lindberg followed her in from 10 feet for another half.  The 18th, a watery par 5, was halved in par, with Park laying up and Lindberg, on in two, three-putting from distance.  Then, at last, back at the 10th, Lindberg holed from 30 feet for a birdie three that Park, the Olympic champion, who has won seven major titles and is already as close as dammit to being a genuine all-time great, could not match.

It’s Lindberg’s first win as a professional, at the age of 31 and the Swede, described as “the friendliest, sweetest person you could meet”, has been beaming her trademark smile ever since.  Did I mention that she led from start to finish, wire to wire?  What made it even more special was that her caddie Daniel Taylor is also her fiance and that her parents Gunilla and Jan were there too.  All four made the now traditional leap into Poppie’s pond, which guards the 18th green, with Daniel performing a particularly showy, head-first dive.  There’s a white robe for the champion – not quite as elegant as a green jacket – and towels for everyone else.

“It was so cool that my parents could be here with me,” Lindberg said, “because I got into golf because of them and I don’t know how many heart attacks I have nearly given my Dad this week!”  She, fortunately, remained calm and kept thinking, “Maybe this is my week.”

All in all, it was quite a championship.  Tied for 4th, a shot behind the leaders, were Jessica Korda and Ariya Jutanurgan, who were a shot ahead of Ariya’s big sister Moriya and Charley Hull.  Jodi Ewart Shadoff, another Englishwoman, was in the top ten, at 11 under par and at seven under, sharing 20th place with Lydia Ko and Lexi Thompson, were the Spaniards Azahara Munoz and Beatriz Recari.  All being well, they’ll all be at the Ricoh Women’s British Open at Royal Lytham and St Annes in August.  Put it in the diary.  They’re worth a watch and Lancashire’s a lot closer than California.

Even closer to home and closer to my heart, at Whittington Heath in Staffordshire, the Ladies’ Whittington Trophy survived rain, hail, thunder and lightning – and a fair bit of sunshine – to reach a successful conclusion.  Eilidh Briggs, a schoolteacher who plays at Kilmalcolm, near Glasgow, won with a one-under-par total of 143 (70. 73), three shots ahead of Morgan Thomas, of Beau Desert (76, 70) and Caitlin Evans-Brand, of Yelverton (74, 72).

Finally, back to Augusta because I have to mention the Par 3 Contest, the 9-hole fun fest played on Wednesday afternoon.  Tom Watson, at 68 easily the youngest member of his threeball (his partners were Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player), putted beautifully to become the oldest winner of the trophy, one shot ahead of Tommy Fleetwood.  But the highlight of the day was a Nicklaus hole-in-one at the 9th,  something that Jack said gave him more joy than any of his six green jackets.  And he wasn’t joking, as one look at the delight on his face confirmed.

The man with 18 major championships to his name wasn’t celebrating another, minor, addition to his Augusta resume:  he was ecstatic because it was grandson GT (son of Gary) who had demonstrated the family flair for the spectacular, producing a crisp shot that had Player purring long before anyone else realised that the ball was tracking inexorably towards the hole.  The crowd went wild – and that included Player, Watson and the Golden Bear himself.  Like Pernilla, Eilidh and their parents, he hasn’t stopped grinning.

 

Dressed in black from top to toe and looking every inch as if he’d just stepped out from a Western movie, Phil Mickelson rode into Mexico City last week and with some mighty fine sharp shooting made off with a World Golf Championship title, the lion’s share of the loot and his 50th worldwide tournament victory.  The real reason it’s newsworthy is because it’s been a long time between drinks for Mickelson.  The last time he hoisted a trophy was in July 2013 when he won the Open Championship at Muirfield and many felt that that could be his swan song.  Needless to say, he didn’t think that, and how right he has been proved.

We have very short memories when it comes to sport and sporting achievement.  Through our television screens we are assaulted by outstanding sporting prowess from around the globe, seemingly morning, noon and night.  We become sanitised to the sheer brilliance of what we are watching and think of it as the norm.  To many golf fans Mickelson has been in the wilderness for almost five years – but, in reality, that’s not true at all.  He’s had three runner-ups in major championships in the intervening time, which for many wouldn’t be a bad career.  Sure, he hasn’t been firing on all cylinders – but that’s just the point.  It’s simply not possible to occupy the thin air of ultimate performance year after year after year.

This is his 26th year as a professional golfer during which time he has amassed almost $87 million in prize money – a truly colossal amount of dosh.  Coming down the stretch, however, it was fascinating to watch his total concentration, immersion and relish in the cut and thrust of the competition.  He was testing himself to the limit against the world’s best and it was the prestige of winning that drove him on – not the money, just the title.  Phil’s desire hasn’t been dimmed over the years and his success is the accumulation of many tiny habits over many decades.  Resilience is key.  “I can’t put into words how much this means to me,” he said, dewy-eyed.

Michelle Wie is another player who demonstrates resilience on a long term basis and who tasted success this past weekend in Singapore.  Her last win was the 2014 US Women’s Open and since then she has done her best to weather injuries to seemingly every part of her body.  Even now she takes to the links in near-mummified fashion, arms and legs swathed in tape.  Although a mere 28 years of age and almost two decades younger than Mickelson, Michelle has played professionally for 12 years, every single second of it under the most intense spotlight.  And, as my sister is always telling me (as if she had personal experience!):  “Nothing weighs you down like great potential.”

Wie has displayed courage in abundance over a long period, refusing to be cowed by carping criticism of her scheduling, her various putting styles, the close attendance of her parents, to name but three things.  She has dealt graciously with everything and is up there with the best in terms of stickability.  Coming down the last few holes on Sunday you could see her ability to go inwards into herself to produce her best at the very end when she holed a monster of a putt of 40 feet or so from off the putting surface for a birdie at the 18th.  Her ecstatic celebration said it all – the thrill of winning and beating the rest of the best was everything to her.  Every setback, every physio session, every second of graft on the course and in the gym was worth it for that single moment .  No wonder we had another dewy-eyed winner saying, “This feels really, truly amazing.”

Meanwhile, down in Australia 23-year old Englishwoman Meghan MacLaren won the NSW Open, her first LET title.  In only her second year in the paid ranks she has enjoyed a steady progression, working her way up via the secondary LET Access tour and on Sunday she held her nerve and her two-shot overnight lead to claim victory.  With her father, David, the CEO of the Staysure (European Seniors) Tour, on the bag and Mum Mary, an Ireland senior international, enduring a sleepless night back at home (nails bitten down to the quick, no doubt), it was a real family affair.

Younger sister Rebecca is a fine player in her own right and as Meghan’s support group they will all be right there as she attempts to tread the path already followed by the likes of Wie and Mickelson.  Meghan hasn’t yet amassed the millions that the other two have but I’m pretty sure that the winner’s cheque was fairly incidental, albeit a very welcome bonus.  It’s the winning that delivers the thrill and provides the fuel for future years of quiet, sustained, often solitary, effort.  As Meghan, who couldn’t stop smiling, said, “It feels incredible.”

As Robert Collier (1885-1950), author of The Secret of the Ages, said:  “Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in day out.”  [Thanks to Shann of Chuckling Goat for the quote.]  That is clearly evident in the three winners from the weekend but it’s also a valid mantra for us all in our own lives, whatever stage we’re at.

Yesterday was International Women’s Day (among other things; it was also my cousin’s birthday; now there’s a formidable woman if ever there was one) and this blog is keen on women.  It thinks, not least because it’s written by two sisters, that women are a good thing.  In fact, if truth be told (NEVER trust someone who starts a sentence,  “To be honest with you….”), I’m a feminist to my toenails, however fungal those may be, especially at this entombed time of year.  I’m also inclined to think, however controversial this may be, that men are a good thing, especially the feminist ones, the ones who have daughters, wives, mothers, that sort of thing and have come to the conclusion that women, however baffling, bewitching or benighted, are people too.

Whatever, before this becomes a completely self-indulgent, hobby-horsey riff, I’d like to pay tribute to one of golf’s great women, who died earlier this month, to wit la grande Lally, nee Vagliano, then la Vicomtesse de Saint-Sauveur, latterly Mme Segard.  No one is perfect but Lally was, quite simply, awesome, sometimes scarily so and a lot of us regarded her – and Coco Dupont, who died a few years ago –  as the heart and soul of French and, to a large extent, European golf.  They were talented enthusiasts who loved the game and spent their lives spreading the gospel of golf, with charm, verve, skill and, if necessary, bloody-mindedness.

Lally won the British Girls’ in 1937, at Stoke Poges, where all the championships were played until after World War II.  She won the women’s title, officially the Ladies’ British Open Amateur Championship, in 1950, beating Jessie Valentine, the iconic Scot, by 3 and 2 in the final at Royal County Down, Newcastle, Northern Ireland.  That’s where our grandfather, our mother’s father, fell in love with her.  Thereafter, for him, no golfer, man or woman, came close to the divine Vicomtesse.  She also won the championships of France, Italy, Switzerland and Spain, to name just a few.

She merited a solid entry in the original Shell Encyclopedia of Golf, edited by Donald Steel, who’s just published his autobiography (Thin End of the Wedge) and Peter Ryde, who succeeded Bernard Darwin as the golf correspondent of The Times.  There’s nothing dry and dusty about the description of Lally’s swing:  “….a faultless style with a wide arc and a perfect grip and she swung at the ball with all the controlled force that her lissom figure could muster….in addition to the sound technique she has an attacking spirit which seldom left her short of the hole…”

Lally’s father presented the Vagliano Trophy, now a biennial team event between the women amateurs of Europe and Great Britain and Ireland and these days it’s a major triumph if GB and I manage to win, such is the strength in depth of the opposition.  Lally was also to the forefront when the inaugural Espirito Santo, the Women’s World Amateur Team Championship, took place in Paris, at St Germain.  She chaired the event, in which 25 teams competed and was captain (non-playing) of France, who won by one stroke from the USA, with England third.  Catherine Lacoste, Brigitte Varangot and Claudine Cros were the formidable trio who took the trophy and helped establish France as a force in the game.  It’s not before time that the Ryder Cup should be in France.  Now, what about the Solheim?

Maureen and I never saw Lally play in her prime and I don’t think we ever told her that she was Pampa’s pin-up.  She was so elegant, so French, so vibrant and so youthful that we thought that we must have got it wrong, this woman was surely not old enough to have won at RCD all those years ago!  She couldn’t have been around in our grandfather’s time!

But she was.  And wherever she went, at whatever age, she made a lasting impression.  It wasn’t only the French who came under her spell, she inspired internationally.  Linda Bayman, who played for England and GB and I with great distinction, paid a heartfelt tribute:  “Lally was the guiding light of my life.  It was entirely down to her that I took golf seriously, that I learned French, worked for Conde Nast.  I sometimes wonder what path my life would have taken if we had never met – it would have been completely different.  We were like mother and daughter after my mother died.  What a lady!  I don’t think our generation will  come up with a role model like that.”

This year the Espirito Santo (29th August – 1st September) and the Eisenhower Trophy, the men’s WATC, (5th – 8th September) are in Ireland, at Carton House, near Dublin.  They’re both in rude good health, in no small part thanks to  the efforts of Lally and Coco.

Merci beaucoup.