The recent vile weather has surprised me into a frenzy of spring cleaning.  I needed something to do, after all, when my better half and his two boys took off to a Storm Ciara battered premier league football match in Sheffield a couple of Sundays ago.  Every time he rang to check in he promised that “the weather’s really not bad here at all”.  Amazingly that narrow band of “not bad at all” weather stretched from the Welsh borders all the way across the Pennines to the steel city and back again – while everywhere else in the country was on its knees.  So, the spring cleaning was my antidote to anxiety and worry.

I was delighted, however, to put down the feather duster to watch Adam Scott win the Genesis Invitational last weekend at the quality venue of Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles.  The genial Aussie is almost seven years removed from his Masters win and at 39 years of age he is as committed as ever to adding to his haul of wins, particularly in the majors.  This win at Riviera is very important to him – it’s his first on the PGA Tour since 2016 and he saw off the challenges of Rory McIlroy and Matt Kuchar amongst others.  Reflecting afterwards that it had been “a long time between drinks” he added:  “I’m stoked with this.  It’s a big step, whatever point in my career I’m at.  I haven’t won for three years.  This feels very special.”

Special also was his victory in the Australian PGA in December on the European Tour.  That particular success brought an end to a six-year drought in Europe and Scott’s current policy of limiting his play, almost starving himself of competition, thus ramping up his desire and enthusiasm to be out on tour, seems to be working admirably.  Back up to seventh in the world rankings, he could be contending in one or more of the majors this year.  If that’s the case you won’t find me complaining – golf couldn’t have a better ambassador.

The very next day I found myself at my very first British Junior Golf Tour event, the Winter Cup, played at Portal Golf Club in Cheshire.  Eighty-seven boys and girls from the length and breadth of the country turned up for this opening two-day event on a schedule that runs from now till October at numerous different venues.

On this occasion there were five different divisions, all age- and distance-related, with the competitors playing over 9 or 18 holes dependent on the category.  With the caddies (mostly Dads) all wearing caddy bibs and with sponsor signage at the 1st tee this did, indeed, feel like a proper little mini tour event.  Each boy and girl was announced on the 1st tee and the ones I saw couldn’t wait to get up there and take centre stage.  If there were nerves, they seemed to be jangling in the parents’ bodies, not the kids’ – or maybe it was just the cold, blustery weather making them shiver?!

Whatever, it was joyful to see so many youngsters and also really quite an eye-opener.  No cut-down clubs as in my day, no carry bags that you took yourself – rather names on bags and the aforementioned caddies.  It’s all quite clever really.  No caddies allowed on the greens means the juniors have to learn the skill of green behaviour, tending the flag if necessary and getting on with making their own decisions re line and pace and so on.  In fact, I don’t believe that any coaching is permissable at all and the adults are a big part of keeping play moving and helping with rulings.  Lots of daily prizes are presented as well as the overall prizes.  If you have any little ones in your life and would love to introduce them to the wonderful world of golf, do have a look at the British Junior Golf Tour website.  It’s a fun, safe place that teaches invaluable life lessons – bravo for the BJGT!

Back to the weather and my own playing year has got off to a slow start because I’ve become a reasonably fair weather player nowadays.  It looks like the feather duster may get another outing or two around the house, judging by the forecast, but very shortly I’ll be diving into my prep for the first of the season’s majors, namely the Masters.  Traditionally, there are around 90 -100 players invited each year to Augusta’s green and pleasant land and I’ll have little biographies done of them all, with one or two interesting little snippets about each of them at my fingertips, before I board that transatlantic flight.

Much of how I prepare and what I do comes from having worked with, and known, some of the best in the industry.  Hazel Irvine, who presented the golf on the BBC for years, was prepared for anything and could have filled hours of airtime on her own:  Ken Brown taught me how to distill information into descriptive-laden phrases and I learned a lot from Peter Alliss about observational humour.  But when all’s said and done you have to do it your own way and trial and error is a great teacher – which is exactly what those little juniors on the BJGT will be learning without realising it.

This golf is a funny ole game.

Long considered to be the domain of predominantly white, middle-aged, middle-class males, it is easy to be disheartened at the seemingly unchanging attitudes and fuddy-duddiness of it all.  Yet, at last, I really do detect the winds of change whispering across the sport.

As I mentioned last week there is the new joint venture between four pillars of the game:  the LPGA and the LET, (the female professional golf sporting bodies in the States and Europe respectively); the governing body of the game, the R&A; and the European Tour.  There appears, finally, to be more than lip service being paid to supporting and boosting the presence of women in golf.  Undoubtedly the R&A’s Women in Golf Charter has been significant and Martin Slumbers, the boss up there in the auld grey toon of St Andrews, has more than once stated his intent to encourage more women and girls to take up the game.

European Tour chief Keith Pelley is also to be congratulated for his vision of having male and female professionals tee it up together.  The European Tour has introduced the mixed GolfSixes team event to its schedule, and last year players from the Ladies European Tour, the Staysure Tour (seniors) and the Challenge Tour competed against each other in the inaugural Jordan Mixed Open.  Small steps you may say but fingers crossed for more giant reverberations similar to the aforementioned new alliance.

And there’s more.  Take the Berkhamsted Trophy, a longstanding top amateur men-only tournament.  The Berkhamsted Golf Club, who have run this event for 60 years, have decided to invite female amateurs to compete alongside their male counterparts, thus creating a world first for elite amateur golf.  Club manager Howard Craft explained their thinking:  “We are not afraid to challenge the status quo here.  There is a lot of talk in golf about embracing change but the pace at which things fundamentally change in the sport can be a little slow.  We are enthusiastic supporters of the R&A’s Women in Golf Charter and what could be a more shining example of this than allowing men and women to play together in competition at the very top of the amateur game, as they naturally do anyway in general play?”

Unsurprisingly, but gratifyingly, this bold move has been universally acclaimed and it came as no surprise to me that the idea was first gently put to the club by none other than Peter McEvoy, one of the greatest amateurs that Great Britain and Ireland has ever produced.  A former winner of the Berkhamsted Trophy, as well as a two-time Amateur champion and much-decorated Walker Cup player and captain, McEvoy had been engaged by the club in his role of course architect to consult on the course.  [No putting in any bunkers, McE! – ed.]  No stranger to thinking outside the box it was McEvoy who introduced the idea of six-hole golf to us 20 years ago and any idea he puts forward merits serious consideration.

“I am thrilled that Berkhamsted Golf Club has made this move, and to have such enthusiastic support from the R&A and Engand Golf is the icing on the cake.  Berkhamsted is a superb test of golf and particularly course management skills.  It will be fascinating to watch men and women compete for the same trophy over 72 holes on such a magnificent golf course.”

The Berkhamsted course winds its bunker-free, yes, repeat, bunker-free, way through glorious Hertfordshire heathland with gorse and heather abounding.  It’s certainly on my list to play in 2020.  We must all support any club with this sort of forward thinking, so, if you can, why don’t you go along anytime from April 2nd to 4th to watch the 61st playing of this venerable trophy?  It is, after all, a rare opportunity to witness a world’s first.

Changing tack a little, I was astounded to learn that Jack Nicklaus turned 80 last Tuesday.  I mentioned it to Patricia and, of course, we immediately started reminiscing about “the greatest golf trip we have ever taken together in our lives”.  For those of you new to the blog that would be a trip in 2009 to Jack’s tournament, the Memorial, at Muirfield Village, to represent Patricia’s late husband Dai, who had been selected as one of the tournament’s journalistic honorees.  Jack and his wife Barbara, whom Patricia had got to know a little bit when writing for The Times for so many years, were gracious hosts and threw their home, tucked away back from the 9th fairway, open to us.  I still have to pinch myself that for that week we were invited “to drop in any time” for coffee or whatever.  And we did.

There was only one day of that glorious week when I could get out on the golf course on my own to watch some golf without any pressure of watching the clock to see when the next appointment or meeting was (all with wonderful people I hasten to add, so it was no hardship).  I was relishing a little time on my own, however and was thrilled when the day dawned bright and sunny.

By this stage I was beginning to run out of clean clothes so decided I could get away with a  top that had seen better days.  But it would be just fine on a VIP-free day and I’d be off out on the course all day….and no one would know me anyway.  I’d casually mentioned to Patricia that I was going out to watch Olazabal and we arranged a meeting place at the end of the day.

Imagine my surprise when at the 6th hole I saw Patricia in a buggy driven by Andy O’Brien, Jack’s go-to man for everything.  And they were obviously looking for me.  Quickly reassured there was nothing amiss at home I let out a sigh of relief only to be told to get into the buggy as we were going straight back to the house to have our photograph taken with the Nicklauses.  The resultant pic sits on Patricia’s desk at home and I cringe every time I see it – I doubt I’ll ever forgive her for setting up that photo opportunity with golfing royalty on that day when I was in one of my wardrobe disasters.

Needless to say, it’s one of Patricia’s favourite photos – it makes her roar every time she looks at it!  A couple of years ago I banned her from reproducing it here in the blog but, hey, life’s about a few laughs – so, here it is!

Mike Whan, commissioner of the LPGA, is the man of the moment, a mover and shaker who’s managing to position women’s golf slap-bang in the middle of the game’s development.  That’s a trick that should qualify the 54-year old American for membership of the Magic Circle but, in the meantime, the Golf Writers’ Association of America (GWAA) has given him the 2020 William D. Richardson Award for outstanding contributions to golf.

Whan joins a long list of luminaries to win the award, including Bob Jones, Bob Hope, Arnold Palmer and LPGA founders Babe Zaharias, Patty Berg and Louise Suggs.  He was suitably humbled and stressed that he was no lone wolf:  “The LPGA is the ultimate team effort, so I hope all the players, teachers and staff understand that this award is really recognising ALL of us.  I’m honoured to be a small part of this incredible LPGA family and I’m proud of all that we are doing to leave the game even better for the next generation of golfers.”

Whan is due at The Buckinghamshire Golf Club, the headquarters of the LET, today, to announce the LET’s 2020 schedule, alongside Alexandra Armas, who’s been confirmed as CEO of the LET.  She will report directly to the LPGA-LET Joint Venture Board of Directors, chaired by Whan.  Ladies European Golf Venture Limited, the company that now operates the LET, has a board of 12 directors, including Whan, Keith Pelley, who is the European Tour’s chief executive, Martin Slumbers, the R&A’s chief executive and Marta Figueras Dotti, chair of the LET.  Still with me?

It’s certainly a powerful line-up and should mean that at long last, after years of limping along, women’s professional golf in Europe has a sustainable future.  Fingers crossed.

Mike Whan has been in his job for 10 years, a miracle of longevity in a position often seen as a poisoned chalice but no matter how good the boss is, how inspirational and persuasive, how hard he or she works, in the end it all comes down to the players; their attitude and performance are key.  Charlie Mechem, one of Whan’s most distinguished predecessors, had no doubt about that.

In his entertaining book with the tongue-in-cheek title, ‘Who’s That With Charlie?’, he wrote:  “In the final analysis, the players are the tour.  No matter how strong and supportive the sponsors are or the media or the fans, the players drive the success or failure of the organisation.  And that’s as it should be.”

I’ve always thought that every tour deserves a leader like Charlie Mechem at least once in its existence.  He was – and hopefully still is – charming, shrewd, unbelievably well connected and a wonderful speaker, never hitting a bum note.  At Dalmahoy, when Europe won the Solheim Cup against all the odds, he couldn’t have been more gracious, well aware that the result was the best thing that could have happened to the contest.  His golfing nous and diplomacy also helped compensate for the fact that his European counterpart at the time, a non-golfer, hadn’t a clue what was going on……The tour’s finest hour went completely over her head.

Of course, I’ve got stuck into Charlie’s book again and there’s a lovely story about Louise Suggs, who was a formidable, forthright character but great fun once you got to know her.  Back in the dim, distant past, when Louise was in her heyday, she played in a one-day tournament at a par-3 course in the Palm Beach area and won.  The field was made up of male and female pros and Sam Snead let Louise know in no uncertain terms that he was not at all happy at being beaten by the woman Bob Hope had nicknamed “Little Miss Sluggs”.

Snead, who loathed losing, complained about the condition of the course, the set up and anything else he could think of but Louise was no shrinking violet and gave him short shrift.  “Sam,” she said.  “Shut up.  You’ve no bitching rights, you didn’t even come second!”

Sam stormed off and roared out of the car park leaving Louise to inhale the smell of burning rubber – and the sweeter smell of success.  There’s nothing quite like beating a man when he’s really, really trying……Where are you when I need you Dai?

The LPGA is 70 this year, so there’ll be lots of looking back to the early days as well as looking forward and there are some great tales to tell about Fred Corcoran, the LPGA’s first tournament director – commissioner really – who was a promoter, manager, deal-maker and storyteller par excellence and helped set the tour on its way.  He persuaded Alvin Handmacher, a fashion magnate, to use golf to promote his Weathervane line of women’s clothing.  It was a crucial sponsorship coup and in her book ‘Fred Corcoran:  The Man Who Sold The World on Golf’, Corcoran’s daughter Judy said…..”make no mistake about it – Alvin put the Ladies’ PGA in business.”

Years earlier, in a book called ‘Unplayable Lies’, Corcoran had written:  “Alvin understood me and I understood him.  Neither of us wholly understood the girls….”

It was ever thus.  Could be that we’re just wired differently!

 

 

It occurred to me the other day that we, as a nation of watchers of others, have become so accustomed to seeing tremendous skills on display that we can often take for granted their amazing expertise.  This year, in the golfing world, there have been two outstanding proponents in the men’s and women’s games and they have been voted by their peers as simply the best for 2020.  Take a bow, Rory McIlroy and Jin Young Ko.

Let’s deal with Ko first.  In only her second year on the LPGA she won four times, including two major championships, and it was her insatiable work ethic which helped her to add three second-place finishes and a further five top tens.  In the midst of compiling these impressive statistics she set the longest bogey-free stretch in the history of the game – a total of 114 holes.  The previous record was 110 holes, set in 2000 by Tiger Woods.  Ko’s greatest strength is that she simply has no weaknesses and she is rightly No 1 in the world.

McIlroy also won on four occasions in 2019.  Alas, there were no majors but he is revelling in what he describes as “the most consistent year of my career”.  From 24 starts he recorded 19 top ten finishes and his improvements are all measureable.  He’s become a bit of a stats junkie and the marginal gains so beloved by professional sportsmen and women are showing up in multiple categories, particularly in his putting – and that is what he feels is at the root of his success.  He described it succinctly as his “best putting year ever this year”.

Chasing hard on the tails of these two players are a host of others, all hard working and highly skilled and we who watch (as opposed to do) have the delicious prospect of an intriguing and compelling 2020.

I was doing some other watching, new watching for me, at the weekend.  We have a highly successful, small, independent, family glass-blowing business a hundred yards down the road, just over the border in Wales.  E+M Glass were holding an open day with mulled wine, live music, stalls and glass-blowing demonstrations – a perfect opportunity to do some early Christmas shopping and get a close up view of an amazing skill.  Apparently, it takes about seven years to learn about being a glass-blower and then, as with most things, you simply keep on and on learning.  Charlie, the son of Ed and Margy, the E+M in the company name, was doing the demo and in no time at all he had whipped up a beautifully elegant wine glass.

It put me in mind of the old challenges on The Generation Game and I reckoned that it would take many years to perfect Charlie’s skills.  But then you look at something like Strictly Come Dancing, of which I am an unashamed fan, and it seems that each year there are one or two novices who by week 10 or 11 are described as being indistinguishable from the experts, the professional dancers.  Could you ever, ever imagine that happening in golf (or glass-blowing) in that amount of time?  It just wouldn’t happen in a million years, so does that make our sport just miles more difficult than dancing?  Are our skills just so much more demanding to acquire?  Whatever you think, I don’t think Strictly Come Golfing has a future.

And finally, Christmas has well and truly arrived in the shape of my new kit and caboodle from Ping.  I feel as excited as I did as a youngster when I was building up my first set of Jean Donalds with one club for birthday and one for Christmas.  A niggly back means I must hold off for a few days before taking to the range or the course, so I must hold my enthusiasm in check just for a little while.

So, all that remains is to thank all of our faithful readers who follow the various ramblings of the Madill sisters. Another year has whizzed by and we are taking our annual Christmas break until the middle of next month.

Seasons greetings to everyone, swing it smoothly and hope to see you in 2020!