I was fiddling about the other day on social media (has there ever been a more time-wasting activity?) when I came across a little video of Charlie Woods, son of Tiger, teeing off in the second round of something or other.  The announcer started off with a bellow, ” ….and now the 06.32 tee time …” and a mini Tiger came out of the early morning gloom and teed up his ball.

Then a strange thing happened.  This young man turned into Rory McIlroy, right down to the identical follow-through and the ball was dispatched into the mist.  Charlie strode off the tee, turning to hand his club to his caddy, 15-time major champion and Dad, Tiger, who, it has to be said, looked as if he was walking normally, a rare occurrence over the last decade.

It was an early start for the pair and it set me wondering as to what time the alarm had been set for.  To my knowledge most players with an early start on tour set their clocks for three hours prior to their tee time.  Towards the end of Tiger’s career when he was succumbing to the inexorable demands he had put on his body for so long it took him five hours from bed to tee.  I can’t imagine that the caddying duties would be quite so onerous though and he looked happy to be there, even at that ungodly hour, striding along after his son.  I wonder if the roles will be reversed next April at Augusta?

I had a number of very good caddies when I was on tour, one of whom was the multi-talented Angie Bell, who used to tow her caravan from her home in Yorkshire to all the tour venues in the UK and on the European continent.  From early April to the beginning of November Angie criss-crossed her way across Europe, calling in at the tournament sites a month or so ahead of time to walk the course, measuring it with a wheel (no lasers in those days).  She would then produce in excess of a couple of hundred course planners, some in yards, some in metres, for the players and caddies and these would be waiting for us when we arrived at the tournament.

Aside from this, she became the first-ever tour rep to travel on the Ladies’ European Tour, employed by Ping to look after their players.  Angie did all the regripping and minor repairs required and carried supplies of extra Ping brollies, gloves, headcovers and the like, attending to the needs of some fifty players a week.

She fitted all this around looking after me, getting up at the crack of dawn every day and often working on clubs well into the evenings.  As if that weren’t enough, a group of us often went to the caravan for one of Angie’s legendary chillis for supper and the conversation would frequently turn to the topic of where exactly would the impending cut fall.

One player, who often travelled with Angie, was an absolute mastermind at predicting said cut, arguably because she spent most of her career sitting on that very line.  She had an uncanny ability to assess the weather, the strength of the field, the state of her game and sundry other imponderables.  Once she got her opening tee shot away on Thursday morning her brain was consumed by where the axe would fall.  She was rarely wrong.

These memories were triggered for me a few evenings ago when I rustled up a chilli con carne, something I hadn’t cooked in an absolute age.  The sister was present for food that night (as she often was for an Angie supper when she was covering our tour) and out of the blue I recalled those long-ago days when we used to enjoy Angie’s chilli.  Once again we were aboard the reminiscing train, an increasingly frequent pastime the older we become.  (The featured picture at the top of the blog is of The Glacier Express, which runs from Zermatt to St Moritz.  It’s on my wish list for the near future.)

Anyway, in the interests of keeping anno Domini at bay and recapturing former tour days, I had another foray up to Delamere this week to hit a few more balls.  The real draw, however, was lunch with the lovely Karl Morris, the mental skills guru who has helped so many players unlock and achieve their full potential.  I must have known Karl for thirty years or so and we now find ourselves members of the self same golf club.

Despite some of his own health challenges Karl appears to show no signs of slowing down and, though he won’t admit it, he has been a major contributor to Kiwi Ryan Fox’s incredible last two or three seasons.  He prefers to remain in the shadows but I know his job satisfaction must be high.

It’s hard to believe it’s twenty years since the two of us did a mini lecture tour alongside the four Harmon brothers, Dick, Bill, Claude and Butch.  It was at a time that Tiger had just fired Butch as his coach and his three brothers didn’t half give Butch some stick.  They claimed Butch was the only coach to be fired by two world No 1 players, having previously been given a red card by Greg Norman.  The conversations over dinner were amazing…….and unabridged, and something I’m sure neither Karl nor I will ever forget.

Oh dear.  Choo!  Choo!  There’s that reminiscing train racing down the tracks again!

There’s probably not going to be much golf in this dispatch but I loved the happy, smiley picture of Tommy Fleetwood, so thought I’d better start with him.  This was taken, by Getty Images, as Fleetwood was preparing for the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Gary Player Country Club in Sun City, South Africa, hoping to win the title for the third time in a row.  He started with a round of 71, five behind Nicolai Hojgaard, Max Homa, Vincent Norrman and Dan Bradbury.

Last Monday night I went to the football, to watch Spurs v Chelsea, only my second visit of the season.  My Chelsea-supporting mate was at a low ebb, depressed by his team’s inability to score and his prediction was 4-1 to Spurs.  Well, he got the score right but it was his lot wot won it.  It was  beyond bonkers.

It was all go from the start, with us scoring in the 5th or 6th minute – at my end no less – and then going 2-nil up, or so we thought.  The dreaded VAR (video assistant referee) kicked in and ruled that it was offside – by a fraction from the look of it.  From then on it was total mayhem, with more goals disallowed, two for Chelsea, handball and offside; a red card issued (Romero of course); penalty given and scored, though our goalie got his hands to it; and a general air of chaos and no love lost; two of our best players went off injured but there was still hope.  Cool heads were in short supply and the Chelsea numpties surely couldn’t keep a full complement on the field….

As it turned out, it was another Spurs numpty (Auld Scots for idiot, eejit) who was sent off, so we were down to nine men and they still had eleven.  The Spurs nine performed heroically but eventually even Chelsea worked out how to make the advantage count and scored a second just as I was leaving.  They’ve brought the last train forward by half an hour, so with all the added minutes I couldn’t afford to hang about any longer.

I hate leaving early – it’ll have to be the coach for these late games from now on – and as I was going down the stairs to the exit there was an almighty roar.  No!  We couldn’t have equalised, could we?  Well, turns out we had, a cracker from an unlikely source (Eric Dier) but VAR ruled it offside.  We had a couple of other chances too but Chelsea cracked it in the end.

A friend who was watching at home (not from behind the sofa, not a Spurs supporter) confirmed that there were more than twenty additional minutes  in all and most of the offside decisions were tight, so that didn’t help.  She praised our fighting spirit and the team got a standing ovation at the end!  After losing 4-1 to one of our deadliest rivals!

Even leaving early I got my money’s worth and it was hugely enjoyable in a macabre sort of way but who knows what sort of toll it’ll take.

At singing on Thursday we got told off for neglecting our homework and we’ll have to work harder if we want a standing ovation at our concert next year.  Edelweiss and Can’t Help Falling In Love are particularly tricky and a quick run through just before leaving for the session (so I could say I’d done some homework) won’t be enough.  Oops.  Is breaking the habits of a lifetime all in the mind?  Or is it physical?  Like putting the bum on the seat whenever it’s time to write?

As a NIP (nothing in particular), which is a step or two up from a SATBAM (stand at the back and mimer), I’m with the men and the tenor ladies, on the end, almost in the car park, where there’s a digger that’s more tuneful than I am.  Even so, our rendition of Can’t Help Falling In Love, with its confusion of notes, gave me goosebumps.  There’s hope for us yet.

Noel Fitzpatrick, aka the Supervet, was in evangelical form in Wrexham last week and his mission is to encourage us all to bring more love into the world, the unconditional kind that comes so naturally to other animals.  Mainly dogs and cats I think he means.  Anyway, it’s a big job but it’s surely worth the effort, even if we fail.

Mo was talking about the joys of winter golf last week and I came across this perfect illustration.  What better way to end.  Note the wee bags.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rowan tree in my garden, planted to commemorate Mum, lost nearly all its leaves overnight this week (top pic) and another storm warning is on the horizon.  The clocks have gone back, Halloween has come and gone, and we are now inhabiting the half-twilight zone known as November.

While the dry-leaf carpet beneath our feet may bring out the inner, kicking kid in us, it all too quickly becomes a hazardous, slippery mush for those of us of a certain age.  When we were young, we “fell”.  Now, we “have a fall”.  What a world of difference between those descriptions of a tumble.

It’s important for us to stay on our feet, not least because the winter golf season has well and truly arrived.

Now, some of you will no doubt put the clubs in mothballs until the clocks spring forward and the temperatures start rising.  Others, however, will embrace winter golf and all its quirkiness.  At courses where the going becomes soft underfoot the dreaded edict “no trolleys, no carts” will soon be seen, if it hasn’t already, plastered over various notice boards. The annual great dilemma is set to surface.

Just what clubs will we carry in our pencil bags?  And how can we possibly be expected to play with fewer than fourteen clubs?  It seems of little consequence that most players hardly ever use their full complement of weaponry, preferring to stick to their favourites.  Cries of indignation will still ring through the locker rooms over this issue, I’m sure.

I’ve always loved winter golf, mainly because throughout my life I have mostly had a links or sand-based course at my disposal.  It was always possible for me to shuffle round in my carpet slippers if I so desired (and the dreaded dress rules allowed!) and the joy of only having half a dozen clubs to choose from has always been totally liberating.  My five-club choice tended to be – a five wood, a 5-iron, an 8-iron, a gap wedge and putter.  Sometimes, if playing with six clubs, I’d take a 3-wood, a rescue, a 6-iron, a 9-iron, a sand-iron and a putter.  That way you could keep an acquaintance with the majority of your set.

We are all told golf is played in the mind and it certainly takes a particular mind-set to enjoy winter golf in this country.  It’s a given you will never have the “right” club in your hand, so embrace the versatility you are being forced into acquiring.  It really will make you a better player.  You’ll be forced to experiment, try different lengths of backswing, different swing speeds – perhaps lots of stuff you’ve previously avoided.  It’ll certainly get you back to PLAYING the game of golf again as opposed to playing “how to swing the club”.

It’s likely to be cold, too – no, it’ll DEFINITELY be cold, so even slow coaches will speed up;  many greens will have less-than-their-best surfaces so we can legitimately be kinder to ourselves when the putts veer off;  and club selection is oh-so-easy when only carrying half a dozen sticks.  Frequently, nine holes suffice and then it’s into the warmth of the clubhouse (someone else’s electricity pounding away!) and the opportunity for a good catch-up chat or the chance to put the world to rights.  What’s not to like?

I am making plans for my own winter participation in this sport I love.  Since last week’s musings I have been up to my club, Delamere Forest, to hit a few balls on the range, endeavouring to hang on to the momentum generated by my trip to Scotland to play my first nine holes with Gillian Stewart a couple of weeks back.  I have found that, for me, having stuff in the diary (albeit spaced out) is key.  To this end I have a couple of golf days inked in, including a trip next month to a very great friend down in Porthcawl.  My car is not going to know what’s going on, having been pretty much on its holidays for the last two years.

Slightly changing tack, I have to admit to not having watched one single televised golf shot since returning home from the Ryder Cup a month ago.  Even I need a break from it all and I do feel we sometimes drown in wall-to-wall repeats and highlights reels of one sort or another.  In this izzy-whizz world I’m beginning to find a blank screen enormously attractive.

In fact, this evening the sister and I will be exchanging an evening in front of the box for an evening in theatreland in the company of the supervet, Noel Fitzpatrick.  I know that Mary McKenna saw him a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed her evening so I’m hoping this’ll be the same.

In the meantime, the windows are tear-drenched and rattling so it’s not even a day to venture out for a few holes of winter golf, no matter how invigorating or good for us it may be.  No, be sure to choose your days for that activity wisely and on other occasions be prepared to batten down the hatches.

Winter is here.

Please, please tell us the secret Hank, Mr Haney, sir.  Spare us years of digging in the dirt and hitting shanks and sclaffs* and make half-decent golf easy-peasy instead of an impossible dream.  This plea comes from the heart but even so I hadn’t the stamina to make it to the end of the promo; lacked the devotion to press ahead and commit to what it took; I guess I just have to admit that I don’t have what it takes; no stickability.

For goodness sake, what on earth is she wittering/whittering on about now?  Is there much more of this?  As an increasingly bored and disinterested copytaker really did say to me once – only once??! – as I was struggling to string a coherent piece together under the strains of a looming deadline and very little info of any interest whatsoever.

In the days before computers and t’internet, you used to have to file your story by picking up the phone, often reversing the charges (younger readers can give up now) and dictating your well-chosen words to a copytaker, a professional typer-up of stories good, bad and indifferent.  If you were lucky, you’d get a chirpy soul like the man who coped with Danielle Ammaccapane – enunciated carefully letter by letter – by saying, “Ah, normal spelling…”  I still love that man, whoever he was.  As for the sour woman who could do no better than the dreaded classic, “Is there much more of this?”….Well, I now feel much sorrier for her than for me.

Dai used to talk fondly – well, irascibly if truth be told – of Deaf Jim, one of the Birmingham Post’s stalwarts, who was a bit hard of hearing and used to panic when he realised that his correspondent was ringing from America.  It wasn’t as though Jim had to pay the phone bill but he took it very personally and of course, his hearing got worse.  You can imagine what that did for Dai’s, shall we say, demeanour when he was at the Masters, say, right up to deadline.

Ah, deadlines.  What a joy to have a proper cut-off time, beyond which you could do nothing more.  It’s all 24/7 now, non-stop around the clock.  Rest is a four-letter word.  No wonder AI is the in/coming thing – no need for food, sleep or reflection if there’s no human involved.

Now, where was I?  Ah yes, Hank.  I was scrolling down my emails the other day, not making much progress because I kept reading and clicking on stuff that might be interesting when I came across Hank’s 1-SHOT SLICE FIX, under the auspices of performancegolf.com but also as featured in, apparently, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, ESPN, Golf Digest and GOLF.

Hank is a big cheese in the world of coaching – legendary even – and his credentials are beyond question.  He coached Tiger Woods for many successful years until they had a big falling out and those who can afford it travel many miles and pay big bucks to have lessons with Hank.  He knows what he’s talking about.  I like to think of my stock shot, a left to right thing sometimes known as a slice (I play golf right-handed) as a wee fade, possibly a cut but who wouldn’t be intrigued by the blurb that promised nirvana:  a quick, permanent fix.

Here are some quotes:  It Takes No More Than 5 Minutes Of Practice Swings…and Then ONE SINGLE SHOT On the Range…(It looks prettier and more compelling in the original layout)….to eliminate decades of horrible slicing habits and start crushing ultra-controlled drives down the fairway…Shot after shot…consistently….

Who wouldn’t be intrigued but I started to lose the will to live, let alone improve as Hank went on and on about how good he was/is (I know, Hank, I know), how many thousands of people he’d taught over the years and then all these happy people, all men, mostly middle-aged at best, who’d spent years spraying their balls to the right (I didn’t last long enough to see if there were any lefties included) and now couldn’t slice if their lives or the lives of their loved ones depended on it.

Come on Hank, there’s no singing this week (half-term) so I’m not in a rush but please get on with it, you’ve made your point, cut to the chase, how much?  What do I have to pay for this nugget?

You’d have been proud of me – or thought I was bonkers – because I made it to the nitty-gritty.  The price was $47, a snip but there was some sort of caveat that involved signing up to Performance Golf – cancel at any time, that sort of schtick.  That’s when I gave up.

Trouble was, I thought I’d gleaned enough to try it out on the golf course and since this week’s comp was a Texas Scramble, what better test event?  Apologies partners.  Not surprisingly I didn’t get it quite right but I did hit a few drives well left – not my usual miss – and couldn’t be sure that my trusty fade would pop up whenever I needed it.  We weren’t last but weren’t that far off the bottom.  Perhaps I should have paid up.  Perhaps I should have hit a few balls on the practice ground.  Perhaps I should just have stayed in bed…

Ah well, there’s always next week.

*a stroke in which the sole of the club scrapes the ground before striking the ball; any horribly mishit shot.