As I watched the hordes of spectators jostling for position outside the ropes at Wentworth last week at the BMW PGA Championship it reminded me of the halcyon days, in the 1980s I think, when Mum and I attended a few World Matchplay events there.  I think the sponsors at that time were Suntory, a Japanese whisk(e)y firm, and a wee nip of the sponsor’s product was always welcome on those crisp, autumnal mornings in October.

Dad was still slogging away at the coalface of employment and Patricia was………..well, goodness knows where – possibly covering the fledgling Ladies’ European Tour, so it was treasured time for me with Mum, who, according to the family, was an expert in all things in general and golf in particular!  (I thought I’d better finish that sentence with an exclamation so that you wouldn’t take that last remark in the least bit seriously.)  She always was an entertaining companion and a keen and wily golf spectator, knowing exactly how to move around the course to get the best view of every shot.  We’d tramp round 36 holes a day, love every second of it and then get up and do it all again the next day.  No need for a gym subscription way back then.

Wentworth, at the Matchplay, was also the first place I ever wore wellie boots on a golf course.  The going outside the ropes could get a little soft and wellies were just the job.  It’s where we jointly discovered that if going downhill on a slippery slope it was best to go on your toes.  That way, your heel couldn’t shoot out from underneath you depositing you on your backside.  Balance was more easily maintained on tiptoe.  You see – it IS possible to learn something from even the most shallow of blogs!  As Billy Connolly so succinctly put it, “If it wisnae fur yer wellies, where wud ye be?”

Those were great days with Mum and long before I had any thoughts of there being a smidgeon of a possibility that I might one day work in golf for the BBC.  When that became a reality, the accompanying accreditation allowed for access to the hallowed ground inside the ropes at big tournaments where the view is second to none.

It brought home to me just how hard golf fans have to work to see their idols.  If you like to follow a particular group or a specific player, there’s no comfy seat from which to view the world’s best parade past you.  No, out you go in all weathers, ducking and diving, constantly on the go before standing still for ages for microscopic green-reading and the like.  Peter Alliss always said the golfing galleries were the most patient and accepting of all sports spectators.  They pay a lot for the privilege of being told when to stand still, when to keep quiet and their very existence seems to be ruled entirely by a single strand of rope and being on the correct side of it.

In return, they do have the opportunity to get very close indeed to the best golfers in the world – far closer than other fans would get to the protagonists in other sports, footballers, cricketers, tennis players and the like.  And, oh my, should you have the good fortune to be struck by a stray golf ball, you may even rise to the dizzy heights of receiving a signed glove from the player.  Be still my beating heart!

As I write this blog my phone has just pinged, warning me that the latest episode of The Chipping Forecast, with Andrew Cotter, Eddie Pepperell and special guest Iain Carter, has just landed.  It’s a great listen and I urge you to subscribe to it and make it part of your week.  I guarantee it’ll liven up any grey afternoon when you can’t get out on the golf course.

Wentworth was where I first met and worked with Andrew.  He was a young sports commentator but at that point hadn’t had the opening to have a go at any golf, his first love.  I was considered reasonably experienced as a summariser at this juncture and was told by the producer I would be working with this “new guy” and to “look after him”.  I could see he was very nervous, more than a trifle uptight and not disposed to chat much as we made our way up the 1st.  We were both working for 5 Live at the time and at the first green they came to Andrew for an update.

I stood next to him as he delivered the first of  what has now probably become hundreds of thousands of golf reports.  He did beautifully but had a little stumble over a word or two.  As the broadcast moved on to someone else Andrew was distraught.  He banged his head with his hand, declared there was nothing he wanted to do more than join the golf team and that he’d blown his chance.  I was astounded but tried to reassure him that that was certainly not the case.  I was soon to learn that a young Cotter was angst-ridden, never quite believing in his own abilities, and that his desire for perfection led to astronomical amounts of research and soul-searching.

It was apparent to most of those who worked with him that he had the talent and ability to forge his way to an outstanding career and if there is currently a better golf commentator on the planet, I don’t know them.  And I know, not all, but a great number of them.  And it’s not just golf.  He is simply brilliant right across the board, from adeptly hosting Olympic opening and closing ceremonies with Hazel Irvine to explaining the intricacies of rugby where you can’t see the ball for about 80 per cent of the time.

One of the reasons I love the aforementioned podcast is because with his two co-hosts he seems completely relaxed and able to be himself.  With his dry humour he pokes fun at himself and his “dark side” as well as at all and sundry.  Eddie (who had a season’s best finish of joint 12th at Wentworth) and Iain, 5 Live’s much respected golf correspondent, make up a perfect podcast trio with their stream of consciousness chat and inability to take themselves seriously.  Eddie is almost as droll as Andrew and I laughed out loud when he recounted how he’d tossed a ball to a little lad as he left the 7th green at Wentworth last week.  Said lad tossed it straight back!

Well done, that boy!

 

Enid Wilson was never one to mince her words.  “We were a shambles,” she said.  “The Americans had been practising, not just to familiarise themselves with the course but to work out their foursomes pairings.  They didn’t play Scotch foursomes so they had to get used to the format.  We didn’t know who we were playing with until we were on the way to the 1st tee….They won all three matches.”

Enid, who became a formidable figure in the game, terrifying generations of female golfers with her forthright views in The Daily Telegraph, was talking about the first Curtis Cup match, played over a single day on the East Course at Wentworth in May 1932.  GB and I (Great Britain and Ireland, as they now are) duly lost to the USA and Joyce Wethered (later Lady Heathcoat-Amory), the home captain and a player beyond compare, confessed that she wasn’t any great shakes as a captain.

Her team, who did at least know the course, pitched up at about teatime the day before the match and on the day itself had to scavenge for crumbs at lunchtime because no one had thought to make provision for them.  The visitors, much better organised simply by virtue of being the away team and expertly marshalled by their formidable captain Marion Hollins, had arranged to have lunch at their hotel, away from the hordes of spectators.

“It was a rout of the disorganised,” Enid said.  “And deservedly so.”

The sisters Harriot and Margaret Curtis, from a large, wealthy Boston family, were both champion golfers who travelled overseas to play before the First World War and for many years harboured hopes of establishing a competition “To stimulate friendly rivalry between the women golfers of many lands”.  That is the inscription on the Curtis Cup, a lovely bowl of Paul Revere design and while the result matters and the competition is fierce, it’s the friendships that really count.

At Sunningdale this week there are lots of brilliant old photographs and boards chronicling the history of the competition, so even the greenest newbies and those who still think that history is bunk will start to learn the names of the pioneers and outstanding golfers who have gone before.  Many of us here, including undistinguished hackers like me, go back a long way and met the likes of Enid, who loved to talk and Joyce Wethered, who did not!  At least not about golf and certainly not about her own exploits.  In later life gardening and art were two of her passions.

It’s a real gathering of the clans here at Sunningdale this week, where the only surprise is that the players have not been allocated a dog each.  It’s more or less verboten to take to the course for a round without a canine companion.  There are lots of labs and spaniels and in one notable case a venerable barrel-shaped chihuahua, who these days sticks close to the clubhouse and the treats on tap there.

At the opening ceremony, Seamus, the Irish wolfhound, was one of the stars of the show and was quite happy to be the centre of attention.

And just to show off the uniforms and the bearskins and some of the always colourful American supporters enjoying the pageantry, here’s a slightly better effort.

One of the joys of looking at old team photographs is to compare the fashions then and now and, often, to wonder who on earth chose the uniforms.  It’s fun to look at the styles down the ages and marvel at how young everyone looks and check out what shoes they’ve chosen!

To finish, back to Enid.  In 1984, at Muirfield, under the captaincy of the formidable Diane Bailey, GB and I came agonisingly close to winning.  It was a classic BBU (brave but unavailing) and they lost by a point, their 13th consecutive defeat.  Two years later, when the team to face the Americans at Prairie Dunes, in the middle of Kansas, in temperatures that would reach 100 degrees fahrenheit (high 30s centigrade) was announced, Enid was not impressed.

“Bring out your dead,” she wrote, a tad unkindly.  “If this team wins, I’ll eat my hat.”

The main reason for her ire was the selection of Belle Robertson and Mary McKenna, two of the finest golfers Britain and Ireland have ever produced, who had been on numerous teams and never been on the winning side.  They were, in Enid’s view, well past their sell-by date, scarred beyond saving and no longer of any use whatsoever.

However, Diane, captain again, was determined to put a stop to the losing rot and had a cunning plan.  She played Belle and Mary only in the foursomes, paired together and they won their first match and halved their second.  The visitors won all three foursomes on the first day and the first three singles in the afternoon – the format has been changed now to include fourballs – and led by 6 1/2 points to 2 1/2.  The world of golf was in total shock.

GB and I steamrollered on, to win 13-5 and become the first team, men or women, amateur or professional, to win on US soil.  They were followed by the Ryder Cuppers, who won at Muirfield Village in 1987 and the Walker Cuppers, who won at Peachtree in 1989.

But it was the Curtis Cuppers who did it first.

And I’m not sure Enid ever did eat her hat.

 

 

I’ve been poorly again since my return from the Masters, hence the reason for the sister flying solo last week in the blog.  Despite being confined to barracks, however, I’ve been greatly cheered by watching the golf from New Orleans and seeing Rory and Shane come out on top in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, a place that brings back many memories for me.  They had a lot of fun…….as you can see from the photo above which Shane posted on his X/twitter feed.

This was Rory’s first visit to the city known as the Big Easy.  My own debut trip to the state of Louisiana and its famous city took place many moons ago, back in 1977, when I was at uni out in Texas.  A fellow member of the golf team, a Welsh international player, was desperate to visit New Orleans for the Mardi Gras festival, but lack of funds was very much standing in our way.

Not to be deterred, further research revealed that there was a college men’s and women’s rugby sevens tournament on the very same weekend so my pal signed us up for the forthcoming trip – without telling me first.  She presented it as a fait accompli, proudly proclaiming that we would be going on the team bus and staying in the team accommodation for the duration – all at no cost.

The gremlin in this magnificent plan was that we actually had to PLAY rugby before we had a chance to get into the city to enjoy all the sights and sounds.  It seemed a small price to pay and as keen followers of what was then the Five Nations we knew considerably more about the game than the Americans, who were very new to it all.  It could have been disastrous but in fact, it all added up to a memorable few days and an introduction to fabulous Cajun cuisine, which I love to this day.

But back to Rory and Shane who reportedly agreed to play together in this foursomes/fourball tournament at a boozy, celebratory lunch at Rory’s home, post last year’s Ryder Cup victory in Rome.  Shane had teed it up a couple of times before but for Rory this was to be a first in this team format of a competition.  Shane was uncertain as to whether Rory would remember the arrangement but a Christmas text message confirmed the plan.

The two of them have known each other for a good twenty years and for Rory to be able to do something for a first time when in his seventeenth year as a professional was, in his words, “pretty cool”.  Winning in a play-off over Chad Ramey and Martin Trainer was the icing on the cake.

The Irish duo were by far the overwhelming favourites for the title but they were also the out and out favourites with the large galleries that flocked to TPC Louisiana on a daily basis to watch them.  The sponsors, Zurich, must have been delighted and Rory delivered the ultimate golden nugget when, during their winners’ interview he turned to Shane and said, “Well, I think we’d better come back and defend next year.”  What a birthday present for the sponsors, who were celebrating twenty years of hosting the tournament.

New Orleans also has some significance for me in my broadcasting career as it was there that I made my debut commentating in the States.  In those days the Zurich Classic was a normal 72-hole strokeplay  tournament and in May of 2006 it was the first international sporting event to be held in the city after Hurricane Katrina had laid waste to the city and surrounds in September 2005.  I couldn’t believe the devastation and the lack of progress apparent after eight months of a so-called relief operation in the richest country of the world.  One constant, however, has always been the indomitable spirit of the people and their love of their music, food and art.  It’s their culture that gives the place its oh-so-special vibe.

New Orleans certainly took the Irishmen to their hearts and they responded magnificently, carrying on the love into a post-tournament party with the fans.  Rory gave a full-throated rendition of “Don’t Stop Believing” while Shane was happy to cede centre stage to his pal while supping on his beer.  It was reminiscent of Shane’s Open celebrations of 2019 and brought smiles all round – much needed in the world of men’s professional golf.  Things could only be improved if next year Rory could coax a modicum of colour into his pal’s wardrobe.

Twenty years also has some significance for this household as today (Friday 3rd) we celebrate our twentieth anniversary.  We can hardly believe it – blink of an eye and all that.  As we currently still need to whack the heating on of an evening, it’s also hard to believe that we enjoyed drinks out in the garden after the ceremony!  A couple of days away is on the cards and my better half will undoubtedly be very happy to escape the cooking and all the household chores he is currently shouldering.  How right my mother was when, after meeting him, she said, “I think you’ve got a good one there.”

Mums know a thing or too.

I suppose we’re only getting started in the conflict that has been brewing between the Saudi backed LIV Golf series and the established American and European tours.  The first punches and counter punches have been thrown and the opening salvos of litigation have been fired by Ian Poulter, amongst others.

Against this backdrop of discontent it was more than refreshing to tune in to the JP McManus pro-am being played at Adare Manor at the start of the week.  JP and his wife Noreen are arguably Ireland’s greatest philanthropists and over the years JP’s pro-am has raised millions and millions of euros for charities in Ireland.  Once again a world-class field – in this instance ten of the top twelve in the world were playing – plus a host of A-list celebrities.  Many consider it a badge of honour to receive an invitation – and not a penny piece was paid in appearance money.

Adare Manor, venue for the 2027 Ryder Cup, was looking magnificent but even more magnificent were the 40,000 fans that attended on each of the two days.  Jay Townsend, one of the Sky Sports commentators summed it up beautifully when he said the players “came to play a pro-am and a major championship crowd showed up.”  Jordan Spieth was in full agreement when he said, “I’ve never played in a pro-am like this before, that’s for sure.”

For the McManuses it’s all about community and giving back.  In the current golfing climate that does rather help restore your faith in the human race.

I know you shouldn’t wish your life away but I’m really looking forward to Monday when Patricia and I set off for a couple of days at the  150th Open at St Andrews.  We’re staying with a couple of pals on the way up and plan to arrive on Tuesday morning when I’ll be meeting up with some of my American broadcasting colleagues, none of whom I’ve seen in the flesh since the Portrush Open in 2019.  Amazing how the time flies by.  Covid, then travel restrictions and then my subsequent tussle with ill health since catching the virus last November have meant I’ve been unable to work with them at any majors for what seems like an awfully long time.  This won’t be a working week for me either – just a chance to dip a toe in the water and see how I cope with three days away and a full social diary – which will probably be more busy than the whole of the last eight months put together!

Aside from the golf (and it’s a big aside) it’s never a hardship going to St Andrews, my old alma mater.  I spent a very happy year and a half there at university before transferring to the States to take up a golf scholarship and finish my studies out there.  I did love my time in America and there’s no doubt it changed the course of my life but, deep down, I still have a sneaking regret I didn’t get the four years at the home of golf that I was expecting.  Totally pointless, I know, regretting something that didn’t happen almost half a century ago but it has made every visit since to the Fife town all the more special.

This will be my fifth attendance at a St Andrews Open.  In 2000 it was Tiger’s dominance that was the most enduring memory with an eight-shot victory and the completion of the career grand slam – the youngest ever to do so.  In 2005 it was Tiger again but it was also Jack Nicklaus’ final major and his birdie on the final hole of his final major will live long in the memory.  South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen had the week of his life winning in 2010 by seven shots.  His secret weapon was a bright red dot painted on his golf glove which served to remind him to keep bringing his attention and focus to the present.

In 2015 Tom Watson took his final major championship bow at the Old Course; there was a Monday finish and an enthralling spectacle as Jordan Spieth, winner of the Masters and the US Open that year tried to add the third leg of the calendar grand slam to his resume.  He failed by a shot to join the play-off of Oosthuizen (that man again), Marc Leishman and Zach Johnson, the latter triumphing in the four-hole play-off.

My own last playing visit to St Andrews was in 2017 and, of course, you just have to do what all the great players down the years have done before you ……… and get your photo taken on the Swilcan/Swilken bridge after teeing off on the final hole.  It’s a bucket-list item no matter how many rounds you play at the Old Course.

I just wonder who will be there on that iconic bridge in ten days’ time clutching the Claret Jug.