First of all, an apology.  Thanks to me, the scheduler of these blog posts, getting my dates wrong, Maureen’s blog Hot, Hot, Hot appeared yesterday, a day early.  I hope that didn’t lessen your enjoyment.

 

Now, this is not necessarily a promise I’m going to keep but it’s my intention not to mention football for another wee while….Not much of a commitment, admittedly and who knows what exciting news will emerge from the world’s self-styled beautiful game in the next few weeks.  For the footy phobes, a word (or two) of warning:  the World Cup starts on Thursday 11th June and continues until Sunday 19th July.

My mate, who grew up in north London and is Tottenham to her painted toenails, now lives up here in the Midlands and drove us down for the big game last Sunday.  Weekend trains are notoriously unreliable and there were going to be disruptions at Euston (not unusual) and there was every chance we’d be surrounded by non-London based fans of West Ham, Fulham, Crystal Palace and, even worse, newly-crowned champions Arsenal.  Not forgetting the supporters of Leeds, Newcastle and Everton, who were all visiting the capital.

If we lost to Everton and West Ham beat Leeds, we’d be relegated and the journey home, disrupted or not, was likely to be brutal.  Driving it had to be.

On the M1 on the way down we saw the Hull City coach on the way back up north and wondered if it was some sort of dreadful omen:  they were on their way home after winning the Championship play-off and promotion to the Premier League.  Would we be taking their place in the second tier…..Aaaagh.

Spurs were last relegated in 1977 with the great Pat Jennings in goal and a young Glenn Hoddle, who went on to become great, remembers the hurt to this day.  Jennings conceded that the fall had been coming for three years and there could have been no complaints if we’d gone down again this time.  There’s also no guarantee that you’ll bounce straight back up again.  Spurs did manage it last time but only just:  they gained promotion in third place, on goal difference….So, just as well we managed to beat Everton 1-nil and West Ham went down instead, despite beating Leeds 3-nil.  Too late.  Too late.

The ground was packed and we were noisy as well as nervous and the cheers at the end were ear-splitting.  The overwhelming emotion was relief, we’d made it, we’d escaped the dreaded drop.  But there was anger too, that we’d had to watch far too much utter rubbish for far too long.  Roberto De Zerbi has given us hope that next season will be better – it had better be – but he has a lot of hard work to do.  “He needs to drive a bulldozer through that dressing room,” Gary Neville said and I doubt there’s a Spurs fan who’d disagree.

 

After the exhaustion of Sunday, it was a delight to go to the nephew’s wedding on Tuesday, at a lovely venue called The Glade on the edge of the National Forest in Derbyshire.  An owl delivered the wedding rings, landing on the (very nervous) best man’s gauntleted hand.  I wasn’t taking happy snaps during the ceremony so we’ll have to wait for the official photos.

The groom and his groomsmen were in suits that were too warm for the weather – no one had budgeted for the hottest May days on record – so they slipped into something more comfortable for the evening festivities.

 

A couple of days later, out in nature of a different kind, on the golf course, conditions were a little more testing and not every shot found its intended target (a bit like being back at Tottenham).  No wonder people think golf’s like life:  always presenting you with problems to solve…

I didn’t really have the space last week to mention the G4D Open (for Golfers with Disability) at Celtic Manor.  Simon Seungmin Lee, from the Republic of Korea, won the men’s title and Jennifer Sräga of Germany was the women’s champion.  Many congratulations to them and to all the competitors and everybody everywhere who made the event possible.  You can read more about it and the various categories – intellectual, standing, sitting, visual – at randa.org.  (NOT panda.org as my machine would have it.)

There has to be a special mention for Issa Nlareb A Amang, of Cameroon, runner-up to Lee.  He’s 35 and was a professional golfer when he contracted bacterial meningitis in 2018 and had a double leg amputation and severe damage to his hands. He is now the world No 7 and won the EDGA Tour Pas de Calais in France in April, before making his Open debut in Wales.  He struggled with the cold on the last day and putted like a drain – 40 putts in a 73 – but holed out from 40 yards with a 9-iron for an eagle three at the 17th.  Joy unconfined.

Scorchio.

Are you enjoying the weather at the moment?  Or is it all just too, too much?  After all, consecutive days in the 30s in May are not usual for us here in the UK and Ireland.  I wonder have you altered your usual mode of going so that you can “get things done” before the heat of the day?

Boy, it reminds me of playing the Asian tour back in the nineties and using those special umbrellas that reflected the heat back away from you.  We, the players, all carried those while the poor caddies laboured under the weight of golf bags laden with several litre-bottles of water.  After each set of three holes each unopened bottle was swapped for one directly out of the fridges at the handily-placed refreshment huts – so there was an unending supply of cool, refreshing liquid.

We were normally out in Asia in February and perhaps a bit of March and the tour took us from Taiwan (now Chinese Taipei) to Thailand to the Philippines and Indonesia.  Generally, it was considered too hot for us to be safely on the course in the heat of the day so it was as if time had slipped and our working/waking hours changed drastically.

Alarm clocks were set for just after 3am with our transport from the hotel departing at around 4am.  Normally we had at least an hour’s travel to the course – and as you can imagine there wasn’t much chat on the coach at that hour of the day.  We arrived at the course in the dark, had breakfast and were able to hit the range just as the sun was coming up.  The first tee-off time was 6.30 and I seem to recall us all being off the course and back on the coach around 2pm or so.

We’d roll back to the hotel roughly twelve hours after we had left it.  This was in the days when, on this tour, it was mandatory for the players to all stay in the tournament hotel and use the official transport – it was considered safer to do so.  It did, however, make for very long days indeed, because if your tee time was, say, 9.30am, you still had to be on that bus that arrived at the course just after 5ish.

By the time 7pm rolled around you were bushed, searching for dinner and bed in very quick order.  It really was a strange existence shifting our waking and working hours to the 3am to 8pm timeframe.  Don’t get me wrong, we were very grateful for the tournaments but we did have a lot to contend with in those early days – apart from the awkward timings, travel and different food, that is.

I remember playing in Manila and I was drawn with a Japanese player who spoke no English and of course, I spoke no Japanese.  Neither caddy spoke English and we were a two-ball as the third member of our group withdrew because she was ill.  I had the habit of putting my identifying mark on my golf balls on the 1st tee and I always put one dot in a specific place on the first ball I was going to use.  I would always give my caddy a ball to keep handy in case of a need to reload or, indeed, play a provisional.  That ball would have two dots on it to distinguish it from ball number one.  (I always played the same number.)

Anyway, on this occasion I knocked the ball on in two at the par 4 1st hole, marked the ball and handed it to my caddy to clean.  A couple of putts later and I had a nice opening par under my belt, as had my Japanese partner who maintained the honour from the 1st.  It was inevitable that as a two-ball, in amongst a load of threes, we would be waiting all day – and so it proved.

As we were waiting on the next tee for the group ahead to get out of the way I looked at the ball in my hand and my heart stopped as I saw two dots on the ball.  I realised instantly what had happened.  I had given the ball to my caddy to clean and she had handed me the other ball which she was keeping in the pocket of her caddy bib.  That was going to mean I had a two-shot penalty for playing the wrong ball and I’d have to return to the green to the point from which I had putted, replace the correct ball and proceed from there.  Try explaining that to a trio of non-English speakers who couldn’t understand why on earth I wanted to retrace my steps to the 1st green!

Eventually, a referee arrived who did speak English and confirmed what I already knew and a six was entered on my scorecard after I had returned to the green and re-putted.  It was my own fault but my little Filipina caddy didn’t meet my eye for a few holes.  Finally, she took a deep breath, drew herself up to her full five feet, and in very broken English said, “So sorry, Miss Mo.”

I tried to reassure her by gesture that I wasn’t blaming her and so we continued on with the round.  As chance would have it the referee who had come out to confirm the ruling was doing a stint in the recorder’s office when I arrived to sign my card.  When the clerking was all done she complimented me on how nice I had been to my caddy.

I said, well, it was ultimately the player’s responsibility to which she responded, “Yes, you’re right, but so many players use a particular ball for putting that she would be used to handing over the “putting ball”.  I couldn’t believe my ears and asked was that common amongst the Asian players to which she responded with a cheerful affirmative.

Did I kick off about the unfairness that at least a third of the field were merrily doing what I had mistakenly done and yet they weren’t being penalised?

No, I didn’t – I sucked it up and got on with it – two wrongs don’t make a right.

And anyway, a bit like this week, it was far, far too hot.

Scorchio, in fact.

There are many qualities in sport and life that high achievers tend to share.  They are usually skilful, hard-working, resilient and possessed of indefatigable perseverance but one of the things that I truly love about golf is that the very best also come in a variety of shapes and sizes and it’s possible to list as many differences between major champions as it is similarities.  Add in to the mix the wide array of golf courses and conditions that would-be major winners face and you begin to understand there is no blueprint for a major golf champion.  As I’m always fond of pointing out – you can’t film what makes a player great.  It’s lodged deep in his or her soul or psyche.

It’s a rare Englishman (Justin Rose is one) that can have every Celtic golfer I know rooting for him.  Historically, the Irish, Scots and Welsh (the Celts) are collectively known to support ABEs – Anyone But the English – all stemming from years of a deep-seated sense of inferiority, I suspect.  Well, that rarest of Englishmen, Wolverhampton’s Aaron Rai, joined the major champion club last Sunday when he bested the field in the 108th PGA Championship at Aronimink just outside Philadelphia – and it says such a lot about the man when his victory was greeted with near-universal delight by his fellow competitors and peers.

Xander Schauffele, winner of this championship in 2024, summed him up beautifully with the phrase, “all-world gentleman, no doubt”.  Rory McIlroy opined, “There won’t be one person on this property who won’t be happy for him,” and Jon Rahm said,  “I have heard consistently there’s very few people that are nicer and kinder human beings than Aaron Rai.”

Quite the validation for the 31-year old who first swung a club at 3 Hammers Golf Complex as a four-year old and joined Patshull Park as a five-year old.  Incidentally, the Ladies’ European Tour held a tournament back in the day at Patshull Park which was won by Anne Rollo (nee Jones) and around that time I used the facility a great deal as I worked with a physical trainer who was attached there.  I think we just missed overlapping with the young Aaron.

It’s well documented how Aaron’s father scraped and saved to manage to buy the youngster his first set of clubs and Rai junior lovingly cleaned those clubs protecting, not only the woods with covers, but the irons as well – a habit he employs to this day to ensure, as he says, that he never loses his perspective or sight of where he has come from.

There was early evidence of the discipline he would bring to his game when, as a fifteen-year old he set a world record in holing 207 consecutive 10 footers. and this same discipline was much in evidence last week as he wore down his opposition.  A strategist and tactician, Aaron’s thoughtful, studied approach was the perfect foil to Aronimink, a course with deceptive difficulty off the tee and ferocious green complexes.  He stayed in his own bubble and when the pressure was at its height he covered the last ten holes of the championship in six under par.

No one could live with him.  He won by three, adding his first major to his list of victories as a professional which had hitherto read:  three wins on the HotelPlanner tour, three on the DP World tour and one on the PGA tour.

I wonder if we’ll now see a proliferation of players playing with two gloves, a habit the young Aaron acquired to combat the cold of all those winter rounds as a youngster.  When the summer came he found himself unable to discard the right-hand glove as the grip didn’t feel so secure.

Sean Foley, who coaches many of the top players, has always said he doesn’t understand why golfers mostly only play with a glove on their lead hand.  He points out that baseball players use two gloves and that traction and force applied down the bat provides more power.  I don’t pretend to understand the physics of it all but it does seem that the one-glove option may be more of an affectation than anything truly useful……..and the manufacturers could earn a good deal more selling gloves in pairs!

The new champion gives a great deal of credit for his performance inside the ropes to the support he receives outside the ropes from his wife, Gaurika Bishnoi, who is also a professional golfer.  Bishnoi, originally from Gurugram in India has won eight times on the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour, twice finishing as the number one player.  She has caddied for him in the past, as has he for her on the Ladies’ European tour and they spend many hours practising together and having chipping, putting and wedge contests.

Outside the ropes she lives and dies every shot with her husband and on Sunday, when watching his composure and attitude under the severest pressure, she knew that if he didn’t win then he assuredly would in the future.  Aaron certainly doesn’t underestimate how much she helps him – “I’m not exaggerating when I say I wouldn’t be here without her.

“Her mindset, her advice, her thoughts, whether it’s technique or the way I’m holding myself is absolutely invaluable,” Rai said of his wife. “She encompasses so many different sides in her opinions.”

They’re quite a team, a popular team – and now they’re a major team.  The sky’s the limit.

Where does a year go!  It seems no time at all since the 2025 Cambridge Beer Festival and now we’re back again, ready to sample the wonderful – and sometimes weird – selections on offer from all over the country.  I tried Grave Diggers Mild from Church End in Nuneaton and Moulin D’Etienne from Burwell in Cambridgeshire, two very different beasts – but surely that’s what a festival is for, a bit of experimentation.

Also, if you’re partial to punning, this is the place for you.  For instance, Electric Bear from Bath offered a stout called Darkside of the Spoon, a pale ale called Jurassic Thrive and another one called William Shakes Beer.  Shameless.

And the creativity of the brewers seems endless.  Holla Brewing from Potton in Bedfordshire presented a lager called Blush Vegas “brewed with the use of Thai black glutinous rice, which gives a pinkish hue.  Clean, crisp with a classic lager note on the nose, along with light floral, herbal notes peaking (sic) through with the hops.”  Mmmm.  At 4.7% it was out of my comfort zone, I rarely venture much over 4.0%.

Being a lot of a wimp I was not in the least tempted by Green Jack of Lowestoft’s Baltic Trader, a stout billed at a head-banging 10.5%.  Here’s the description:  “Export stout brewed with molasses and three roasted malts giving fruity flavours with hints of vanilla and roasted coffee – a rich plum pudding in a glass.”  Mmmm.  Perhaps better saved for Christmas.

We also had a trip to Bury St Edmunds, to visit a few pubs, including a titchy place called The Nutshell, apparently the smallest watering hole in Britain.  There were ten of us visitors in there and one garrulous local and the place was packed.  There was also the most gruesome thing I’ve ever seen anywhere:  a mummified cat that was apparently excavated from the brick wall of an old fireplace at some stage.  “Fluffy” as the cat is called is reckoned to be about 400 years old.

The  dubious practice of putting cats – dead or alive – in specially created niches was, apparently, to ward off evil spirits or bring good luck.  Fortunately, I’d finished my pint before I looked up and noticed him (or her) in their Perspex Ⓡ box.  All cat lovers look away now.

Now, just in case anybody is worrying about how we managed all this beer drinking, we were quite abstemious and paced ourselves well enough and made sure we had plenty to eat too.  Most important, we went by bus – on the top deck, so we could admire the views and any number of delicious-looking thatched cottages and beautiful gardens.  If you’re old enough, don’t hesitate to pick up your bus pass, you never know when it might come in handy.

There were various toasts to be drunk too:  to the new PGA champion Aaron Rai; to Lottie Woad, who continued her rise by winning the Kroger Queen City Championship at Maketewah Country Club in Cincinnati, Ohio; to Leonie Harm, who won the Amundi German Masters at Green Eagle Golf Courses in Hamburg, thirteen years after being hit by a drunken driver and given a one per cent chance of surviving her injuries.

“I got hit by a car when I was out jogging before school,” Harm, now 28, recalled.  I got put into a coma and suffered some pretty serious injuries [including head injuries, multiple bone fractures and a collapsed lung].  I miraculously recovered.  I woke up from the coma and it was weird, I knew what had happened to me but I had no memory of the event.  Everyone around me who thought I was going to die was like, ‘please don’t worry about golf, just be safe’.”

Seven weeks later Harm was back on the golf course.

She went on to win a German championship, play in the PING Junior Solheim, won the (British) Women’s Amateur in 2018, have a successful college career at the University of Houston, graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemical and biophysical sciences and turn professional.  She also had to learn to cope with the death of her mother from cancer but nearly gave up a couple of years ago when she lost her swing and was in despair, ready to retire.

“I was kind of on the verge of turning insane because nothing was working on the course even though I was working so hard,” she said.  Then, in Saudi Arabia caddying for her friend Momoka Kobori, she decided to hit a few balls on the range and Scott Edwards, a coach, asked if she’d mind him saying something.  “I thought, honestly, knock yourself out because I was ready to quit.

“He made a few tweaks and suddenly everything started to feel more like my swing again.  I was then able to work on all the other parts of my game.  I made a few trips over to work with him and instantly started seeing improvements…

“Resilience is a good thing and I have shown this at times but I believe right now I’m in a good spot mentally and for it to then be paired with success in golf is such a great feeling because I don’t have to be miserable.”

If you go to the LET’s YouTube site, you can hear – and see – Leonie tell her remarkable story.

Away from golf, I have to congratulate Arsenal on winning the Premier League title for the first time in 22 years.  We, the not-so-mighty Spurs, have never won that trophy, so it’s the Gunners doing the crowing, not our cockerel.  Still, they deserve it.  Having finished second in each of the last three seasons, to mocking cries of “Chokers, bottlers, wimps, losers”, whatever, they’ve earned it.

I draw the line at putting in a pic of the celebrations and think this is much more fun.  It made me laugh – and buy the book.