What on earth to write about this week?  Just what is going on in the world of golf that’s of the remotest interest to anyone?

Of course, there are loads of people who have no notion whatsoever about golf – they’re into music, football (not the English obviously), theatre, art, history, tennis, politics, antiques, wine, whatever but don’t have a clue that this is Open Championship week, one of the sporting wonders of the world.

I’d regard it as more of a general knowledge thing than a specialist interest thing to know a bit about the Open but perhaps I’m just biased.  Or perhaps it’s just that a lot of the golfing people I know are experts- or at the very least very knowledgeable – in other fields, with wide-ranging areas of expertise.  Mind you, I did once mention James Thurber to another man, a bit of a golfer, who was also from Columbus, Ohio and was met with a blank look.  That was one of my proudest moments, introducing one genius from Ohio to another.

If you haven’t heard of Thurber, please look him up and read some of his stuff.  It’s more than worth the effort.  If you don’t laugh, I won’t give you your money back, I’ll just give you a very wide berth….

The Open is back at Royal St George’s in Kent, on the outer edges of England – as some wag said the easiest way to get there is from France – and it’s led to a lot of reminiscing.  Hard and all as it is for most of us to get there, Royal St G is (like Thurber) well worth the effort.  It’s too hard a course for me but I’ve had some memorable times there – and even the odd par.  The weather looks set fair this week but the Sunday that Darren Clarke won his Open, in 2011, the last time it was there, it was Baltic.  I know I’m not exaggerating because I was there!

There was a huge stand behind the 6th tee (a short hole) and you also had a good view of the 5th green and a large part of the 7th, especially if you’d worked your way to the top of the stand, as I had.  The wind was howling, it was bitterly cold, even wet at times and I was wearing every item of clothing that I possessed, including a long, thankfully waterproof coat.  I was nearly frozen by the time the leaders came through – and had seen some woeful efforts to combat the wind from players blown to blazes by the conditions.

Darren was different.  He was in his element.  It really was his time.  He stood on the 6th tee, selected his club with the minimum of fuss and arrowed his tee shot through the gale (well, it was certainly several notches up from a breeze) in to the heart of the green.  No drama.  I was also there when Dustin Johnson, a serious threat, launched his second shot at the 14th miles out of bounds and gave Darren the breathing space he needed to win the title.

My plan had been to leave early to miss the traffic and watch the last knockings on the telly but when it became apparent that Darren might just do it, was not going to blow it, I couldn’t leave.  I stayed to see him lay his hands on the oldest jug of all.

In the days, not so distant, when RSG didn’t countenance the idea of women as members (though they could play the course, as near-invisible beings), the Curtis Cup was held there in 1988.  Linda Bayman, one of the near invisibles (hard to imagine, I know, for those of us who know her….), with a home just behind the 4th green, made her Cup debut at the age of 40 (her birthday was that week) and among other things holed some sort of monstrous, beyond outrageous putt at the 18th to win one of her matches.  Or perhaps it was for a half….The details have blurred and the reference books are elsewhere but whatever, it was bloody marvellous!

Of course, Sandy Lyle won the Open there in 1985 and I could find the relevant magazines easily because I’d rooted them out for last year.  The championship then went the way of the pandemic and I hadn’t got around to tidying them away, despite lockdowns and that sort of thing.  Suppose Zoom bridge, virtual singing (no truer description of my caterwauling; the prospect of returning to real, live choir is scaring the life out of me) and endless electronic catch-ups with friends here, there and everywhere kept me from tidying up properly.

Who knows what trials and tribulations await over the next few days.  Will the favourites prevail or fail?  Will a rank outsider sneak up on the rail?  There’ll be heartbreak and hard luck stories but even for the men who let the title slip from their grasp, who’ve done something unimaginably daft in the heat of the moment, there will be, all being well, successes and triumphs to come.  But not necessarily a Claret Jug.  Life isn’t always that neat.

Finally, congratulations to Lewine Mair, who has just been elected president of the AGW (Association of Golf Writers), founded in 1938, the first woman to hold the post.  About bloody time!

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you look forward to something so much that when said timeframe or event eventually hoves into being it can be something of a disappointment, failing to live up to your, potentially inflated, expectations.  I am happy to report that that is most definitely not the case as far as my latest jaunt is concerned.

I spent the early part of the week roaming around sunny Dornoch, sometimes with golf clubs in tow, and sometimes sans clubs but frequently on a bicycle.  Well, you DO have to earn the right to all the fine dining and drinking we like to do, hence the reason for the copious amounts of exercise.

It wasn’t my first visit to this golfing mecca by any manner of means – have I told you about Wales winning the women’s home internationals in Dornoch in 1999?  “Only a hundred times,” I hear you cry.  For those of you who may not know the story, I was along as the Welsh coach and the team made history by becoming the first Welsh side ever, male or female, to win the home international series at full international level.  The junior Welsh side had won their title the previous month so an historic double was completed.  What a party we had in the clubhouse that night to celebrate that little piece of history!

And Dornoch is veritably awash with history in general and the history of the game in particular.  You really can feel it as you wander round the ancient town.  Without doubt one of Dornoch’s most famous golfing sons was Donald Ross, born in 1872, who went on to become the first golf professional at Dornoch Golf Club, now known as Royal Dornoch.

Donald must have had a bit of wanderlust in him because he upped sticks and set sail for America in 1899, a monumentally hazardous journey, seeking fame and fortune as so many before him did.  His first job was at Oakley Country Club near Boston in Massachusetts and this was the first course in the world to receive the magical touch of the course design genius that was Donald Ross.  Modern golfers will be familiar with Ross creations such as Oakland Hills in Michigan and his Pinehurst courses, particularly No 2, in North Carolina, but many will be unaware of just how prolific a designer he was.  More than 500 courses in an era when travel wasn’t particularly easy is a very large number indeed.

Ross obviously took crossing the Atlantic in the early 1900s in his stride because he frequently returned to his native Scotland, perhaps just taking a wee break from creating those golf course masterpieces stateside.  On one of his trips home he renamed his childhood home “Oakley Cottage” to remind himself of his first job in America.  His home in Pinehurst, where he died in 1948, was named “Dornoch” after his birthplace.  So, he was born and died in two different “Dornochs” thousands of miles apart, an indication as to how much the wee Scottish town was in his soul throughout his life.  Golf owes him a great deal.

Not all the history that abounds in this wee place is palatable.  It was rather sobering to discover that a mere 150 yards from our cottage door stands the “Witch’s Stone”, a gruesome reminder of Scotland’s fondness for burning those accused of witchcraft up until the early 18th century.  Scotland alone burned more than 3000 women which was five times the number of executions in the whole of the rest of Europe.

It was in Dornoch in 1727, on the site of the “Witch’s Stone”, that Janet Horne, the last person legally to be executed for witchcraft in the British Isles, met a very grisly end indeed.  This is unlikely to have been her real name as Janet, or Jenny, Horne was a generic name for witches in the north of Scotland at that time and it’s more than feasible that her real identity has been lost in the mists of time.  Often it took no more than unfounded accusations from neighbours or mischief-makers to result in a burning, so thankfully the Act allowing these executions was repealed in the British Isles in 1736.  Alas, nine years too late for Janet Horne of Dornoch.

Let’s finish on a slightly more upbeat and optimistic point.  This week saw longtime friend and colleague Sarah Bennett come in as vice-captain of the PGA (the Professional Golfers’ Association).  In doing so Sarah becomes only the second woman to hold that position, following in the footsteps of her great friend and mentor, the late Beverley Lewis.  Never one to be a “yes woman”, Sarah will, I’m confident, bring clear vision, empathy and dedication to her role as vice-captain this year and, subsequently to her role as captain of the PGA next year.

To say I’m proud of you, Sarah, is such an understatement.

 

Spaniard Jon Rahm is looking down on the rest of the golfing world from his lofty new position as World Numero Uno, which he attained by winning Jack’s tournament, the Memorial, at Muirfield Village last Sunday.  His pedigree is not in question.  He is a former amateur world No 1, a position he held for a record-breaking 60 weeks and in the four short years since turning professional he has won ten times, four of those victories coming on the PGA Tour and six on the European Tour.

It still beats me though as to how a player can be world No 1 without a major title to his name.  Rahm has only one top-three finish in the majors and a sprinkling of top tens.  He’s 26 years of age, so I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until he wins one of the big ones – but how on earth is he deemed to be the best there is at this precise moment?  Answers on a postcard please………or am I missing something here?

Still, it’s welcome news for Spain, as we hear of the likelihood of a second lockdown in the Barcelona area and this very strange golfing season limps on in unfamiliar fashion.  For all professional sportsmen and women back plying their trade it must be surreal playing without spectators present and I can’t help but think that some may be more affected than others.  Take Rory McIlroy, for instance.  He’s been a little lacklustre since the restart and his customary jauntiness and joie de vivre is, if not entirely absent, definitely subdued.  It is unlikely he has played in any tournament without a sizeable gallery since he was about 15 or 16 years of age.

The energy and reactions of those watching provide the oxygen that enables these mercurial talents to access the rarefied air in which unbelievable performance levels reside.  Without this catalyst a player needs a new skill, not the accustomed one of controlling the rivers of adrenalin flowing through their bodies, but rather one that is more of a self-starting nature – how do you wilfully flood your system with the endorphins and all those goodies that are pivotal to producing your best when there is no gallery to carry you there?  Top performance coaches and mind gurus such as Bob Rotella, Karl Morris et al may find themselves in even greater demand than normal, albeit with a slightly different agenda.

Followers of this blog will be aware of how fond Patricia and I are of Muirfield Village.  In 2009 we were guests of Jack and Barbara Nicklaus when Patricia’s husband Dai was posthumously nominated as one of the journalistic honorees of that year’s tournament.  Even as we were living through it we knew it was a week we would never forget…and so it has proved.  It was made all the more special by the fact that we had previously visited Muirfield Village in 1998 when it was the host venue for the Solheim Cup, on this occasion with both our parents and some very special, close friends.

That was unusual because Mum was totally phobic about flying and only took to the air on a handful of occasions during her long life.  We knocked her out with a good strong charge of Jameson whiskey on the way over the Atlantic, but her system was wise to that trick on the way home.  It was only down to her careful monitoring of every engine change and her superhuman willpower that we managed to stay airborne until arriving safely back home.  Cars and ferries were much more her cup of tea.  It was Mum and Dad’s only trip to the US and when I asked Dad once if he regretted missing out on some great jaunts because of Mum’s fear of flying, he replied matter-of-factly: “No – it’s the only thing that’s kept me solvent!”

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted the players wearing yellow ribbons in their caps on Sunday at the Memorial.  This was in support of a new charity launched by the Nicklauses last year, the “Play Yellow” campaign.  A joint venture with the PGA and the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, the aim is to raise $100 million in five years for pediatric care not covered by insurance programmes.  The “Yellow” part of the title has been important to Jack for the last 50 years or so, but the reason is not widely known.

Back in 1968 Jack had an ardent fan, 10-year old Craig Smith, the son of family friends.  Craig was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer which took his life when he was 13 and Jack spoke with his young fan as often as he could.  After one of his victories Craig told Jack he knew he’d win that day as he was wearing yellow, his favourite – and lucky – colour.  That’s why so much of the archive of Jack shows him in yellow – it’s for Craig, never forgotten.

I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed last week’s Open for the Ages and watching Jack outlast Tiger Woods round the Old Course.  So what if it was a little predictable that it should come down to being between those two?  The icing on the cake was when Nicklaus tweeted out a picture of himself with his feet up watching the denouement unfold on the final green on the screen in front of him.  He asked:  “Did I just win a 19th major without leaving my couch?”

Yes, you really did, Jack.  So that’s now 19 major titles and 19 second places.  Tidy.

 

 

Last week, my birthday week, was a good one.  My better half and I decided to eschew a few days away in the sun, opting instead to turn the car north and head to the land of his birth.  We had booked a cottage up in the north-west highlands intending to get in a bit of walking although the forecast didn’t look promising.  As we were firing walking boots, waterproofs, woolly hats and mitts into the car he challenged me when he saw I had set ready a pencil golf bag with five clubs in it.

“You taking your clubs?” he queried.  “Well,” I said, “You never know.  You sometimes find lovely little nine-holers in these remote places and it’d be awful to miss out.”  So, when the boot was finally packed I noticed that he, too, had put in a handful of clubs, tucked away in at the back.  The next time we look at those will be when we get back home, I thought.

Our home for the next few days was a tiny little place called Badachro away up, an hour or so south west of Ullapool.  It’s the land of the wild, and usually horizontal, wheelie bin.  If these frisky beasts aren’t securely tethered with ropes and chains to stop them roaming, they are lying quietly down behind dry stone walls out of the gales.  I grew quite fond of them, so much more interesting than our own which do nothing but stand sullenly beside the oil tank, never moving independently or taking on a life of their own.

On our first exploratory foray we went in to the village of Gairloch and couldn’t believe it when we chanced upon Gairloch Golf Club, nine holes of challenging beauty wrapped around a stunning bay with the most beautiful sandy beach.  Gale force winds kept us from getting out our clubs but on our last day there the wind abated and we went to have a game.  It was 1100 on a Sunday morning and we could see a fourball out on the course.  Apart from that it was virgin territory.  It was more than a little nippy and the little clubhouse was unattended and locked up but welcoming notices abounded and we were invited to leave our money in the honesty box.  Cards and pencils were there and everything else you could need, so off we set.

There’s nothing more exhilarating than being transported back to your childhood and long, happy days before you were introduced to the insidious poison of keeping stats and monitoring every performance in search of trophies and success.  There were short holes (91 yards), long ones (526 yards!), blind ones, ones through the bushes and ones along the beach, a veritable pot pourri of delights.  A variance of tees in the second nine provided some different angles and the whole added up to something in the region of four and a half thousand yards.

It set me thinking back to other times I’d put my money in an honesty box at a golf course.  Many moons ago I played Portsalon in north-west Ireland and it only took a couple of coins in those days to allow you to step on to the links.  I’m not even sure there was any sort of a clubhouse in those days.  I think a local hotel was the centre of operations.  Portsalon is now a proper grown-up course hosting national championships but back then it had fences round the greens to keep the sheep off.  Bala, in Wales, is another where, years ago, we put our money in the box but, for the life of me I can’t think that I’ve ever had that experience in England.  Surely there are still some of these remote little gems around somewhere?  Please let me know if you know of any.

And so it’s back to normality, back to being contactable by the outside world and back to the news that Patricia has had the second hole-in-one of her long, not-so-illustrious golf career.  It happened at the 13th hole at Whittington Heath, a hole she announced to me only a matter of months ago was, for her, one of the hardest of the course.  Ringed with bunkers it requires a carrying shot and if she takes a big enough club to fly it all the way she can’t keep it on the green.  No doubt there’ll be a tale there of some sort of pinball wizardry – or perhaps even skill.  In the meantime, I think I may just have found myself a new hobby – finding more gorgeous little “honesty box” golf courses to play.