I was looking forward to a record-breaking and record-equalling sporting bonanza last weekend, but, as is inevitably the way with sport, things didn’t quite pan out as I had hoped.

First on the menu was the Six Nations rugby which I have loved all my life – right from the time it was just the Five Nations and Willie John McBride was one of Ireland’s most decorated forwards.  He was our local boy, working in the bank in Ballymena just up the road from Portstewart and post his rugby career he became a very accomplished and much sought-after after-dinner speaker.  He was the guest of honour at the council dinner in Portstewart when Dad was the captain, which was quite a coup for the club……….and Dad.

I remember a few years ago Willie John was being interviewed about his own career and the current state of the modern game.  He made me chuckle with his remark that the forwards nowadays regularly ran further in one half of rugby than he himself ever did in the entire Five Nations series!

Anyway, be that as it may, this Scottish/Irish household was a gloomy picture after Italy and England’s respective victories on Saturday, the latter putting paid to my hopes of elusive back-to-back grand slams.  That is a very rare achievement indeed and despite receiving a text from Patricia before kick-off telling me she was nervous, I was, in fact, quietly confident.  Strike one.

Bravely putting that disappointment behind me I tuned in on Sunday to the Jonsson Workwear Open on the DP World Tour, which was played at Glendower golf club just outside Johannesburg.  My initial interest was in following Northern Irishman Tom McKibbin’s progress as he attempted to win his second DP World title, which would best Rory McIlroy, who a decade or so ago, had won his second DP World title by the age of 22.  McKibbin won’t turn 22 until the year’s end and he started Sunday’s final round four behind the leader Matteo Manassero.

An opening triple bogey pretty much put paid to Tom’s chances but a stout recovery saw him finish with a 69 and tied ninth – very creditable indeed, but not the win I was seeking.  There’s still time for that second win to come before he turns 22.  As for me…………….strike 2.

That disappointment was softened by seeing Manassero win for the first time in 11 years.  The Italian is 30 years of age now and had won four times on the DP World  tour, but never in his twenties.  He plummeted from 25th in the world rankings to 1800 and something and has spent the last decade trying to reproduce the brilliance of his teenage years.  Two wins last year on the Challenge tour helped him regain his card on the big tour, all of which has led to this dream comeback and, finally, the sweetest win of all – number five.

Meanwhile, over in China, one of this blog’s favourites, Kiwi Lydia Ko was entering the final round of the Blue Bay LPGA tournament tied with the American duo of Bailey Tardy and Sarah Schmelzel.  Ko, winner of twenty tournaments on the LPGA and former world No 1, needs one more victory to gain enough points for induction into the LPGA Hall of Fame, arguably the most difficult H of F in all of sport.  A closing 71 was never going to get it done, however, so the search for the last remaining points continues.  Strike 3 for me.

Bailey Tardy put the after burners on in the final dozen holes hoovering up an eagle and birdies galore and shooting a superb 65.  This gave her a four-shot cushion over Schmelzel in second place.  The beaming picture of Tardy enjoying her first LPGA win is in stark contrast to the tear-stained player who was docked a hole for slow play in the 2016 Curtis Cup played at Dun Laoghaire golf club.  It came very late in the match and she was distraught – but it’s good to know she has found calmer waters in her professional career.

Next, it was over to Bay Hill and Arnie Palmer’s tournament where, for a second consecutive Sunday, Shane Lowry was in contention, making this Irish heart beat faster.  Tied for the lead with the incredibly talented Scottie Scheffler, Shane opened up bogey, bogey against birdie, par from the American.  With eight holes left to play Shane was five back and Scottie had a four-shot lead over Will Zalatoris.  Strike 4.

Time to switch over to the Ladies’ European Tour and the Aramco Team Series playing at Feather Sound Country Club near Tampa in Florida.  Charley Hull was leading this three rounder after two days of competition and trying desperately to better her six runner-up spots since her last win in the States in late September 2022.  When I joined her, however, she had lost ground and was a couple adrift of German player Alexandra Forsterling as they were making their way into the heart of the back nine.  Bronte Law, however,  gave me a flicker of hope with an amazing final round of 67 and a total of eight under the card which saw her finish in third place.

Alas, too little too late for both Bronte and Charley and the efficient play of Alexandra saw her coast to a final round 67 and a three-shot victory.  And that, my friends, made it strike number 5 for me.

One footnote re last week’s blog about the Sunningdale Foursomes.  This year’s worthy winners were Harley Smith and Dylan Shaw Radford who eased to a 5 and 4 win in the final over William Shucksmith and Darryl Gwilliam.  Congratulations to all four and perhaps this quartet will head north to Wilmslow in April where the Cheshire club will be hosting the third playing of the Wilmslow Foursomes.

This new event is played along similar lines to its older brother at Sunningdale and is well worth supporting.  Check out the club website for details and I would urge all good female players to enter.  Can’t have the boys having it all their own way, can we?!

Funny how the brain works (if it works at all, that is) and how it makes connections whether they are actually there or not.

I was supposed to go to Lichfield this past week to go with Patricia to the theatre to see Fascinating Aida.  We have seen them a couple of times in the past and their own website describes them as “Britain’s raciest and sassiest musical cabaret trio”.  They are not for the faint-hearted or those who are easily offended but they do deliver some amazingly clever, observational, musical comedy, one of my all-time favourites being their song “Cheap Flights”.  It’s a humorous rhyming rant about all the add-ons you end up paying for on a flight that’s advertised as costing 50p.

Anyway, I didn’t get to Lichfield because of a misbehaving back which has kept me housebound this last week.  This gave me ample time to keep up to date with the golf news from all arts and parts of the world.  First to catch my eye was the report in the excellent Irish Golf Desk by Brian Keogh that Joe Lyons from Galway had posted an impressive final round 67 to win the Spanish Seniors’ Amateur Championship at Real Club Sevilla Golf.  A former winner of the West of Ireland Championship and the current Irish Senior Close Champion, Lyons is extending his considerable reputation with this international win………. but the new champ was forced to go home empty handed.

Ryanair refused to allow him to bring the trophy home with him!  Doh?  What’s that all about?  And my brain immediately jumped to Fascinating Aida and their famous ditty.  The airline did relent and send the trophy on the next flight, relaying it by courier up to Galway…. but only after Joe had tweeted about his disappointment in them.  What WERE they thinking?

And what was Jake Knapp thinking, I wonder, after winning on Sunday in Mexico on the PGA Tour in only his ninth start?  The 29-year old had played extensively on the Canadian Tour in honing his craft before earning his PGA Tour card last year after finishing high in the final season standings on the Korn Ferry circuit.  Simply teeing it up in Vidanta in the Mexico Open was quite an achievement considering that less than two years ago he was working part-time as a nightclub bouncer in order to finance his golf and pay for his travel and entry fees.  Asked what he learned from that experience he succinctly replied, “I didn’t want to be a bouncer all my life”.

No danger of that now.  For a start, $1.46 million has crash-landed into his bank account, not to mention exemptions and invitations into all of this year’s majors, plus PGA tour status until the end of 2026 at the earliest.  “Life changing” is a much bandied-about term but it was never more accurate than in this case and who doesn’t love a moving story?  I certainly do.

I only had to turn my attention to the DP World Tour to find myself reaching for the paper hankies again to dab my ever moistening eyes.  The tournament was the Magical Kenya Open, the venue Muthaiga Golf Club.  Where to start?

Perhaps with the winner, 34-year old Darius van Driel from the Netherlands.  A broken hand led to him giving up golf for a number of years but he found his way into the pro ranks almost a decade ago and managed a couple of runner-up positions on the DP World Tour.  Last year saw him lose his card but he gritted it out at tour school and bounced back, scooping the ultimate reward last week with his victory.

Another heartwarming story featured the man who was joint runner-up.  He was also possibly the man who delivered your Morrison’s shopping the week before last.  Joe Dean, like van Driel, earned his card at tour school last year and this was only the 29-year old Englishman’s second ever start on the main European tour.  Not having enough funds to play every event he was supplementing his income, not by being a bouncer a la Jake Knapp, but by working for the supermarket as a delivery driver.  There should be a vacancy there now if you’re interested.  Joe has tucked away almost 200,000 euros so he won’t be needing it.

And there’s more…….

Ever heard of Ronald Rugumayo?  No, neither had I.  That’s Ronald’s picture at the top of the piece – he’s holding his lucky ball.

Last Friday Ronald stood on the 9th tee (his final hole of the day) at Muthaiga Golf Club knowing that he needed a birdie to be sure of making the cut.  He decided to change his ball from a number 4 to his favourite, a number 3.  His second shot finished just over six feet away and his putt disappeared in the right-hand side of the hole making birdie and making history.

“Happens every week in a golf tournament somewhere or other,” I hear you cry.  Er, no!  Ronald is the first player from Uganda to make the cut in a DP World event.  Truly history in the making.

It was a brilliant moment for Ronald, for Uganda, for East Africa but also, I’m sure, for the R&A whose tireless efforts to spread the game in Africa are now bearing fruit with Uganda having a home-grown role model and hero of their own.

“There are no words that I can use to express how I feel,” said Rugumayo.

“I’m so grateful for Kenyans, my fellow Ugandans who flew all the way (to watch me). Honestly, it’s not about me as a player, it’s not about Uganda, it’s about East Africa. Everything I’m doing, I’m doing for East Africa.”

This is what golf does time and time again.  Just when you’re ready to wash your hands of it completely the sport throws up people and stories that are irresistible.  It’s all making me fall back in love a little bit, well, no actually, quite a big bit, with the men’s professional game again.

It’s similar to when you are out playing a load of rubbish and you reach the last tee and, from nowhere, you stripe it down the middle.  By the time you’re in the clubhouse you’re hooked again.

It’s nearly 23 years since Annika Sorenstam, a quiet, studious Swede who became a superstar golfing brand, more or less knocked Tiger Woods off the cover of the golf magazines even though he’d just had his first win for months, beating Phil Mickelson by a single shot at the Bay Hill Invitational, Arnie’s tournament, in Orlando, Florida.

Across the country, in Phoenix, Arizona, Sorenstam managed to hog the headlines by becoming the first woman to score 59 in an official event, in the second round of the Standard Register Ping at Moon Valley.  She started with eight birdies in a row and even though there was an eight-hour time difference, I fought hard, begging and beseeching, to persuade The Times to give us top billing ahead of the men’s European Tour event.  I believe I managed it (no internet then), one of the few triumphs of my journalistic career.

It was, in fact, quite a golfing week, what with the 59, Tiger’s victory and Ireland’s own Des Smyth winning the Madeira Island Open, to become the oldest winner in European Tour history.  At 48 years 34 days old, Des was 36 days older than that sweet-swinging evergreen Neil Coles was when he won the Sanyo Open in 1982.

I’m indebted to the wonderful American weekly GolfWorld for the details – my copy, signed by Annika, is still in pristine condition and I knew exactly where to lay my hands on it because the much-delayed memorabilia sort out has begun at last.  Mind you, it’ll probably be another 23 years before that’s completed…

Annika, who started her round at the 10th, had 13 birdies and could have gone even lower because she had a 25-footer for eagle at the par 5 8th and a 9-footer, downhill as I remember, for another birdie at the 9th but two-putted both holes before leaping into the arms of her caddie Terry McNamara.  There were still 36 holes to play, though and they had to work hard to ensure that the 59 was not just a footnote, eventually winning by two shots from Se Ri Pak, the inspiration for all the South Koreans stars who flooded onto the world’s fairways in her wake.

Some more trivia from the week:  Annika’s playing partners were her sister Charlotta, the defending champion, who missed the cut and Meg Mallon, who marked the historic card;  Laura Davies, who’d won the Standard Register four years in a row from 1994, missed the cut; JoAnne Carner, a sprightly 61, made it; ESPN, who were televising the event, had no live coverage of the round because they were geared up to cover the second nine, not the first and had to scramble like mad to record their footage.

However, I’ll leave the last word to Kris Tschetter, who led the tournament after a first round of 63 and was out late on the second day:  “I didn’t think I’d be leading when I got to the golf course but I didn’t think I’d be eleven shots behind either….!”

Nobody really got close to Annika in that season of 2001 – apologies to the non-golfers but I rooted out the LPGA handbook for 2002, a weighty tome and this is what I found:  “Annika Sorenstam re-wrote the LPGA record book, tying or setting 30 LPGA records…”  Fear not, I’m not going to list all of them.  The 59 you know about.  Here are some more:  “Sorenstam went on to win eight times, establish a single-season scoring average record of 69.42 and become the first player to eclipse the $2 million mark in single-season earnings.

“The Swede won the Rolex Player of the Year, Vare Trophy (for low scoring average) and money title…Her eight wins included a string of four consecutive victories and marked the most wins in one season since LPGA Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez [NB  you can now no longer say you’ve never heard of Nancy Lopez!!] won eight tournaments in 1979.”

Enough.  Suffice it to say that Annika was herself well on the way to the Hall of Fame.

And, finally, thanks to Sarah Schmelzel, the 29-year old American who triggered this reminiscing.  She had a 68 in the first round of the HSBC Women’s World Championship at Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore, to lead by a shot from Lilia Vu, Linn Grant and Esther Henseleit and it turns out that Sorenstam’s 59 was Schmelzel’s inspiration.

She explained that her father Dennis, a golf nut, had hauled her out of school  to watch the last few holes of Annika’s history-making knock and she said, “That’s when I fell in love with the game.”

Schmelzel, who is ranked 107th in the world, has never led a tournament before, let alone one of this quality but seemed to be taking things calmly enough.  “There’s a first time for everything, I guess,” she said.  “It’s one round.  I think any of us can play really well on a given day but it’s an honour to play in this tournament.  You know when you qualify for it that it’s the best of the best in the world come to go play in one spot.  So it’s just an honour to play here.”

And one of the best things was that Annika was in Singapore too.

Happy St David’s Day everybody.

Well, the Christmas tree is up at last – not decorated just yet, but at least it’s up.  My purchasing power was a little curtailed this year as I had to buy one that I could womanhandle myself.  The hubby is just out of hospital, you see, having had an op to repair a previously failed hernia surgery and he is forbidden to raise anything heavier than a glass for at least four weeks.  You’ll be glad to know the glass lifting is going well.

As you can see from the above picture one bauble has indeed made it onto a branch.  That was presented to me last week by the indefatigable, high-energy, artist-whisperer that is Maxine English, general manager of the West End’s Savoy theatre.  Max is the daughter of dear, dear friends and I have known her since she was about twelve.  She has lived and worked all of her adult life in the Middle East, so it was a joy to reconnect now that she has been based in London for the last fifteen months.

Three pals and I made the trip to the Big Smoke last Wednesday, successfully dodging the striking trains, and after a bit of shopping and lunch in Covent Garden we were ready for theatreland.  I was aware that our little group had been flagged up as “uber VIPs” by Max and she and her staff were there waiting to sweep us into a wonderful, fun-filled evening with first-class hospitality snuggled round a first-class production of Sunset Boulevard.

Nicole Scherzinger gave a wonderful performance in this edgy, rather dark production and look out in the future for Tom Francis, superb in this, his first big role.  At the interval we floated back into our own private little champagne-filled sidebar and then, in due course, we were escorted back to our seats (the best in the house, natch) for the second half.

We sat down to dinner afterwards at a time when normally I’ve been in bed for a good hour and a half and we finally parted company with Max well after midnight.  It was a real treat, joyous and joyful from beginning to end and highly emotional meeting up with Max again and being introduced into the wonderful world she inhabits and in which she excels.

That little Christmas decoration will remind me of that evening for the rest of my life.  Special, special, special.

Last weekend I decided to switch on the box and have a look at some golf – ho,hum.  I had no great expectations because, as most of you know, I’m going through a patch where I’m not very much in love with the game.  But, what a lovely surprise to come across the Grant Thornton Invitational, a 54-hole event that paired sixteen PGA Tour players with sixteen LPGA players.

The first round was a scramble, the second was foursomes and the third a modified fourball format where the players played their partner’s tee shot and completed the hole with that ball.  It was fun, interesting and different and the partnership between the two tours was obviously greatly enjoyed by all the players.

The worthy winners were New Zealander Lydia Ko and Aussie Jason Day, both former world No 1s but both coming off slightly disappointing seasons.  It was Lydia who stepped up on the final two holes hitting woods onto the last two greens and securing the birdie, par finish that saw them edge Canadians Brooke Henderson and Corey Connors by a shot.

Back in the day we used to play a mixed event with the men from the then European Tour and it was always a highlight of the year.  To my mind we need to see if we could involve this type of format into the Olympics in some way or another .  The Olympic test of choice – the usual diet of  individual 72-hole strokeplay competition – is not the most exciting watch when compared to the other Olympic sports.  It is perhaps only the avid golf fan whose interest is piqued before the final nine holes on Sunday.  The slow burn of this format does golf no favours in this arena and it shouldn’t be beyond the powers-that-be to come up with something a mite more engaging.  It’s a tough, commercial world out there and it behoves us to fight like mad to attract eyeballs to our own sport and to at least hold up our end in this world of seemingly limitless choice for the fans.

That is all for the future, however.

In closing I have to say how sorry I was to hear last month of the death of Ann Heskin, one of Ireland’s and Munster’s finest players and a great servant to Irish golf all her life.  Ann was successful at every level of the game, from club to international and, after her playing career was over, she brought her considerable influence to bear as an administrator, selecting for the Curtis Cup and then being elected as President of the Irish Ladies’ Golf Union.

Ann is here, third from the right above, in one of my very favourite team photos (provided by Mary McKenna.)  We all look a tad dishevelled – a result perhaps of the previous evening’s celebrations which was one of the best post-championship parties I ever enjoyed!  With Ann at the helm as captain and Gerry Costello as manager (holding the trophy with Ann) Ireland won the European Team Championships at Royal Waterloo Golf Club just outside Brussels.  The year was 1983 – blimey, FORTY years ago!!  What a week and what a privilege to have shared it all with Ann.  We had great times.

Right now the blog is about to embark on its annual holiday but first a huge thank you to all of you who faithfully follow us from week to week – the sister and I can never quite believe the numbers who log on to our offerings!

Good luck to you all on and off the golf course, have a wonderful Christmas and a happy and healthy 2024.

See you sometime next year!