Other Stuff

Onwards And Upwards

Maureen always was more diligent and much better at prep than I was/am, which made her a very good golfer, an excellent coach, an outstanding broadcaster and speaker and an ultra reliable and readable blogger: she never shirked the homework. I confess that when I was working, I did my best to keep up to date and tried hard to know what was going on, more or less. Nowadays? Random in the extreme.

For instance, yesterday, for the first time, I logged on to livgolf.com. How many years has LIV been going now? More than four. How much longer will it last? Who knows? But surely the name will have to change now that their events have gone to 72 holes instead of 54 (hence the LIV). How do you pronounce LXXII? A bit like being the progeny of Elon Musk – hasn’t he given his many offspring weird, unpronounceable names or labels, beyond the understanding of us mere mortals?

Anyhow, I looked it up because the boogie boys are just up the road from me, at the JCB Golf and Country Club, near Uttoxeter and I was wondering how they were getting on. To quote the website: “NOW, IT BECOMES TRADITION. LIV Golf returns to JCB for a third straight season in 2026, and it’s going to be another party in the countryside! DJs on the green, boogies beneath the trees and a champion field of golfers, led by hometown heroes Majesticks Golf Club. The secret’s out: this is the UK’s newest summer festival, and everyone’s invited.”

There’s a festival a couple of hundred metres from here this weekend.

Well, I confess it really doesn’t sound like this old fogey’s sort of thing and if I want a festival, there’s one going on no more than 100 metres from my house this weekend. I left the desk to have a listen, then realised it was so quiet because the music doesn’t start until today (Friday)! Time for a lie down with a cold compress methinks.

No doubt there’ll be plenty of people going to have a look at the course itself because it’s not usually available to the hot polloi. There are no public green fees, play being restricted to corporate members, invited guests, top clients and select employees, according to the AI Overview that came up on Google when I entered “jcb golf and country club green fees”. Another source of info said that employees can play on a Sunday afternoon for a reasonable fee but there’s no just pitching up to play a layout that has been described as “a tour-ready contemporary masterpiece in course design”. (Think that was its own website’s description.)

Padel is the latest fastest-growing sport, invading Beacon Park now.

The golf? Well, an Aussie Ripper called Lucas Herbert had a 61 on day one, followed by Bryson “De Brat” DeChambeau, one of the Crushers, with a 64. You’ll remember them both from last week’s Open at Birkdale, Herbert for his low-scoring heroics in the second round and DeC for his brattish antics on the same day. Tyrrell Hatton and Harold Varner III were next on 66. We still see Tyrrell round and about but Harold took the LIV dollars – for perfectly valid, family-related reasons, no bullshitting – and disappeared into a golfing void.

Some people still pour scorn on golfers but there’s no doubting that today’s pros, male and female, are proper athletes and they need to be, to perform at the highest level, day in, day out in all sorts of conditions. As an unfit 70-something, playing two days in a row, as I’ve done this week, is more than enough for me. Writing that down, reading it back, makes me realise how pathetic that sounds! But golf is not just a good walk spoiled, it’s a good walk, good exercise, full stop. Must do more of it.

For the first time ever, I played 18 holes at Lichfield Golf and Country Club, a course that is barely a ten-minute drive from the house. It was opened in 1991 as Seedy Mill (it’s on Seedy Mill Lane) and my only memory is being there when the clubhouse was a tiny cabin of some sort and there were nine very muddy holes, so muddy that I don’t think we even played. It was opened by Bernard Gallacher and I think he’d be delighted to see it now, busy and thriving and very playable. Still Seedy Mill to us oldies, though.

A lot of wide fairways at Seedy Mill but we still found the ditches!

There’s a lot going on in Scotland at the moment: the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open started at a bright and breezy Dundonald Links that tested the world’s best, often to distraction. Jenny Shin and Lauren Coughlin lead on 66 but world No 1 Nelly Korda had to work her footsies off for a level par 72, as did Leona Maguire; Lottie Woad, the defending champion, had a 74; and Charley Hull slumped to a 78, including a brutal nine at the par 5 5th, where she putted off the green, then took a while to get back onto the green – the dreaded ball-rolling-back-to-feet scenario…

We’ve all been there, however high or low we are on the golfing scale, those are the vagaries that keep us connected to the very best.

At impossibly picturesque Gleneagles, on the King’s Course, deemed too short and skittish for the big boys these days, it’s the ISPS Handa Senior Open, defending champion the inimitable Padraig Harrington. He started with a level par 70, seven shots adrift of Cameron Percy, of Australia, whose senior career has been steady if unspectacular. It’s an event (championship) worth watching for the views – and the peerless Ernie Els and ageless Miguel Angel Jimenez are right up there, which can’t be bad.

Finally, don’t forget to do the Big Butterfly Count if you can or that the Commonwealth Games are on in Glasgow. It’s an event on the brink of disintegration, in danger of being squeezed out by the Olympics, World and European Championships, how expensive it is to stage and so on but there are 74 countries involved and it deserves its place. It may be expensive to cover, perhaps the ratings won’t be stellar but it should be broadcast by the BBC, it’s a public service on a global scale, important for the smaller sports and nations.

Now, where the heck do I watch it?