The other day someone asked me how many Opens I’d been at and, not being a numbers bod, I hadn’t a clue.  Quite a few is the answer and it is still, I think, my favourite championship.  The world and her husband are here at Royal Birkdale and if you stand still for long enough, you’re likely to bump into almost everybody you’ve ever known in golf:  from Ireland, Japan, America, Sweden, Spain, Australia, wherever, you name it.  It’s wonderful.

Even on Tuesday the train to Hillside was full of golf fans, male, female, young, not so young and the buzz and excitement were palpable.  We streamed into Birkdale and big bruiser of a course though it is, with space to spare, we still stood out.  We were absorbed easily but not swallowed up.  Just another golf tournament?  I don’t think so.

I had a front row seat in the grandstand in 1998 when Justin Rose, a talented, gangly teenager in a baggy jumper, holed out from the rough at the 72nd hole, to give notice of his taste for the big occasion.  There was pandemonium but it was Mark O’Meara, aided, if memory serves, by a lengthy, officially sanctioned search for a missing ball, who won the title.  His reward this year was to open the proceedings at 0635 on a pretty filthy morning.  I confess I wasn’t there to see the start but perhaps I’ll make it this morning, when Beef is first off….

Dai died in May 2008, so Birkdale was the first Open I attended without him and it was a bit of an odd, bittersweet experience, albeit quieter than normal, with no husband to demand why I wasn’t getting a (blank) move on.  The traditional Open ice cream didn’t taste quite the same that year.  However, Greg Norman’s blast-from-the-past performance enlivened the proceedings, as did the presence of Chris Evert, who was, briefly, Mrs Norman.  Ian Poulter also got in on the act in fighting style but it was Padraig Harrington, always one of my favourites, who retained the claret jug he’d snaffled at Carnoustie the year before.

Padraig, whose endlessly inventive thought processes are probably a mystery even to himself, went on to win the USPGA later that year and I didn’t see a shot of his final round.  Assuming that he was too far adrift to have any chance, I went to bed and woke up to hear on the news that the delightfully doolally Dubliner had become a major miracle worker.  It taught me never, ever, to take anything in golf for granted and it should be an object lesson to every player, at whatever level, to keep on plugging away, whatever the conditions, however hopeless things look, until the holes run out.

Even here at Birkdale, watching the best players in the world, it’s amazing how dire some of the body language can be, how quickly players of immense talent seem to be floored by the slightest setback, ready to slump after a missed putt or a misjudged pitch and responding sarkily or swearing sulkily if a shot goes awry.  We all have days when we’re out of sorts but being a professional is surely all about damage limitation when the timing is out of sync or the biorhythms have gone walkabout.  It’s often a question of mind over matter.

Ask any Open champion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday, on Thursday 20th July, 156 of the finest players in the world teed off in the 146th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. Come Sunday they are all hoping to be hogging the limelight that goes with becoming the Champion Golfer of the Year and they will rejoice if theirs is the name that is on everyone’s lips.

There will, however, be another body of folk –  more than 60 of them, who most definitely do NOT wish to be centre stage in any way at all.  They prefer to go about their business unnoticed and unsung and the less they have to do, the more content they are.  Yet without them the well-oiled machine that is the world’s greatest golf championship would not run so smoothly.  Please step forward, however reluctantly, the oft-criticised and much-maligned (especially recently) rules officials.

These men and women come from all corners of the globe and all walks of life but all, it is safe to say, will have a golfing background and a love of their sport.  Some are, indeed, professional rules officials from the world’s tours, invited by the R&A who run The Open but many of them are amateurs who have subjected themselves to the torture of the R&A’s rules exam.  I speak from experience on that score.

Ireland’s Claire Dowling is refereeing in her third Open.  A formidable player in her own right with five Irish titles, one British and four Curtis Cups under her belt, Claire admits to falling into refereeing “by accident”.  She didn’t set out to become a referee but responded to the call from the English Women’s Golf Association in 2010 to get more people trained up.  The following year she made her Open debut at Royal St George’s where she – and Darren Clarke – came through unscathed!

I had a coffee with her at the beginning of the week before the call to arms and numerous rules meetings, briefings, course walks and uniform measurings.  She was upbeat but acknowledged that the nerves were always constant and she completely understood the antipathy of some players who do not like dealing with amateur referees.  The way of coping with this pressure is to take a moment to think, keep calm and unflustered and, if in any doubt, ask for back up.  Easy to say but not so easy to do if you are with a high profile player and there is a TV camera and microphone in your face.  In my role as commentator I have seen players be very intimidating – Seve was a past master – and it is certainly no place for the faint-hearted.  The cool head of her playing days will stand her in good stead.

“Refereeing”, as one professional told me succinctly a few years ago, “is hours of waiting for moments of terror.”  Claire, however, is prepared – all the way down to her toes!

So, as you settle down to view the world’s greatest golf championship, spare a thought for the referees.  That really could be you.  Refereeing is within the reach and compass of anyone who plays the game and has the mental gymnastics and discipline to get their heads around the 34 rules in the Rule book as well as roughly 3000 decisions.  The thrill of being involved behind the scenes, the pride in a job well done and the camaraderie and company of like-minded people are reward enough.

Good luck, everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s hard to know where to begin this week but I’ll start at the top, with Trish Johnson, still competing fiercely in her 50s and winner of the inaugural Senior LPGA Championship at French Lick in Indiana.  It’s a tough Pete Dye course and Trish led from start to finish after an opening round of 67, five under par, in tough conditions.  Only she and Michele Redman, who finished second after the 54 holes, were under par at the end, with TJ on 212, four under, three strokes clear.

First prize was $90,000, which is not to be sneezed at.  “It feels fantastic, this is the reason you play golf,” Trish said as she clutched the trophy, proving that true competitors never die until they stop holing putts.  Laura Davies, as excitingly erratic as ever, shared third place, recovering from a 1st round of 79 with a 3rd round of 68.  Alongside her were Helen Alfredsson and Wendy Doolan.  Liselotte Neumann was also up there, in sixth place..

Davies was the first Englishwoman and European professional (see Lacoste, Catherine, amateur, for an earlier, equally stunning champion) to win the US Women’s Open, in 1987, followed by Neumann, the darling of Sweden, in 1988.  The incomparable Alfie really should have won the title at Crooked Stick in 1993 and what they all showed us was that Europeans could be not just good but world class.  It was probably the beginning of the end of the American dominance of women’s golf because the rest of the world began to believe in herself.  The Americans were still good but Annika Sorenstam arrived; and Se Ri Pak; and Karrie Webb; and so it goes on.

Lorena Ochoa, Inbee Park, Suzann Pettersen, Yani Tseng, Shanshan Feng, Lydia Ko and Ariya Jutanugarn are just some of those girls who’ve grown up to show that golf, much maligned and mocked and, apparently, on its last legs, is a global game.  The LET, reportedly in its death throes yet again, may be limping along but a few days ago the tour hit the headlines when a 14-year old Thai schoolgirl called Atthaya Thitikul won the intriguingly titled Ladies European Thailand Championship, to smash Ko’s youngest-ever-winner label.  (The New Zealander was 15 plus when she won her first LET event.)  I’m not a big fan of prodigies – feels a bit creepy at times, to be feting tots just because they’ve qualified for a golf tournament; I keep my fingers crossed, reserve judgement and hope that they’ll mature into vaguely functioning adults.

One of the best examples of how to do it is Nancy Lopez, who is now 60, a grandmother (gasp) and recently married again, to Ed Russell, a long-time golfing buddy.   Not long ago I mentioned her in glowing terms and was horrified when the person I was talking to looked at me blankly (not unusual) and asked, “Who’s Nancy Lopez?” (gobsmacking).  Where to start?   There have been better golfers – not many better people – but she’s on a par with the late, great Arnold Palmer when it comes to charisma and the effect she had on her sport.  It’s also a bit alarming to realise that it’s 20 years since one of my all-time favourite moments in golf, when Nancy, darling of the home crowd at Pumpkin Ridge in Oregon, failed yet again to win the US Women’s Open title she craved.

Sounds cruel, doesn’t it?  To be glad that Nancy, one of my all-time favourite people, lost her last chance to realise a lifelong dream.  Like Sam Snead she was never to win her national Open.  I’d have been delighted if Nancy had won because it would have been the stuff of fairy tales.  She was cheered on by a huge, supportive, emotional crowd on the final Sunday but she came up against an implacable opponent who had her day of days and produced a performance  that matched the major championship heroics of Jacklin, Faldo, Ballesteros, Woosnam, Langer, Olazabal, Rose, McIlroy, any US-major-winning European you care to mention.

Alison Nicholas, known as Big Al because she was, at most, 5-foot tall, was born in Gibraltar, brought up in Yorkshire and lived in Birmingham (West Midlands).  She was a mainstay of Europe’s Solheim Cup team and by 1997 was a tough, experienced competitor who remained calm in the middle of the mayhem and held Lopez at bay.  The American, three shots behind after three rounds, had three birdies in the first four holes and made up no ground.  Nicholas had a birdie and pitched in for an eagle three at the 4th.  Game on.  As the round wore on, I ditched my neutrality and admitted that I really, really wanted Al to win.  Nancy’s status as a legend was already assured but this was Al’s big moment and she proved up to it, taking home a trophy that was nearly as big as she was.

This week the US Women’s Open Championship is at the Trump National course at Bedminster in New Jersey and the golf has already been overshadowed by talk of the potential presence of the POTUS.  He’s expected to hotfoot it from France, where he’s been doing a bit of state visiting, so keep an eye on Twitter for the latest score on the presidential front.  You may have to dig deeper for details of the golf but give it a go:  try the USGA, LPGA and Golf Channel websites.

Finally, and on a different level altogether, I’d like to remember Louise Solheim, who has died at the age of 99.  Wife of Karsten, inventor of the Ping putter, Louise was the Solheim family’s rock, a wonderful woman, kind, astute, quietly formidable and beloved by all who knew her.