I’m Mo-sitting this week because she had shoulder surgery on Monday and I noticed something a bit odd while I was watching the golf on Sky. The guys in Dubai all seemed to be playing in shirt sleeves. So I started wondering is that really golf? If the Scots really did invent the game, the sun didn’t come into it, so is it cheating to be playing in nice weather?
Last weekend, a small, ageing contingent of the AGW (Association of Golf Writers) assembled in Norfolk to contest the Ward-Thomas Trophy at Brancaster, more formally known as Royal West Norfolk Golf Club. It’s a fantastic place, a complete throwback, hemmed in between the North Sea and the marsh, cut off by the tide day in, day out and not the sort of place any modern golf architect would be able to create. Go and play it for yourself to understand why.
It’s where Dai, my late husband, would have chosen to play his last round of golf and where he did indeed play his last round, albeit without realising that that was it. Some of his ashes were scattered there or, more accurately, blown every which way and I’ve no doubt that he loves it.
Not everybody does. We took an Australian friend there once and he was baffled, failing to see any attraction. The fairways were scuffed and scruffy that year and the greens bobbly and he couldn’t see the beauty beyond the (perceived) beastliness. We gave up trying to explain what was obvious to us when we realised that he was oblivious.
It’s such a special place that those of us who love it but only get to play there once a year feel obliged to go out whatever the weather. It was particularly foul the year that England won the Rugby World Cup and last Saturday was nearly as bad. The foursomes pairings had been drawn at dinner the night before and after a bit of will-we-won’t-we, feeling slightly less than intrepid, we set off, well wrapped up.
Only a handful of people were on the course, including the greenkeepers who were working on re-laying the 12th green and there was not a single, solitary dog. That should have set the alarm bells ringing. There are always dogs at Brancaster, spaniels, labradors, terriers, mixtures and they’re with the golfers, not just the beach walkers. It’s canine and golfing heaven. Except when the heavens open. Four of us managed nine holes before being driven in by the driving rain and bitter cold. Wet and bedraggled we arrived back at the clubhouse to find that our colleagues had headed for the fire, soup and sandwiches after only five holes!
Truncated tournament notwithstanding, my partner, who insisted on remaining nameless and I ended up proud winners of the Ward-Thomas Trophy, named after Pat, an urbane but sometimes irascible golf correspondent of The Guardian. He was also a captain of Royal West Norfolk and the reason for our annual pilgrimage.
On Remembrance Sunday, on a glorious November day, we crashed 5-0 in our annual match against The Links GC at West Runton. Well, it would have been rude, as visitors, to win two years in a row!
Aditi Ashok wins her home Open.
Congrats to West Runton, who are used to beating the AGW; to Carlota Ciganda, who is getting the hang of winning and added Lorena Ochoa’s event in Mexico to her tally; and to Aditi Ashok, from Bangalore, whose first LET victory was the Hero Women’s Indian Open.
And, finally, condolences to the family and friends of John Stirling, a former captain of the PGA who has died at the age of 89. He was a great teacher and raconteur and an even better man.
John Stirling getting a grip in his 1985 book Golf: The Skills of the Game.
You can’t write about Ireland again, Maureen said.
Why not, sez I, it’s our blog, we can write about whatever we want.
Last Saturday, we flew over for the 125th Anniversary celebrations of Royal Portrush Golf Club Ladies’ Branch and I realised just how hardy golfers have to be in this neck of the woods (not that there are many trees withstanding the north Atlantic gales). Even the locals conceded that it was “baltic” i.e. bloody freezing, blowing a hooley and, just for the hell of it, raining more often than not. No wonder Darren Clarke, reared in these conditions, barely noticed the wind and the cold when he won the Open at Royal St George’s; for him that far-from-summery Sunday in July 2011 was a relatively benign golfing day.
Lady Margaret: how on earth did she even swing?
Our friends, playing in the 125 Flag Competition on the Valley course, were so muffled up they were unrecognisable. How Lady Margaret Scott and her long-skirted, tight-jacketed contemporaries of the 1890s, clad in weighty, rain-absorbing wool, coped without Gore-Tex and fleeces beggars belief. I confess. I’ve become a southern softie. Maureen and I repaired to the warmth of the welcoming ladies’ clubhouse for soup, delicious wheaten scones, cakes, tea and chat.
We were also able to play the age-old game of identifying the battered and bedraggled male golfers who’d battled to what is still the final hole on the Dunluce course, several hundred yards short of sanctuary. They were all a lot older than the last time we’d seen them play but we managed to identify quite a few of them, some from their set-up, some from their swings – although not one was as free-flowing 0r powerful as it used to be – and some from their gait. It was good fun and we had some laughs but most of all we were lost in admiration for their dogged determination. I have included the photo (taken through the window) because of the rainbow not the tiny, muffled up, barely visible figures!
The boys battle on towards the pot of tea at the end of the rainbow.
The 125th Anniversary Dinner was in the big clubhouse, which was beautifully turned out – even a connoisseur like Elton John would have swooned at the flower arrangements, real works of art – and the occasion oozed fun, friendship, love and laughter. No, that’s not me being soppy and sentimental or even a bit maudlin in vino veritas; I was on water for most of the night and unusually clear-eyed.
Sporting the 125th anniversary earrings. Maureen noted that I’d cleared the bar!
125 Glorious Golfing Years
It was emotional when Maureen read out her letters from Violet Hezlet, whose family went all the way back to the start of it all and recalled her lessons in course management from Zara Bolton. Zara, the elegant Englishwoman who captured the heart of an Irishman and moved to Portrush, played in the Curtis Cup in 1948 and later captained the team. The women of Royal Portrush were always at the top of the game and passionate about promoting it and encouraging girls and boys to play.
Some of those boys and girls achieved great things in golf but the really great thing is that most of us, whatever our level, continue to play and enjoy the game and the lifelong friends we made. I can think of no greater legacy.
