Konfusion Down Under

Have you noticed you simply can’t believe a word you hear, see or read nowadays?

No, not a single thing.  From fake news to the erratic, varying, misleading and contradictory statements emanating from across the Atlantic to……well, to the Madill golf blog.  Yep.  Mea culpa.

Last week I waxed lyrical (well, I hope it was lyrical) about my lovely time at Kooyonga golf club in Australia way back in the seventies when I was on the GB team selected to play in the Commonwealth tournament.  It was a fabulous trip (true);  I met and made lifelong friends (also true);  the venue was superb (again true) and the tournament was played at Kooyonga golf club in Adelaide.  Alas, that last fact is, well, not a fact at all.

My very own personal edition of BBC Verify, namely Gillian Stewart, who was on that team, texted when she’d read the piece.

“Blog fact check!  The Commonwealth tournament was played at Lake Karrinyup in Perth.  We then went on to Royal Adelaide where we played in the Australian Ladies’ Open.  You been on the gin?”

I don’t know if this is all made worse by the fact that I HADN’T been on the gin, or on anything at all, but I did feel slightly better when Gill’s next text read, “Well, it was 47 years ago.”

So, apologies all round – particularly to Kooyonga and Lake Karrinyup.  I got my two special Ks mixed up.  I actually played Kooyonga as a professional some years later and it just goes to prove that time frames can shrink to nothing and become blurred the further away you get from them.  Ah well.

I can’t leave the topic of Australia without lauding that country’s current leading female professional, Perth-born Hannah Green.  Hannah has just won the Australian WPGA Championship, her third victory in her last three outings.  She won in Singapore and then travelled home to Oz and tucked away two more wins – such an enormously difficult thing to do for any athlete competing on home turf.  The attendant pressures from carrying the hopes of a nation do not sit lightly but, with her husband who was caddying by her side, Green was immense, impressive, tough and gracious in victory.

“It feels really amazing,” the 29-year-old said. “Again, it hasn’t really sunk in, but it’s been a really crazy month. I guess it’s been four weeks since I won in Singapore. But it’s been really special to be able to do that in Australia.”

Green has made history by being the first Aussie, man or woman, ever to record three consecutive victories and, as always, she was quick to express gratitude to the great Karrie Webb (with her in the featured picture at the top).

Webb, as many of you will be aware, is the owner of seven majors, 41 titles on the LPGA tour as well as multiple other victories worldwide.  Even when she was at the height of her powers as a player Karrie was creating foundations and scholarships to support the legions of young Australian girls who were hoping to follow in her footsteps.  Hannah was the recipient of one of those scholarships more than a decade ago, receiving financial aid, travel expenses and coaching and mentoring from Webb.  She has never forgotten it.

Karrie, a sporting legend and now 51 years of age, is still very relevant in the modern game, her door always open to any young aspiring golfer seeking mentoring or help.  Talk about giving back.  Bravo the Aussies – and how marvellous to hear that she is once again to captain her country’s golf teams at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

From summer Down Under to the ravages of the weather in the northern hemisphere, I can report that I am now back in Blighty – and very happy to be so.  A nasty weather system and Storm Theresa rolled over the Canaries which meant that for the last three full days of our time in Tenerife we were pretty much confined to our AirBnb.  A state of National Emergency was declared with road closures, rock falls, torrential rain and lightning and it was stressful wondering if we’d actually make it to the airport at all.

Happily we did and my hubby took an inter-island hop over to Gran Canaria where he has met up with some pals for a week’s motorbiking.  So far they’ve just had one wet day and the worst is certainly over but I was a teensy-weensy bit alarmed when he forwarded a photo of how GC had suffered a couple of days before he got there.

This is on one of their biking routes and may give you an idea of what these islands have been through.

Thankfully we didn’t encounter anything like that on our way to the airport but we did see the civic maintenance crews out on the mountain roads clearing away the rock falls and landslips.

And I used to think five footers were scary!