Muddling On And On

It’s wall-to-wall golf this week with the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, so the telly keeps switching itself off because it thinks we’ve fallen asleep or gone out or gone to bed and forgotten to press the red (as in stop) button.  In truth, it’s been doing that for a few weeks, what with the surfeit of Wimbledon, World Cup football, cricket of various formats, rugby union, the Tour de France, motor racing (suppose it’s Formula 1 officially)  and occasionally a bit of news.

England not reaching the World Cup final was disappointing but no surprise:  after all, they’ve only ever done it once.  In 1966 (in case you hadn’t heard) when they won, at home.  Argentina, the defending champions, have been in six finals and won three; Spain, the other finalists, are in their second final and have only won the title once, in 2010.  Out of the whole wide football-playing world, only eight countries – EIGHT – have ever won the World Cup.

If England can gather their thoughts and battered bodies, leave the recriminations – and more measured analysis – for another time and get the better of France to win the bronze medal, it’ll be a triumph.

Thomas Tuchel is getting it in the neck for being too defensive the moment England went ahead against Argentina in the semis – and perhaps he was; his team certainly retreated too far and gave a battle-hardened, talented team a chance to batter them into submission.  It was never going to be a beautiful classic but it was a great contest and, ultimately, for England a gut-wrenching, sickening BBU (brave but unavailing).  They were beaten by a canny, crafty team with more tournament nous and an inner drive England couldn’t quite match thanks to a combination of Messi, the Malvinas and being defending champions.  Of the four managers in the semis – Lionel Scaloni (Argentina), Luis de la Fuente (Spain) and Didier Deschamps (France) – Tuchel is by far the least experienced at this level and in the end it showed.

And, it you’re lucky, that’s probably it for football in the blog until my treks to Spurs start again in August.

This coming Sunday, all being well, the 154th Open champion will be lifting the venerable Claret Jug aloft at sun-scorched Birkdale after a long and tiring four days of competition.  Just before the final of the Women’s Amateur at Muirfield, at the end of last month, Andrea Revuelta, a Spaniard who is a student at Stanford in California, was asked  for her thoughts on links golf.

“You have to toss everything you know about golf in the trash,” she said succinctly, just about summing up the trials and tribulations of tackling any of the Open venues.

It was a bit chilly and very windy at Muirfield, with thunderstorms causing delays as Revuelta eventually went down to Valentine Delon, of France, by 3 and 1.  No chill is forecast this week for Southport and environs and even with a wee bit of breeze a fast, hard-running track poses a very different challenge from the day-to-day stuff of professional golf.  It can scramble the thought processes of the calmest, most level-headed individual – and there are few enough of those about at any golf event let alone a major.  They’re usually to be found at the top of the leaderboard at the end.

Maureen and I are no longer working at the Open so it’s sometimes hard not to feel like yesterday’s women whenever we travel to attend the AGW (Association of Golf Writers) dinner on the Tuesday evening and (in my case) the AGW AGM on the Wednesday morning.

The R&A’s state of the nation address is immediately after the AGM and I like to stay to hear what the chief exec, in this case Mark Darbon, has to say.  A super keen security man tried to throw me out – lack of the correct accreditation, the AGW badge (or insignia as our constitution has it), being deemed insufficient – and I was only saved by a kindly official old enough to know me from a past life…I began to feel like one of those tins you find at the back of the cupboard, well past my use-by date.

Still, I shook off the rust and that glitch aside, we did have a great time and met up with lots of friends from all over the world.  The dinner was fab – many thanks to the R&A for a proper champagne reception and our secretary Matt Cooper for keeping calm and carrying on.  There’s still nothing like an Open for bringing people together.

 

Before I forget, many congratulations to Haeran Ryu, the Korean who is on a major roll at the moment.  Last Sunday, she beat Canada’s Brooke Henderson at the first extra hole to win the Amundi Evian Championship, just two weeks after winning her first major title at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.  “This is just a dream right now,” she said, “because before for the three weeks I don’t have a major championship but now two in a row.  I’m so happy and I can’t believe it right now.”

To lower the tone a bit, I had a fair amount of ear wax removed from my left ear the other week and pretty squidgy it was too.  It was lovely not to feel that I was living in some sort of weird half-world bubble and to be able to hear properly again – or so I thought.  The sainted brother-in-law, who is in charge of food and beverage during Open week, said something and I responded, “You’ve got corns?”

Not quite.

“I forgot the prawns,” he said…