Many many congrats to Lilia Vu, the new world No 1 in the women’s game but most importantly the recently crowned AIG Women’s Open champion.  Alas, for English fans it wasn’t a nail-biter and although Vu and Charley Hull started the final round on the same mark it was Vu who took control early on and ran out the winner with a six-shot cushion.

That’s the last three majors that have registered that same margin of victory – Brian Harman in the Open Championship, Celine Boutier in the Amundi Evian Championship and last Sunday we had Vu enjoying that 18th hole walk at Walton Heath virtually jitter-free.  One regular tournament victory (in Thailand in February) followed up by two major wins in one season makes for astounding reading for the Californian native.  Yet, strange as it may seem, she suffered a monumental crisis of confidence mid-season, convinced that those first two wins were a fluke.  Who says sport isn’t mental – in every respect?

And what about Charley Hull?  Two runner-ups in the season’s majors brings her closer than ever to her dream of lifting one of the big prizes in the game.  She’s adapted to a diagnosis of hyperactive ADHD and says she has learned her triggers.  It’s not easy juggling her medication as some of it is on the LPGA banned list.  Isn’t it oh-so-easy to forget, or not realise, that the wonderful sportspeople we watch on our screens frequently have life struggles off the course to deal with as well?

Along with many others, I do believe Charley will win a major or two and, as sure as night follows day, inevitably a mention in a birthday or New Year’s honours list will ensue.  In the interests of transparency here I don’t believe ANYONE should get a gong for simply doing their job extremely well but that isn’t the way of things apparently.  And so I come to one of my long-standing topics for my soapbox.

Karen Stupples.  Or to put it more accurately – why is Karen the only one of the five female British major champions not to be honoured?  We have Laura Davies, aka the Dame, heading the list with four majors, then Ali Nicholas with one major – and a gong;  Catriona Mathew with one – and a gong;  and Georgia Hall with one – and a gong.  Well, you get the picture.  Stupples, who won the Women’s British Open at Sunningdale in 2004, has yet to be mentioned in dispatches.

My contention is that as she has resided in America virtually all of her adult life she has simply been overlooked – not by the Awards Office, I hasten to add, but by those in golf who should have been putting her name forward.  That is how the system operates – Karen’s club, county, country, home professional tour or other professional organisation needs to orchestrate and put forward a body of work to be considered by the Awards Office.  At the very least, surely the powers-that-be at England Golf should look into this?  They have three players thus honoured – why not the fourth?  (Point of info for the our non golf-tragic readers – Catriona Matthew is Scottish.)

Perhaps the R&A can help?  They are searching for, and promoting, women role models from all branches of the golf industry and here is a major champion under our noses.  Please, please consider this as a project to be pursued.  Don’t just assume someone else will do it thus allowing this fine player (and better person) to fall through the cracks.

Surprise, surprise but this topic got me thinking about our male major champions from Great Britain and Northern Ireland – in other words those who may qualify to be considered for these awards.  Since 1951 when Max Faulkner won the Open at Royal Portrush we have celebrated twelve male major winners.  By my reckoning they are as follows:  the aforementioned Max; Tony Jacklin (Open and US Open); Sandy Lyle (Open and Masters); Ian Woosnam (Masters); Nick Faldo (3 Masters and 3 Opens);  Paul Lawrie (Open);  Graeme McDowell (US Open);  Rory McIlroy (Open, US Open, 2 PGAs);  Darren Clarke (Open);   Justin Rose (US Open);  Danny Willett (Masters) and Matt Fitzpatrick (US Open).

Lists are dangerous things to put in blogs as you always run the risk of leaving someone out.  However, I’m very happy to be corrected by more knowledgeable and/or detail-orientated readers.  To the best of my own, somewhat streaky, knowledge Willett and Fitzpatrick, the most recent winners, are the only ones yet to have a medal pinned on them by royalty.

Perhaps, like Karen, their time will come.

It is certain, however, that Lilia Vu’s time is now and I hope she takes time to celebrate in fine style.  We will see her skills on this side of the Atlantic again very shortly.

Next up – Spain and the Solheim!

 

A couple of months back the sister and I were watching some women’s golf on the telly when Celine Boutier, one of France’s finest, appeared on the screen.  “France’s greatest-ever female golfer,” the commentator intoned.  We both bristled.

“What about Catherine Lacoste?  Marie-Laure de Lorenzi?  Patricia Meunier Lebouc?”  Splutter, splutter, splutter, as we went on to name dozens of wonderful, French players.

The commentator undoubtedly knew that the great Lacoste is the only amateur to have won the US Open – that happened way back in 1967 when she was a wire-to-wire winner but I’m pretty sure Marie-Laure, the only player I know apart from Vijay Singh who had nine professional wins in a season*, had passed him by (particularly as he struggled with the pronunciation of her name).  Patricia’s name is more easily found, featuring as it does in the Ladies’ Professional Golfers’ Association (LPGA) archive as the 2003 winner of one of their majors, the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

When I recounted this to a non-golfing friend she retorted that the commentator hadn’t done his research – and that brings me to my point.  Where would the commentator have done this research?  The archive on the Ladies’ European Tour (LET) website is a long, factual list of tournament winners, scoring records, money earned and suchlike.  Unfortunately there’s not a biographical link to these great players from the early days of the tour, no lists of their own achievements, their background or their considerable impact on women’s golf in particular and women’s sport in general.

Perhaps said commentator could turn to the reliably unreliable Wikipedia?  I wouldn’t bother.  There have been many times I have been introduced at a speaking engagement by someone who has diligently researched Wikipedia.  I haven’t even recognised myself!  You may read some interesting stuff but factual…?  Don’t count on it.

It grieves me no end that user-friendly, biographical archive from the early days of the LET has not been corralled and brought together under one umbrella.  Very soon all those with the knowledge, the contacts and the records will have died off and valuable info will be lost for ever.  It’s a shame the LET has been so short-sighted in not commissioning the bringing together of a body of work that underpins all that they strive to achieve today.  In my opinion, it’s important to document, acknowledge and honour the past and those who were so pivotal in creating the present and the future.  We need, and deserve, more than just pages of lists.

Act now before it really is too late.

After the exertions of Open Championship week at Hoylake I had plenty of time to relax and view the fourth of the women’s five majors, namely the Amundi Evian Championship and it was truly thrilling to witness the aforementioned Celine Boutier claim her first major title – and on home soil, to boot.

Unless you are American there aren’t too many opportunities to accomplish this feat, bearing in mind that of the nine majors played across the men’s and women’s tours six of them are played in the States.

Think back to Shane Lowry winning the 2019 Open in Royal Portrush; Georgia Hall coming out top in the Women’s Open at Lytham in 2018;  Karen Stupples beating all-comers in  the same championship at Sunningdale in 2004; Paul Lawrie hoisting the Claret Jug at Carnoustie in 1999 and Tony Jacklin triumphing at Lytham in the Open of 1969.  By my reckoning, with Celine joining this list, that makes only six non-American players in the last 54 years who have enjoyed the ultimate of winning a major in front of their countrymen.  Oh, to be a member of that super-select club!

Thank goodness Celine’s friends ran on to the green to celebrate this epic win spraying her with honest-to-goodness champagne and not a certain beverage named after the venue.  Special feats deserve proper celebrations as the picture at the top of the blog shows.

Showers of another kind were pre-eminent at Royal Porthcawl where Alex Cejka managed to survive the onslaught from the weather gods as well as the spirited last-minute attack on the Senior Open title by Padraig Harrington.  Brutal would be a fair description of the conditions faced by all the players and I’m sure the last thing the final pair needed was an excursion into extra time.

Huge kudos to all involved in running this championship and seeing it safely to its conclusion.  I accused my friend, Pam Chugg, who was refereeing the final match on Sunday, of constantly walking across in front of the camera to get more air time on telly.  She somewhat put me in my place when she tartly pointed out that conditions were so bad she couldn’t even SEE where the cameras were!  That told me off – sitting in my comfortable chair at home, with a glass of something nice at my elbow!

There’s no golf for me on the horizon just yet but spirits were lifted by numerous emails heralding the arrival of my Ryder Cup tickets for Rome.  Not valid if they are printed off, you are required to add them to your wallet on your phone.  I’ve been successful with mine – the weekend will be for sorting out the sister’s.

No doubt we’ll be watching some of the women’s golf from Scotland together and I have a suspicion we will find we have toned  down our bristling if the commentators declare that Celine Boutier is “France’s greatest-ever female golfer”.  Last week saw to that.

Vive la France!

 

[*Don’t forget Nancy Lopez? – ed]

Well, I just had to start with Padraig this week, didn’t I?

A closing inward Sunday nine of 28 for a final round of 63 secured the successful defence of his title at the DICK’s Sporting Goods Open in New York.  The affable Irishman had an amazing stretch of birdie, birdie, birdie, birdie, eagle, birdie in the middle of his final nine holes and the field had no answer whatsoever to that kind of blistering form.

Harrington will now roll on his merry way up to Wisconsin to defend the US Senior Open title he won last year and, if last season is anything to go by, it is during these summer months that he really hits his stride.  More majors beckon, I hope.

Alas, there were no majors for Leona Maguire or Stephanie Meadow at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship last week at Baltusrol.  That title fell to the 20-year old Chinese sensation Ruoning Yin who appears to be taking up the mantle of now retired compatriot Shanshan Feng.  Yin becomes the second Chinese player (after Feng) to win a major and, unfortunately for the thousands of fans on the Emerald Isle, Ireland’s women still have to score in this most elusive, and exclusive, of categories.

Leona had done all the heavy lifting during the week being in, or at, the lead right through the first three rounds.  On the Sunday, with bad weather forecast, the tee times were moved up and the players went out in threeballs.  Stephanie Meadow and Jenny Shin joined Maguire in that last group and for the first time ever we had two female Irish players in the final group on the Sunday of a major.  A nice little bit of history.

Every sinew of my being was urging on Leona and Steph but it became very apparent very quickly how much easier it is to be the hunter, not the hunted.  Several players out earlier were completely freed up and came roaring up the leaderboard, attacking every flag en route – none more so than Spain’s Carlota Ciganda who moved from 26th spot overnight to joint third with a scintillating 64.  That completes a trio of third-place finishes for her in majors which she relishes above all other challenges.

“I love playing. I love competing. It’s not an easy game,” she said. “I think you just have to keep going, and I think the more opportunities you create, it will happen eventually, so I’m just trying to be patient, keep playing. I know my game is good enough to win and to be up there. I love the majors. I love the challenge. I love tough courses. Hopefully, I can win one one day.”

I’m sure these are the exact same sentiments going through Leona’s and Steph’s minds.  They are taking Irish women’s golf to new heights before our very eyes and I couldn’t be prouder of them both.  Ireland may be small but we are used to punching above our weight and I hope it isn’t too long before we can join our Scottish and English friends in celebrating having major champions from our very own little patch of grass.

The patch of grass I’ll be walking round this weekend is the famous links of Royal Dornoch, host of this year’s Vagliano Trophy match.  The best female players from GB&I play the best from Europe and all these players must surely be inspired by the deeds of their compatriots on the biggest stages in the game.  It’ll be so much fun to play “spot the next Solheim Cup player” and then our own challenge is to hang around long enough to see if we got it right!

My next little bit of broadcasting work is looming on the horizon and I’ve arranged to go and do a bit of early Open homework up at Hoylake in the company of Maureen Richmond (nee Walker).  Maureen, a former Vagliano team member, as well as Curtis Cup player, is a longstanding member of Royal Liverpool and she is generously going to share some of her insights with me prior to the off.  Despite having covered the 2006 (Tiger won) and 2014 (Rory won) Opens I like to start with a fresh perspective each time and see how both course and strategies have evolved.

In 2006 I was out with Tiger for a couple of his rounds and on the first hole I found myself standing inside the ropes next to a very sinister-looking fellow – you know the sort, broad shoulders, no neck and dark glasses.  I wasn’t too far from Tiger at the time and I sensed that this fellow didn’t like it very much.  I smiled at him and thought as we were likely to be spending the next five hours fairly close to each other it might be nice to have a little bit of a connection.  So I said, “Hello.  Are you one of Tiger’s minders?”

A distinctive American drawl came back.  “Facilitator, Ma’am.  Facilitator.”  No further words were exchanged between us during the round but he gave me a little more elbow room after the third, obviously deciding that my mike and I were no threat whatsoever to the Great One.

I must close with a tribute to a “facilitator” of my own.  Take a bow, Barbara Stewart.  Barbara, many of you will recall, is the ace photographer who enabled me to complete my ambition of getting a scene from Portstewart onto a large picture blind at home.  It had only taken me about fifteen years before I enlisted her aid..

Well, the blind has arrived and is up!  The snap below doesn’t really do it justice – it’s better in real life.  I’m beyond thrilled with it.  Thank you, Barbara.

I was sitting mulling over the possible content of this week’s blog when the phone rang.  That is an unusual occurrence because it was the house phone and I keep forgetting we have one.  There is only one person in the world who ever rings it and that is a neighbour who refuses to do texting or mobiles.

Intrigued, I answered it and after a beat of silence an automated message began, informing me of a dodgy £800 charge on my Visa card for online gambling in America.  Due to the suspicious nature of this charge the Visa team had put a hold on the transaction (lucky me!) and, the voice continued, if I wished to stop this payment going through I was to press 1 and I would get straight through to the fraud squad.  I have no doubt whatsoever that had I pressed 1 I would, indeed, have found myself talking to a fraud squad, just not one with my best interests at heart.

Returning to my blog musings and wondering whether to start with Leona’s great win in the States (see pic at top) or Rory’s brave but unavailing attempt (known in this family as a BBU) to add another major title to his haul, I got sidetracked into pondering the amount of endeavour and work these scammers put in to relieve innocent folk of the contents of their bank accounts.  They’ve obviously got decent brains but have decided a life of crime is more rewarding than honest graft.

If you’re a touring, professional golfer relying on your winnings for your livelihood then your entire life is dependent on good, hard, honest graft and as with most things in life there are absolutely no guarantees.  That’s why I was greatly heartened to read of  Northern Ireland’s Olivia Mehaffey’s fabulous 64 in the opening round of last week’s Amundi German Masters on the Ladies’ European Tour.

Olivia, now 25 years of age, played during her formative years at Royal County Down Ladies’ and had a very successful college career in the States, which included two invitations to play in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.  She turned pro in 2021 but was stopped in her tracks last year with the death of her father, ultimately deciding to take a break from the tour to grieve and work on her mental health.  Her 64, the lowest round of her career, paved the way to a top 12 finish and hopefully will be the start of her finding success and joy in her life again.

Meanwhile, the same week, Olivia’s erstwhile fellow international, Leona Maguire, was shooting her own 64 – this time in the final round of the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give.  This catapulted her to her second LPGA Tour victory and to 12th in the women’s Rolex world rankings.  A grafter supreme, Leona credited some key up-and-downs in that final sparkling round as the moments that cemented her win.  She had spent some time last summer with fellow Irish professional Padraig Harrington, one of the hardest workers in the game, a three-time major champ and all-round good egg.

Padraig is more than ready to share his knowledge and skill with younger players and he had a willing pupil in Leona, who says she’s going to see if she can repeat the exercise, diaries allowing, some time this summer.  She’s keen now to take the next step and become a major champion.  It could even happen this week as she’s currently in New Jersey playing in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, the second of the five majors the women play each year.

Harrington had his own major last week and proved at the US Open that he still has the game to compete at the very highest level.  Now 51 years of age, Padraig finished 27th at Los Angeles Country Club on two over par and as an eternal student of the game, no doubt he feels he is still learning.  And he is still giving back.

Anyway, he will always be a favourite of mine for winning me a bet with Peter Alliss many moons ago.  After his (Harrington’s) sparkling 14-month spell back in 2007/2008 when he won three majors, the victories dried up.  Peter and I were discussing this one day and the great Mr Alliss decreed that, sadly, he didn’t think the Irishman would grace the winner’s circle again.  I stoutly disagreed and one of our spirited discussions ensued, resulting in the wager of a “decent bottle of red” over the outcome.  It took until 2015 before Padraig won the Honda Classic – and, yes, Peter was as pleased as I was.

Ok, so now I’ve mentioned the US Open I have to mention Rory.  I hadn’t the staying power to sit up through the night and watch but I did record the broadcast.  When I heard the result in the morning, I was gutted for him.  He has achieved so much and set the bar so high that a 2nd-place finish in the US Open is another heavy disappointment.  Contrast that with the talented Aussie Min Woo Lee who tweeted out in triumph, celebrating finishing 5th in a major.

This is how it’s going to be for Rory, though – and his supporters, I suspect.  However unrealistic, nothing but 1st will suffice.  He’s vowed to keep trying and promises that his fifth major victory will be the sweetest of them all.  Another grafter supreme.

I deleted the broadcast without watching it.

So, this blog seems to have turned into a bit of an Irish ramble.  You’ve just been saved from more of the same – literally, by the bell.  There’s the phone……the house phone.

Oh oh!