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.

I wasn’t going to mention the Masters this week but that proved a ridiculous notion, given that I’m writing this with the radio on (European football chat at the moment) and the telly turned to face the writing table while I screech, “Relax Rory, relax….”  Then he holes a putt to go 1 under (after being 2 over) and I roar as though Spurs have won the European Cup (or Champions League as it’s misnamed now) – and it’s only the first round.  Relax Rory, relax.  Keep calm, dear, it’s only the Masters.

In my heart I fear that Rory will never win the Masters (think Sam Snead or Phil Mickelson with the US Open, Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson with the PGA and any number of other examples of players who could’ve, probably should’ve won the championship dearest to their heart).  I hope I’m wrong – my predictions usually are – but Augusta National is a very swirly place, with movement everywhere, in the trees, on the greens and in the crowd and it’s hard to keep the mind still.

The spectators (or patrons), controlled though they are, may not run but they’re always moving and there’s always a buzz; it’s not an arena for the faint-hearted or the rabbit-eared.  Colin Montgomerie,  who could hear a pimento cheese sandwich (which clogs the teeth) being chomped at 1,000 paces, never quite adapted.  One year, when in his pomp, he was playing behind Arnie, who had left his playing pomp far behind but still commanded a fair number of troops who followed his every move, oblivious to anyone else.

At the 5th, Monty was surveying his third shot, from the right-hand side of the green, maybe pin high but awkward, as most chips are at Augusta, when he stepped back, hands on hips and glared towards the (distant) 6th tee.  Arnie’s group had hit their tee shots and the Army had set off down the hill towards the green.  They were at least 50 yards, probably more, from where Monty was standing, affronted, glowering at the unsuspecting retreating backs.  Whatever the opposite of Zen is (Apoplectic?), that was Monty.

That might have been the year that the Scot, Europe’s perennial No 1, came off the 18th, signed his card and was escorted to talk to the watch-checking, deadline-dreading scribes clutching their notebooks and tape recorders in an area penned off (behind one strand of rope) for the purpose of a quick quote or two.  Monty had finished over par, been a bit unlucky here and there (he thought) and generally suffered the frustrations that are a speciality of the course.  He was happy to speak, as he usually was (even when he shouldn’t have opened his mouth, thank goodness) and eventually he said, with the familiar echo, “What more can I do?  What more can I do?”

There was silence but reckoning that the interview was more or less over, I made sure that it was well and truly terminated by answering, “Deep breathing?”

I was a few yards away, safely out of reach and had the sense to keep my head buried in my notebook as Monty stomped off.  Just as well.  Apparently I wouldn’t have survived the murderous look he gave me.  (And some of my colleagues, who hadn’t quite finished their questioning, weren’t too happy either.)

In my defence, the question wasn’t really facetious, it was more or less serious.  Because that’s what Augusta requires:  a lot of deep breathing.

To win at Augusta, your game has to be in good shape, you have to hole more than your fair share of heart-stopping putts in the three to six foot range and, crucially, your head has to be in the right place.  There’s no let up.  It tests every last ounce of your skill and nerve.  Every shot.  Every putt.  Every hole.  Every round.  No wonder green jacket almost rhymes with plum knackered.

One person who’s probably still wondering what all the fuss is about is Jennifer Kupcho, of Colorado and Wake Forest (Arnold Palmer’s alma mater), who won the first Augusta National Women’s Amateur by playing the last six holes in five under par for a round of 67.  The world’s No 1 amateur started her winning charge with a stunning eagle three at the 13th and the golf she and Maria Fassi, of Mexico and the University of Arkansas, played lit up an event that is a bit of a misnomer but should get better.  Only the last of the three rounds was played at Augusta National and it clashed with the women’s ANA Inspiration, the first major championship of the season, at Mission Hills in California.

That event was won by Jin Young Ko, of South Korea, who’s now world No 1 in the Rolex Rankings.  It was her first major title but Dave Brooker, her caddie, an Englishman who can now be called a veteran, was celebrating his third victory in this particular desert.  He won the title with Grace Park in 2004 and Lorena Ochoa in 2008.  Many congrats Dave.

Congrats also to Ireland’s Leona Maguire, who had her first win as a professional and to Daan Huizing of the Netherlands, who registered another first when he won the inaugural Jordan Mixed Open presented by Ayla (featuring players from the Challenge Tour, the Ladies European Tour and the Staysure Seniors Tour).  He finished two shots ahead of Englishwoman Meghan McLaren, who led by five shots at one stage but was pegged back and ended up disappointed.  “It was still an honour to be here and represent women’s golf,” she said.  “It was pretty tight coming down the last few holes, so I think it was great entertainment for everybody watching.”

Congrats to everyone involved in an event that shows golf really is for all.

 

 

There are many reasons I’m glad my Mum and Dad introduced me to this infuriating yet wonderful game, one of the main ones being that we can all, given a fair wind, keep playing for a long, long time.  It’s also an added bonus that many successful protagonists on the world stage are as likely to be in their 40s as their 20s.  There have been many column inches penned in the last few years about a glut of ferocious precocious talent that is set to dominate for the next decade or two.  Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele and Jon Rahm have all been part of this conversation, all of them being around 24 or 25 years of age.

But let’s just take a look at some of the most recent winners to grace our screens.  Francesco Molinari, aged 36;  Paul Casey 41;  Kevin Kisner 35;  Graeme McDowell 39.  Matt Kuchar, who was runner-up to Kisner  in the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play to Kisner, has already celebrated his 40th birthday and has also already been in the winner’s circle this season.  Remaining injury free is key, of course, to extending your prime and hauling in the big bucks.

One of the most gratifying performances of the weekend, however, was that of Scotsman Stephen Gallacher in the Hero Indian Open at the DLF Golf & Country Club in New Delhi.

It is more than four years since Gallagher, a mere stripling of 44, last tasted victory, in Dubai.  That was the year he made a monumental effort to make Paul McGinley’s Ryder Cup team at Gleneagles, just down the road from his home.  He was lightly raced by his captain in that contest and was almost a spent force for a while afterwards, finding it hard to drag his level back up.  His motivation survived, however, and at the start of this year he took himself to Florida and did some work with Sean Foley, former coach of Tiger Woods and current coach of Justin Rose.  Stephen felt he wanted, and was capable of, “four or five more years” on the European Tour.

On the front nine it appeared that that dream would have to wait when it seemed Gallacher was on an inexorable slide, playing five off the tee at the seventh hole and recording a quadruple bogey 8, which dropped him five shots off the pace.  Somehow he kept his hand well away from the panic button and determined to “finish strong”.  With his son, Jack, whom he described as “cool as a cucumber”, on the bag, Gallacher rallied and birdied three out of his last four holes to squeak home by a shot.  He is now assured of having his card until the end of 2021 and with typical Scottish understatement conceded, “This is a big win for me.”

Last month I wrote about David Law, another Scottish winner on the European Tour and now it’s the turn of Stephen Gallacher.  This is a habit I could really get to like.  The Home of Golf is understandably greedy for success from its growing band of representatives on the main tours and Gallacher and Law should provide a ton of inspiration.

More inspiration for “the oldies” was provided by victory in the Dominican Republic for the ever popular Irishman Graeme McDowell, my fellow member of Royal Portrush Golf Club.  (Have I mentioned the Open will be there in July?!!  And that the R&A have released more tickets.)  McDowell, a few months shy of 40, produced some vintage stuff to win the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship by a shot from Chris Stroud and MacKenzie Hughes.  This was McDowell’s fourth PGA Tour victory, coming nearly four years after his last success and it will provide him with much needed impetus to go on and qualify for the big gig in July.  Fingers crossed he does it – it would be unthinkable to have a Portrush Open without Graeme gracing the links.

The Open is the last of the four majors this year with the PGA having moved up from that slot to second in line, after the Masters.  Augusta beckons and I’ll leave you with two questions to ponder:  first, who will don the green jacket this year?  Second, are the tweeting birds you hear on TV live or pre-recorded?  There is a rumour that it’s the latter…..

I have a very appealing diary for the next three months or so.  In ten days I’m off to Augusta for the Masters;  then in the middle of May I fly to New York for the PGA;  mid-June brings more air travel all the way to the west coast of America and glorious Pebble Beach for the US Open;  finally, in July, only a little hop across the Irish sea is required to go to Portrush for the Open.  It’s major season, after all, and I’m very fortunate to get a front row view of those at the very pinnacle of the game.

Last week I was in a very different arena but was no less fortunate.  I had the pleasure of attending and speaking at the Diamond Jubilee celebration dinner of the Liverpool Society of Lady Golf Captains.

While these ladies would readily agree they are not at the pinnacle of our sport, I would argue that they and their society, and their ilk, are, indeed, the very bedrock of golf.  Back in 1959 the idea of a society for clubs in South West Lancashire was mooted and, not wishing to be outdone by the men captains who had already formed their own Liverpool Society, the women embraced the concept and wasted no time in getting organised.  The early correspondence between the clubs makes for fascinating reading and the alacrity with which a special meeting was organised at the Bradford Hotel in Liverpool was testament to their determination to get going.  Today there are 21 member clubs and with the first 60 years under their belts the LSLGC can lay claim to being the oldest female golf society in the country, outside of London.

This year’s captain of the society is Jackie Bickerstaffe from The West Lancashire Golf Club, a course to test all of your skills, if ever there was one.  With the help of her able committee all arrangements went well, with perhaps her trickiest moment, I suspect, being the choice of venue for the dinner.  It was very important to the members of the society to have an iconic venue in the city after which they are named and Evertonian Jackie did an admirable job in sanctioning the choice of “The Beautiful Game Suite” at Liverpool Football Club!  Being a supporter, myself, of a red team from another city not a million miles away, I had never visited Anfield before and wasn’t sure what to expect.  It was the perfect venue.  The huge European Cup was on display and readily carried around the tables so anyone who wanted to have their picture taken with it could do so.  And an amazing number of the 297 women present did just that.  A whole wall of windows looks down on to the fabled pitch and it was quite sobering to consider all the famous players who had performed there down the years and been connected with the club.

 

The aims and objects of the LSLGC were clearly stated in the Society’s first rules and they remain the same today.  They include doing everything in the best interests of the members’ clubs and the game of golf in general, and an integral part of the society is the annual organisation of several competitions and social get-togethers.  It was so apparent to me at this joyful gathering just how much golf has enhanced the lives of everyone present and how keen they all are to spread the word to others.  There was a willingness to be inclusive and I left that evening feeling more positive about the future of the game than I have in a while.  Yes, it’s marvellous to swan off to the majors, but if all professional golf tours and players ceased to exist tomorrow the game would still survive.  They are only the tip of the iceberg.  If, however, clubs and societies of the nature of the LSLGC, ceased to exist, we, and by “we” I mean golf, would be in real trouble.  The game would eventually wither and die altogether, not a pleasant prospect.

My speech was generously received, but it is I who should really be thanking the LSLGC.  Thank you for reconnecting me to “proper” golf and golfers and reminding me what’s really important in the game.

Footnote.  A huge thank you to Ray Farley of Raymond Farley Photography for all the photographs.