Maybe I’m just becoming an old misery guts in my old age – or dotage, if my propensity for forgetting names is anything to go by.  [Note to self:  You were always useless at remembering names but is that just giving me false hope that all is well?  A version of just because you’re not paranoid it doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get you?…Is rambling another sign of decline?  Though, again, that’s hardly new.]

Bedraggled, battered and bewildered. Is Bryson the future of golf?

Maybe it’s just that it’s still grey and wet outside and the garden is now drenched after being blown to blazes – and I mangled a vulnerable, newly-planted Japanese anemone that was holding its own until I stepped on it.  Maybe I’m just grumpy but I just can’t embrace Bryson DeChambeau and his bashing, however “scientific”.  I wasn’t going to mention him again this week but he won the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit on Sunday thanks to monstrous driving and stunning putting and, of course, is now seen as the future of golf.

On Twitter, Eddie Pepperell joked – at least I hope it was a joke – that he was going to bulk up a la Bryson so that he could hit his drives within 75 yards of the American’s.  More seriously, Malachy Clerkin wrote a piece for the Irish Times with the headline “Tipping Point:  DeChambeau’s transformation raises questions but who will ask them?”  Clerkin mentioned the big weight gain in just a few months, golf’s “notoriously toothless anti-doping record”, the “cartoonishly dominant” driving.

Eddie Pepperell posted this picture on Twitter with the comment: “Shit just got real @b_dechambeau you better watch out cause this little whippersnapper will be within 75 of you in no time…”  There was a weightlifting emoji but I can’t work out how to do that here….

Clerkin stressed that “the libel laws insist that it is made clear that there is no suggestion that DeChambeau has done anything untoward in gaining all this bulk.  His social channels have been all over his transformation from the start, posting footage of his daily gym sessions and so on.  Every second reference to him on TV broadcasts seems to mention protein shakes and a revolutionary gym routine and all that jazz.  Until we hear otherwise, that must all be taken in good faith.  Doesn’t mean that the question shouldn’t be asked, all the same.”

The friend who sent me the Irish Times piece reckoned that DeChambeau was putting on fat as well as muscle – they mentioned a gut (sorry, Bryson) – and couldn’t believe the difference between the player who competed in Dubai in January and the man we’re seeing now:  “His increase in size is incredible.”

If it happened in any other sport, we’d all be asking hard, cynical questions and golf, an Olympic sport, at least for the time being, has to be held to account – and should be seen to hold itself to account.  Nothing wrong with transparency, surely?….

Listening to the radio the other day I heard an interesting fact (though goodness knows who verified it or how):  a hummingbird consumes the calorific equivalent of 228 milk shakes daily.

Not a hummingbird but a wee kingfisher was the smallest bird I could find….

Where does that put Bryson I wonder?

Moving swiftly on, the Ryder Cup has been postponed until 2021, which has meant the Presidents Cup moving to 2022.  That means the Solheim Cup and the Ryder Cup being played in the same year and I’m inclined to think that there should be no more shunting of the Solheim.  If Mike Whan, the LPGA commissioner, thinks it can hold its own and thrive in the same year as the Ryder, let’s give it a go.  Perhaps they shouldn’t both be in America (and then Europe) at the same time, so that’s a juggle to be considered, otherwise, have at it.  But, please, please, please, move the Curtis Cup away from the Solheim.

There have been plenty of Irish Curtis Cuppers but so far not a single Irish Solheim Cupper.  Let’s hope that Leona Maguire, who won an Irish Scratch Series event (for pros and elite amateurs, men and women) at Seapoint Golf Links a few days ago and Stephanie Meadow, the new touring professional for Galgorm Spa & Golf Resort, change all that.  I’m looking forward to the female equivalent of the Padraig Harrington effect:  once he’d made the breakthrough at Carnoustie in 2007, you couldn’t stop Irishmen winning majors.

Leona Maguire in winning form [from Twitter]  Ireland’s first Solheim Cup player?

Stephanie Meadow, photographed at Blackstone Country Club in Arizona, near her home in the US. She’ll be back home for an Ulster fry just as soon as she can.

We women had a medal at WHGC on Tuesday but I confess I didn’t enter, having become a bit of a wuss during lockdown and a fan of a gentle nine holes, with nary a card or pencil in sight.  Except that scoring now seems to be preferred by mobile phone – screen glare, rain and failing eyesight permitting, of course.  There was, I believe, a certain amount of chaos, not least because it was chucking it down with rain and it was hard to note down scores on the hoof, then not many people fancied standing outside, sodden, getting more sodden or sitting, sodden, alone, socially distanced, in their car, sorting out their scores – providing they could get a signal.

Rising above all this were the GEMS, our new members, so keen that they put some of us to shame with their enthusiasm.

Here they are, still beaming, an inspiration.

The WHGC GEMS, smiling after swinging in the rain. From left to right, Alicia Aspley, Wendy Keen, Jenny Lewis and Sam Abel. Amanda (Mandy) Wiseman, who won with 19 points for 9 holes, took the pic.

Being a dozy, birthday-celebrating so-and-so who doesn’t look too far ahead (you don’t need to be a soothsayer to know that chess grandmaster is not a title I’m destined to hold), last week I failed to appreciate that there’s a bit of a flaw in the choice of date for the re-arranged Curtis Cup.  To recap, it’s now scheduled for 3rd-5th September at Conwy GC in north Wales.  Sounds OK, you might think.  And I, who didn’t think, thought no more about it.  Until I read Alistair Tait’s blog (alistairtaitgolf.com) on the subject earlier this week.

Turns out that there was a rather big event already in the diary for that very same week.  Admittedly, it’s in Toledo, Ohio but the Solheim Cup, for that’s what it is, is unarguably the biggest team event in women’s golf.  What?  No way!  Must be some mistake, surely?  A misprint?  But no, it’s a clash that beggars belief or, at the very least, makes one despair that all the grand words about supporting and growing the women’s game are just so much guff.

Those of you keeping a closer eye on Twitter will have seen that Catriona Matthew, Europe’s Solheim Cup captain, responded quickly and tweeted, “This is terrible news for potential players who would also be eligible to play in junior @solheimcup2021, don’t understand why you would make this a conflicting date @TheSolheimCup.”

The junior Solheim Cuppers are some of the best amateurs in Europe and America and there’s no doubt that there’ll be some British and Irish players in contention for a place on the team in Ohio.  And what about the Americans?  There’s no way the players can be in two places at once and it’s invidious to expect them to choose one or the other.   Both events are a life-enhancing, week-long celebration of all that’s good about the game, with friendships forged above and beyond the competitive rivalry.  They are special.

There were lots of former junior Solheimers in the big match at Gleneagles last year.

If the Curtis Cup is to go up against anything, why not choose a men’s event?  Pretty well anything but the Solheim Cup.

Heaven knows, scheduling at the moment is an absolute head-scratching, mind-boggling, date-shifting conundrum, with the Olympics, Ryder Cup (probably) and numerous championships having to move from 2020 to a 2021 that already had big events – like the Solheim and Presidents Cup (a biggish gig if biennially uncompetitive) – in place.  But to opt for playing the Curtis Cup at the same time as the Solheim (and don’t nitpick about time differences, please)?  Beyond baffling.  Did Conwy not have another week to offer?  Did they refuse to move the club championship?  Was all the accommodation already booked for the summer?  Will we be sold a sop and told it’s a week to celebrate  the women’s game?

Granted, the R&A, the USGA, the professional tours and every golfing body are now trying to squeeze gallons, let alone quarts, in to pint pots but, but, but……

Learning new skills in lockdown.

I’ve been trying to keep calm during lockdown, doing a bit of tai chi; enjoying the simple things in life; learning to be a bad birdwatcher with Simon Barnes (yes, the golf disparager in chief); walking Alice; looking more closely at the insects and plants – weeds welcome – in my garden, inspired by Mary McKenna’s (yes, that McKenna, she’s becoming as good a photographer as she was a golfer) wonderful pictures of her home patch; I’m back playing a little bit of gentle golf; and I haven’t been stressing about things I can do nothing about.

Awesome: another Mary McKenna special.

But the more I ponder this decision, the more the eyes go heavenwards and the dander likewise.

I’m not quite as incandescent (is that being older and/or wiser?) as I was 20 years ago when the USGA scheduled the US Women’s Open, the supposed jewel in its women’s crown, unarguably the biggest women’s event in world golf, against the Open.  Not just any old Open but THE MILLENNIUM OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP AT ST ANDREWS……Spit, stomp, scream, screech; it was unedifying, I confess, even though it was, mostly, in private.   That was in the days when I went to the US Women’s Open but that year it was thrown away, treated with contempt by the people who were supposed to safeguard and promote it….The incomparable Karrie Webb won it, I think but there was only one gig in golf that week.

My list of possible topics for the blog this week also included the suggestion, floated by Rob Parker on Deadspin.com, that, in the light of Black Lives Matter and related debates, a certain event in Georgia should stop being The Masters and revert to a version of its original title:  The Augusta National Invitation Tournament.  After the initial spluttering I began to think that that wasn’t such a bad or daft idea.  After all, Bobby Jones wasn’t too keen on the rather grandiose Masters title in the first place and there have been lots of namealikes since – Dunlop Masters, Australian Masters, Visa Taiheiyo Masters and so on and on.  It’s undoubtedly become a brand and there’s bound to be money involved, on a large scale but now that the tournament has gone beyond mega, reverting to a slightly more modest, geographically specific name might elevate it to another level again…..

Funnily enough, Horton Smith, who won at Augusta in 1934 and 1936 and was president of the PGA of America from 1952-1954, has just been disowned by the PGA.  The Horton Smith Award, which honoured a PGA member for outstanding contributions to professional education, has been renamed the PGA Professional Development Award.

Smith was one of many who supported the Caucasians only clause that was in the association’s bylaws from 1934 until 1961 and Suzy Whaley, the current president, explained their decision:  “In renaming the Horton Smith Award, the PGA of America is taking ownership of a failed chapter in our history that resulted in excluding many from achieving their dreams of earning the coveted PGA Member badge and advancing the game of golf.

“We need to do all we can to ensure the PGA of America is defined by inclusion.  Part of our mission to grow the game is about welcoming all and bringing diversity to the sport.  With the new PGA Professional Development Award, we will recognize effective inclusion efforts and honor those across our 41 PGA Sections who continue to promote and improve our educational programs.  We look forward to doing more of both as we move forward.”

Just in case you’ve been missing Alice.