It’s that time of the week again and boy, does it seem to arrive more quickly than ever.

I’m referring, of course, to blog-writing day which, for me, is a bit of a moveable feast.  As we post on a Friday morning, I generally like to have things done and dusted by Wednesday at the latest.  Sometimes, I attack the writing in two goes, getting half of it splurged onto the page on say, Tuesday, and then returning with hope and inspiration to get me over the line on Wednesday.  Occasionally I write on a Monday and get finished on a Monday – it just all depends…..and very occasionally Thursday is called into play.

Patricia, however, is much more routined and predictable.  Thursday evening at around 10 pm is her “now what will I write about?” moment.  Presumably, a lifetime of writing to deadlines and dealing with changing scenarios has led to her leaving everything to the eleventh hour but hey-ho, horses for courses and all that.

The reason I’m pondering our respective modi operandi is because, amazingly, this week we have clocked up nine years of madillgolf.com.  NINE years!  It’s scarcely believable, but what is even more astonishing is that some of you have been with us from the very start.  Seriously?  Yes.  Seriously.  So, thank you.

While we here in the UK are enjoying gloriously sunny, reminiscent-of-lockdown weather, those in the environs of Quail Hollow in North Carolina, site of this year’s USPGA Championship, have been sloshing their way round a saturated golf course in practice.  No spectators were admitted to the grounds on Monday and the bad news is there is more rain forecast.  The club’s sub-air system will be severely tested if the championship’s organisers, the PGA of America, are to produce the firm, fast-running test they favour.

Soggy conditions always favour the bombers but they also aid the wayward, with crooked tee shots having more than a sporting chance of holding on to the fairways and not running into trouble.  Ditto round the greens.  So, perhaps more than ever, those who bring their putting boots will prosper.

One of the little quirks of the PGA is that the top three players in the world are grouped together for the first two rounds so it’s no surprise that Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele, the defending champ (see the pic at top), tee off together.  Traditionally, this group starts from the 10th tee on Thursday and I remember one year (I think it was at Southern Hills so that would make it 2007) being on duty early doors to commentate on Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott as they launched their campaigns to annexe a PGA Championship title to their resumes.  At that time they were Nos 1, 2 and 3 in the world respectively.

The 10th tee was a long way from the clubhouse and the players were shuttled out there but lowly commentators like me had to trudge out under their own steam.  When I arrived at the tee there were no spectators to watch this stellar group (it WAS rather early).  There were the three players, three caddies, a sprinkling of officials and me.  Both Phil and Adam came over to shake hands and bid me good morning and I remember having to effect a left-handed handshake with Adam as he had closed his right hand in a car door a few days earlier.  Tiger, of course, stayed in his bubble.

What a treat it was to walk the first nine holes that morning as virtually the only onlooker.  Talk about an unencumbered front row seat!  The usual antipathy between Tiger and Phil was present, bubbling away below the surface;   Adam was consumed with the task of manufacturing a swing and hitting shots that would protect his injured hand;  and Tiger was……..well, getting on and doing his own thing with the blinkers securely on.

Tiger won the championship, his thirteenth major at the age of 31.  It would have been incomprehensible then to think that he would “only” win two more but life never does run smoothly, does it, even for the most gifted?

This year 99 of the 100 top-ranked golfers are playing and it’s the only major in which no amateur can put in an appearance.  Strictly professionals only.  It may surprise many of you to learn that the guy in charge of all this, the Chief Championship Officer for the PGA of America, and the man with the overall responsibility for the course set-up and the running of the championship is an Englishman, Kerry Haigh, who hails from Doncaster.  He is held in the highest esteem by the players for his fairness in his course set-up and his ability to listen to those around him before making balanced decisions.

I met Kerry when we were both in our first jobs post uni.  I was working for a golf promotions company helping organise pro-ams in Spain and Kerry was finding his feet working for the PGA of Great Britain and Ireland.  He used to come out to the Costa del Sol (along with subsequent renowned golf rules guru of the DP World Tour, Andy McFee) and run our pro-ams.

They were great days.  We were young and ambitious and all passionate about golf.  I remember sitting having a coffee with the two of them one morning in Puerto Banus, near Marbella when the conversation turned to where we all saw ourselves in five years’ time.  This would make for a better yarn if I could recall specifics but suffice to say our dreams were generally to forge a path in golf.

We did make an arrangement to meet back at that coffee shop five years hence to review how things were going.  Neither of them turned up…….but neither did I, so I guess that was a full house of no-shows.  I expect life got in the way – forging a path is quite a time-consuming activity.

So, as we enjoy watching this major, do spare a thought for those behind the scenes who meet every challenge head-on and with seriously little sleep.  Perhaps when this week is over we should see about resurrecting that coffee date.  We might be more than forty years behind schedule – but, you know what they say …….

Better late than never.

 

I’m sitting waiting for a call from one of my Sirius XM colleagues from the States, Taylor Zarzour, to do a slot on his radio show.  We’ve been trying to set this up since you-know-who won the Masters and, so far, have failed to find a mutually convenient time to connect.

I thought we’d blown it yet again as I arrived home from my exercise class to find I was locked out of the house.  I had omitted to take a key as I was expecting the place to be still full of people on my return.  But, no – the husband AND the kitchen floor layers had all scarpered, quite naturally expecting a sane body to take a key with them.  And no, we don’t have one hidden in the garden under a plant pot for such an emergency.

Anyway, there was a small window open which enabled me to open a larger one and hey presto, in I glided like a veritable cat burglar!  That’s a bit of an exaggeration – it really was anything but ease and grace but I have realised we need to rethink the defence of our castle.

So, I’m recovering now with a cuppa in hand and wondering if Taylor’ll want to talk about golf in general as well as Rory in particular.  If he does he’ll be disappointed.  Despite being only present at the Masters through the TV screen I am suffering a reaction to McIlroy’s win and his attainment of the grand slam.  The effort of heaving Rory over the line has left me feeling saturated with the game and I’ve been happy to potter about with a warm fuzzy feeling of contentment, paying scant heed to the various goings-on in sundry tournaments.

Knowing, however, that this interview was imminent I did make an effort to check in on Scottie Scheffler in the CJ Cup Byron Nelson played in McKinney, Texas, just down the road from where he lives.  Any interest was soon dissipated when I saw he had an eight-shot lead going into Sunday, a margin he maintained for his first win of the season with a record-equalling total of 31 under par.

I’ve been spoiled my whole life by being able to watch (and be present at) some exhilarating golf performances that stir the blood.  Sublime as Scottie’s was, this was not one of those occasions.  When forty-seven players are ten under par or better I usually can find something more interesting to do than watch dartboard, one-dimensional, golf that results in just about everyone putting for eagle or birdie on every green.  The skill set required for the golf course, saturated by torrential rain, is not hugely varied but kudos to Scheffler for maintaining his mental edge right to the finish of a boring tournament.  He’s not No 1 for nothing.

In a week’s time the spotlight will be on the PGA Championship and the Wannamaker Trophy (pic at top).  It is the men’s second major of the year and will be held at Quail Hollow in North Carolina.  The course is a particular favourite of Rory’s (he has won four times there), Scottie is obviously on form, Justin Thomas has won again after a three-year drought and Jordan Spieth is beginning to look a bit like his old self.  And Bryson has just won on LIV.

It all appears to be bubbling up nicely – a good golf course, top players in form and lots of different storylines.  I wonder how Jordan will cope now he’s the solo next in line to take that giant leap into the Grand Slam club?  It will be intriguing.

Taylor has just phoned and we have done the interview.  It was all about Rory, thankfully, going back to his early days and when I had first seen him play and moving right on up through his career.

There are certain things that stick in your mind for ever – for example, the 2005 Open at St Andrews.  Tiger was romping home victorious, seemingly oblivious to the awful weather we were assaulted with from time to time, when word came through that Rory McIlroy had shot 61 round Portrush in the North of Ireland Championship.  In those days the final couple of holes were fairly straightforward (and a little boring) and often players out for a fun round could peel into the clubhouse from the 16th green – a good ploy in particularly inclement weather.  Upon hearing of the 61 I asked had Rory left out the last two holes.  It seemed unbelievable that a 16-year-old could fashion that score round the Portrush links.

Ten years later, in 2015, I was back in St Andrews – but Rory wasn’t.  He should have been defending his Open title at the Home of Golf but had gone over on his ankle playing footie with his mates.  Who could have dreamt then that it’d be another ten years, in 2025, before he won his next major?

And I reckon we’ve got another ten years to see what this extraordinary human can achieve.  No one knows how he’ll react to joining the Grand Slam club.  No one else has taken over a decade between achieving the third leg and the final leg.  Who knows what it may do to him – he may be like a punctured balloon.  He doesn’t know, we don’t know.  Perhaps winning majors will become easy-peasy again for him.  He doesn’t know, we don’t know.

But it’ll be fun finding out.

 

Goodness, where to start?  What a week the sister and I have had back in the ole country.  I’m beginning to wonder why we wait for a reason to plan a trip back to Portstewart and Portrush, the places we grew up and the places that now seem to be a bucket-list venue for anyone in the world who has ever swung a golf club.

I don’t know why, but I’m always amazed at the number of folk we both still know back home.  Perhaps it isn’t really so peculiar to be amazed – after all Patricia hasn’t lived in Ireland for forty-five years and I’ve been in England for forty, but the golfing family is a nomadic one and, seemingly at every turn at those two famous old clubs, we were running into friends and colleagues from both sides of the Atlantic, never mind both sides of the Irish sea.

First things first, however.  It was a special occasion that enticed us back, namely the unveiling of an Ulster History Circle Blue Plaque at the Ladies’ Clubhouse at Royal Portrush golf club.  The plaque is to commemorate the astonishing exploits of May Hezlet, a teenage sensation, who won the Irish Championship five times between 1899 and 1908 and also added the extraordinary tally of three British Championships to her resume.

A trailblazer for women in every way, May retired from championship golf at the age of 27 to pay more attention to her wifely duties to her clergyman husband, but she continued to pack a great deal into golf, giving back at club level and remaining as President of the Ladies’ Branch of Royal Portrush right up until 1951.

When Patricia and I were introduced to this grand, thoroughly irritating, old game in the mid-to-late sixties there was (and still is) a flourishing junior golf programme at Portrush, so Dad joined us as members.  I think I was nine, but I clearly remember all the fun in that iconic little clubhouse with a portrait of May Hezlet looking down on us from one of the walls.  So, in a way, I always knew of her and her amazingly talented golfing family.  I never dreamed, however, that one day I’d receive a letter from her sister, Violet, who at the time of this correspondence was 97 years of age.

The year was 1980 and Violet was sending her congratulations, through me, to the Irish team, of which I’d been a member, on winning the Home Internationals.  That was our first win in the Home International series since 1907 when Violet and her famous sister May (by then Mrs Ross) had both played.  She was so excited at our victory and I was privileged to have a little bit of correspondence with this wonderful woman before her death in 1982.  One of the two letters I received from her is shown below.

Having treasured my small, but tangible, connection with these extraordinary golfing women for almost half a century I was delighted to meet up again with Susan Hezlet, a great-niece of May, who had flown over from Edinburgh for the blue plaque ceremony.  We had been in the kindergarten together and I was thrilled to be able to present my two precious letters, complete with envelopes, stamps and postdates, back to the family.  For me it was a full-circle moment.

There is quite rightly a lengthy and arduous process to go through in order to be awarded a precious blue plaque and many, many folk from the Ladies’ Branch of Royal Portrush put in long hours of work to ensure a successful outcome.  Our pal Kath Stewart-Moore acknowledges she is considered the “history nerd of the Ladies’ Branch” and while she will be uncomfortable at being singled out there’s no doubt her research into May Hezlet went a long way to bringing her character alive for golfers and non-golfers alike….And isn’t it always fun to make your friends a little uncomfortable anyway?!

So, very well done to Kath and all at the club for a brilliant day and the successful culmination of more than five years of work.

Patricia and I had our usual, delightfully busy time on our return to the Emerald Isle with various rendezvous planned with friends and family.  We surpassed ourselves on this occasion, however.

Beaches walked – check.  Four in total:  Portstewart, Castlerock, White Rocks, Portballintrae.

Courses and clubhouses visited – check.  Three in total: Castlerock, Portstewart and the two at Portrush, so I guess you could say there were four.

Irish delicacies sampled – check.  There were several:  veda (a malty bread for the uninformed), Tayto crisps, Guinness and Black Bush.  Hmm, perhaps not our healthiest diet but an absolute requirement when back home.

Most savoured of all, however, was the craic.  It runs like a seam through the people of Ireland and is magnified when groups of pals get together and it was so much fun to be back with those friends.  I did ask Patricia at one stage – “shall we move back here?”  She didn’t say no.

I think the first move is to plan more frequent visits and then the second may be to work on my Scottish better half.

We’ll start in July with the Open.

I’m still in the recovery position after last week’s tortuously exhilarating career-grand-slam-dunk of Rory McIlroy’s in winning the Masters.

I crawled to bed about 2.30 in the morning – I defy anyone to come down to a normal heartrate quickly with so much adrenalin rushing around through the ole system.  Rather to my surprise, and really before I was truly awake, I found myself in a challenging exercise class, some seven hours later, attempting to lift each of my legs over a pillar the size of the Eiffel Tower.  I hadn’t remembered the tower being so tall in previous classes, but neither was each leg weighed down by a couple of bottles of red wine.  It was not a pretty sight – and not a pleasant experience.

After that, it was on to pick up a friend and treat her to her 85th birthday lunch.  No, perhaps I’ve got that wrong – I was treating a friend to lunch to celebrate her 85th birthday.  There is a difference, I’m sure.

Next on the agenda was a trip to Delamere Forest golf club to help the ladies’ section prepare for the surfeit of matchplay they would be facing in the approaching season’s team matches.  I had promised the lady captain Maria that I’d endeavour to impart a few words of wisdom but when I arrived I had lost 90% of my voice and was only able to croak out a couple of  “pearls”.  Perhaps that’s why they seemed to enjoy it so much but something worked because the girls won their opening team match two days later with a bit to spare.

That was the Monday after THE Sunday.  Since then I’ve been lying relatively low, recovering both my voice and my sanity, and I have watched NOT A SINGLE SHOT OF GOLF the entire week.  It’s been bliss.

Apologies, therefore, and congratulations to Justin Thomas, who won at Hilton Head, bringing to an end his three-year absence from the winners’ circle.  The same goes for the Swedish rookie Ingrid Lindblad, who won in her third start as an LPGA member.  Garrick Higgo and Ashun Wu also had weeks they’ll never forget but this blogger doesn’t have the bandwidth at the moment to take all that on board – but well done, one and all.

By the time you read this I’ll be back in the wee north (of Ireland) for a few days visiting family and friends and for a wee golfing ceremony, more of which next week.  I’m looking forward to being back at Portstewart and Portrush again and having the sister with me means we can indulge ourselves with reminiscing over our early lives in this magical place where the golf courses, beaches and long summer holidays stand out in my memory.

This is the first year since lockdown that I’ve had the pleasure of a diary filled with trips.  Sure, I’ve had a couple of work commentary outings booked in over the last couple of seasons, but there was always a degree of angst lurking as to whether I’d be well enough to manage the travel and do a decent job.  Sometimes I was and sometimes I wasn’t.

It was my task to book our flights, which I did quite a while ago, along with lots of other travel I had coming up.  As expected, a reminder email thudded in the other morning telling me I could now check us in – just go to “manage my booking” and take it from there.  Sounds easy, should be easy, IS easy, but when following the instructions it became apparent I was the only one on the booking – no sign of Mrs Patricia Davies whatsover.

Too soon to panic, I enquired of Patricia had she booked her own flight.  To describe her response as “vague” would imbue her answer with a tad too much urgency.  Basically, she had no idea but said it had been my job.  Deep down I knew she was right and continued to search for any sign of her on the booking.  There was none.

Next a mad scramble to see if I could now get her seats on my flight but the clunky website wouldn’t let me book a return for some reason.  I had to book two singles and my session kept getting timed out.  By this time I was ready to hurl the laptop out of the window but passed it instead to my better half, who smoothly did what was asked of him and booked Patricia on to the same flights as me.

Phew!  Crisis averted.  Something, however, was niggling away in the recesses of my very small brain and I eventually delved back a few months through the finances to see what payments had been made – and there it was, two separate outgoings to the airline in question.  I HAD bought two tickets and now we had three, two apparently in Patricia’s name.  At this rate she’d be able to lie down both ways.

Then it came back to me as to why exactly we weren’t on the one booking.  We had decided to share a suitcase that would go in the hold and that meant we needed one ticket with that requirement and another that was essentially a ticket with no luggage at all and for some reason that I cannot now recall we couldn’t easily put that on one booking.

By this stage my hubby was urged to take over and hurriedly cancelled the flights we had just bought, all of course carrying a hefty penalty.

This whole debacle took up a morning and boy, does it put you in bad humour.  And then I remembered that special Sunday, and I remembered Rory………..and I smiled.  It didn’t matter.

And so, to Ireland.  I’m sure we’ll pick up a celebratory party or two back home – they’re still going on apparently.