Captain Claire

Well, would you Adam and Eve it, they’ve only been and gone and done it.  It’s taken a couple of centuries – and then some, 272 years by my calculations – but the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, founded in 1754, has elected its first woman captain.  Wow.

Many congratulations to Claire Dowling, née Hourihane, on her appointment.  “It’s an extraordinary honour,” she said, “and the reaction has been insane.”

The wee girl from Dublin, who started at the John Jacobs driving range at Leopardstown under the watchful eye of her father Bill, has come a long way.  She had a distinguished playing career, then took to administration – handicapping, course rating, rules, amateur status – and became one of the first ripple of women members of the Royal and Ancient when the club finally entered the 21st century in 2015.

Claire, who’s 68, won the first of her five Irish titles in 1983, the last in 1991 and was British Strokeplay champion in 1986.  She played for Ireland in the home internationals from 1979 – 1992, in the European Team Championship from 1981 – 1991, represented GB and I in the Vagliano Trophy six times and in the Curtis Cup in 1984, 1986 (the famous victory at Prairie Dunes 40 years ago), 1988 and 1992.  She was captain at Ganton in 2000 and that is only a partial list of her achievements.

The blog wishes to claim a bit of reflected glory because Claire made her Ireland debut (full, for the big girls) at Harlech, Royal St David’s, in 1979 with Maureen as her foursomes partner and they started with three birdies, possibly even four.  A few years later, when the internationals were at Whittington Heath, I’m pretty sure I caddied for Claire when Ireland won.

Such traumatic experiences notwithstanding, the most nerve-wracking moment of her playing career undoubtedly lies ahead:    on the morning of Friday 25th September, on the 1st tee of the Old Course, at 0800 precisely, in front of a sizeable crowd, with a cannon firing and caddies waiting to pounce, she will drive in as captain.

Claire and her husband Peter, a retired district judge, became the first married couple to referee at the same Open Championship, at Royal St George’s in 2021.  They were long-time members of Copt Heath in Warwickshire and now live in Devon and play at East Devon, where Claire’s handicap index is 7.6 (at least she will understand the system…)  Her home club in Ireland is Woodbrook, where she’s an honorary life member.

Claire’s appointment might not mark the end of golf being regarded as a game for men only with women unwelcome interlopers but at a time when misogyny is still rife in far too many places where it shouldn’t be, it’s a bloody big crack in the glass ceiling.  Hooray for the R&A, sorry, Royal and Ancient.

 

 

Yesterday (7th of May) was the 15th anniversary of the death of the great Severiano (Seve) Ballesteros and his picture was on the 1st tee at Real Club de Golf El Prat when the Estrella Damm Catalunya Championship got under way.  Quite a few of the players were wearing navy trousers and white shirts, signature Seve, both in Spain and in America, where Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose were two of the Europeans paying their own tribute at the Truist Championship at Quail Hollow.

It’s impossible to exaggerate the Seve effect and probably impossible for those who never saw him in his pomp to appreciate it.  He was, quite simply, magical, incomparable, a joy.  Not perfect by any means but golf’s gift from the gods.

Down here, on planet whatever, my friends and I fear we are in danger of losing the plot.  The other morning, fully awake, or so I thought, I took my hot water bottle – it’s been chilly at night – to the bathroom (in truth it’s a titchy shower room, though the shower is not titchy) to empty it in to the basin…Instead I found myself emptying it in to the wastepaper basket (open weave)…Duh.

Next up, the gardening friend who sprayed her air-fryer-bound veggies with plant food – the bottle looked much the same as the  one containing the olive oil – found herself watering a houseplant that turned out to be artificial….In her defence, it looked so realistic that the rest of us were fooled too – and she’d bought it from the middle of a load of real plants.

The really worrying thing is that we’re still allowed out on our own…Beware.

Notice that there’s been no mention of the dreaded football so far, though I’ve put the Spurs relegation-celebration party on hold because we won 2-1 at Aston Villa last Sunday and looked like a football team with players who knew what they were supposed to be doing.  Long may it last.  It’s the mighty Leeds at our place on Monday night, yet another of those oh-so-sympathetic tee times…

Finally, to cheer me up, one of Mary McKenna’s great photos, a souvenir of her visit to Lichfield.