Where to start this week?  Ah yes, with a boast, a bit of smug self-congratulation.  The other day I took myself off into Birmingham – on the train of course (last time I went in the car I got a big fine for driving in a bus lane) – to give blood.  It was donation No 72, so I was matching my age, hooray.  With a bit of luck and a fair wind (perhaps not the best choice of words given that we’re in the area of bodily functions), I’ll get to 75 and another wee badge, a green one apparently.

Admittedly, it’s more tiring than it used to be and I took it very gently after donating, sipping my squash slowly (no tea or coffee available because of the heat) and munching a Club orange biscuit, a blood-doning tradition.  I was just about to get up and leave when the woman who’d left a few minutes before, reappeared.  “I don’t feel very well,” she said.  She was helped to a bed and lay down to recover.

She was much younger than I was, so I stayed put for a bit longer, then went round the corner for something to eat, a substantial lunch, eaten slowly, before heading home.  Must be learning sense.  Isn’t there a book called “The Body Keeps The Score”?

The doning centre was busy and it was great to see a load of first-timers in the house, all young men who looked Middle Eastern, being marshalled by one of their own who’d donated before and had persuaded his mates to join him.  The blood and transplant service relies on all of us, from every group, to keep it going and new blood is vital.  We’ve all had friends and family who’ve needed donations, so how can we take it for granted?  If you can donate – or can persuade the younger element to brave the needle – please do.

There was no golf for me this past week but I did have a lesson, shock, horror.  Desperate times call for desperate measures and it was the awful realisation that there was no way I could venture on to the local par-3 course without endangering life and limb that forced me to cry for help.  It was, admittedly, a brief session, with a club – a 7-iron – but no ball and no shoes in Mo’s wee scorched orchard.

I can’t hit an iron to save my life and spend my time fiddling and finagling my way round the course with my rescue.  Fortunately, we have no water at Whittington and no greens protected by ghastly lakes that require a carry of an elevation beyond my capabilities.  (Re-reading that sentence makes me sympathise with those non-golfers who find the game completely baffling…You are not alone!)  The 18th at Wentworth (West Course) comes to mind and closer to home, one or two of the closing holes at Aston Wood.

Anyway, Mo, as ever, came up with a solution but it does require me to woman up and go to the practice ground to try it out, knowing full well that it won’t be pretty – at least not to begin with.  How on earth can a grown person be so afraid of a little white (or yellow) ball just sitting there innocently on the grass?  It’s insane.  But I suppose that’s golf for you.

This is just the place for a wonderful picture of some women who could manoeuvre that ball better than most.  They were at Royal Lytham and St Annes last week to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Great Britain and Ireland’s famous victory in the Curtis Cup at Prairie Dunes.  From left to right:  Vicki Thomas, Trish Johnson, Belle Robertson, Bridget Jackson, Diane Bailey, Claire Hourihane and Jill Thornhill.  Diane was the non-playing captain and Bridget, who played in the team that halved the match at Brae Burn in 1958, was in Kansas as a selector and spectator.  The missing team members were Lillian Behan, Karen Davies and Mary McKenna.

In between blood doning, trying to remember my swing thoughts, going to tai chi and researching kettles (mine fell off the bonnet of the car and is now leaking), I was making jam with the tons of damsons harvested from Mo’s orchard.  In the past my damson jam has been little short of a triumph but this latest batch…well, let’s just say it’s a little short of perfection.  It tastes ok but is a bit runny, a result, frankly, of a lack of planning and organisation – I kept having to turn it off and leave it, having misjudged my timings.  Quelle surprise!

The jam will work on toast, just about hanging on but I think I’ll have to sell it as a sort of sauce, delicious smothered over ice cream, say.  The remaining damsons – there are plenty more and there are juice stains on the floor to expose the inadequacies of my storage facilities – are destined for ketchup, all being well.

 

Guess what I’ll be doing this weekend!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maureen always was more diligent and much better at prep than I was/am, which made her a very good golfer, an excellent coach, an outstanding broadcaster and speaker and an ultra reliable and readable blogger:  she never shirked the homework.  I confess that when I was working, I did my best to keep up to date and tried hard to know what was going on, more or less.  Nowadays?  Random in the extreme.

For instance, yesterday, for the first time, I logged on to livgolf.com.  How many years has LIV been going now?  More than four.  How much longer will it last?  Who knows?   But surely the name will have to change now that their events have gone to 72 holes instead of 54 (hence the LIV).  How do you pronounce LXXII?  A bit like being the progeny of Elon Musk – hasn’t he given his many offspring weird, unpronounceable  names or labels, beyond the understanding of us mere mortals?

Anyhow, I looked it up because the boogie boys are just up the road from me, at the JCB Golf and Country Club, near Uttoxeter and I was wondering how they were getting on.  To quote the website:  “NOW, IT BECOMES TRADITION.  LIV Golf returns to JCB for a third straight season in 2026, and it’s going to be another party in the countryside!  DJs on the green, boogies beneath the trees and a champion field of golfers, led by hometown heroes Majesticks Golf Club.  The secret’s out:  this is the UK’s newest summer festival, and everyone’s invited.”

Well, I confess it really doesn’t sound like this old fogey’s sort of thing and if I want a festival, there’s one going on no more than 100 metres from my house this weekend.  I left the desk to have a listen, then realised it was so quiet because the music doesn’t start until today (Friday)!  Time for a lie down with a cold compress methinks.

No doubt there’ll be plenty of people going to have a look at the course itself because it’s not usually available to the hot polloi.  There are no public green fees, play being restricted to corporate members, invited guests, top clients and select employees, according to the AI Overview that came up on Google when I entered “jcb golf and country club green fees”.  Another source of info said that employees can play on a Sunday afternoon for a reasonable fee but there’s no just pitching up to play a layout that has been described as “a tour-ready contemporary masterpiece in course design”.  (Think that was its own website’s description.)

The golf?  Well, an Aussie Ripper called Lucas Herbert had a 61 on day one, followed by Bryson “De Brat” DeChambeau, one of the Crushers, with a 64.  You’ll remember them both from last week’s Open at Birkdale, Herbert for his low-scoring heroics in the second round and DeC for his brattish antics on the same day.  Tyrrell Hatton and Harold Varner III were next on 66.  We still see Tyrrell round and about but Harold took the LIV dollars – for perfectly valid, family-related reasons, no bullshitting – and disappeared into a golfing void.

Some people still pour scorn on golfers but there’s no doubting that today’s pros, male and female, are proper athletes and they need to be, to perform at the highest level, day in, day out in all sorts of conditions.  As an unfit 70-something, playing two days in a row, as I’ve done this week, is more than enough for me.  Writing that down, reading it back, makes me realise how pathetic that sounds!  But golf is not just a good walk spoiled, it’s a good walk, good exercise, full stop.  Must do more of it.

For the first time ever, I played 18 holes at Lichfield Golf and Country Club, a course that is barely a ten-minute drive from the house.  It was opened in 1991 as Seedy Mill (it’s on Seedy Mill Lane) and my only memory is being there when the clubhouse was a tiny cabin of some sort and there were nine very muddy holes, so muddy that I don’t think we even played.  It was opened by Bernard Gallacher and I think he’d be delighted to see it now, busy and thriving and very playable.  Still Seedy Mill to us oldies, though.

There’s a lot going on in Scotland at the moment:  the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open started at a bright and breezy Dundonald Links that tested the world’s best, often to distraction.   Jenny Shin and Lauren Coughlin lead on 66 but world No 1 Nelly Korda had to work her footsies off for a level par 72, as did Leona Maguire; Lottie Woad, the defending champion, had a 74;  and Charley Hull slumped to a 78, including a brutal nine at the par 5 5th, where she putted off the green, then took a while to get back onto the green – the dreaded ball-rolling-back-to-feet scenario…

We’ve all been there, however high or low we are on the golfing scale, those are the vagaries that keep us connected to the very best.

At impossibly picturesque Gleneagles, on the King’s Course, deemed too short and skittish for the big boys these days, it’s the ISPS Handa Senior Open, defending champion the inimitable Padraig Harrington.  He started with a level par 70, seven shots adrift of Cameron Percy, of Australia, whose senior career has been steady if unspectacular.  It’s an event (championship) worth watching for the views – and the peerless Ernie Els and ageless Miguel Angel Jimenez are right up there, which can’t be bad.

Finally, don’t forget to do the Big Butterfly Count if you can or that the Commonwealth Games are on in Glasgow.  It’s an event on the brink of disintegration, in danger of being squeezed out by the Olympics, World and European Championships, how expensive it is to stage and so on but there are 74 countries involved and it deserves its place.  It may be expensive to cover, perhaps the ratings won’t be stellar but it should be broadcast by the BBC, it’s a public service on a global scale, important for the smaller sports and nations.

Now, where the heck do I watch it?

 

 

 

 

There are times – many times – when I wish that I could pull a mini Mary McKenna out of my pocket and use her expertise.  In the olden days it would have been for her to hit an exocet of a 2-iron through a Ballybunion breeze (aka near gale) to the heart of a distant green that I could never reach; nowadays it would be for her photographic skills.

I was trying to snap the hordes of happy bees on the sister’s majestic lavender but made a very poor fist of it with my ageing i-Pad.  Still, lavender at its summer best is always a treat, hence its appearance here, with no apologies.

The two main differences between me and McKenna were – still are – talent and application.  The former will take you a long way at a certain level but to be up there with the very best you need the latter in bucketloads.  Application on its own will also take you a good distance and it and perseverance and resilience are very useful skills if you want to be a professional golfer – or anybody in any walk of life, really.

This is a recurring theme as the regular reader will know only too well and there was a prime example of all those virtues at the BMW International Open in Munich, one of the European (DP World) Tour’s premier events. The crowds were terrific, which was testament to the growth of German golf over many years and they had a few locals to cheer on, albeit not quite at the sharp end of the proceedings. Bernd Wiesberger, who finished third, is close but as an Austrian not quite close enough.

It looked for all the world as though Hennie Du Plessis was going to break through for his first victory in Europe after a wheen of second places. He dropped a shot at the17th, a fiendish par three and parred the last, a par five of the risk-and-reward variety – i.e. there’s water lurking for the wayward – for a round of 66, six under par. Surely his total of 17 under par would be enough? However, as he waited with his family, excited anticipation started to turn to real anxiety.

Out on the course (where else?), another South African was threatening to spoil the Du Plessis party and sure enough he did. Michael Hollick, a 39-year old rookie still feeling his way around an unfamiliar European schedule, finished birdie, eagle to snatch the trophy and leave Du Plessis – and himself – in a state of disbelief.

Four years ago, Hollick put the clubs in the cupboard and started coaching and did a full year of that before being tempted back to competitive tournament play and now this. “I had two perfect 5-irons on 17 and 18,” he said, “so couldn’t ask for much more really. It’s amazing. I started the season nicely here but the first year is tough. It’s all unknown, you’re playing your heart out to keep your card and give yourself a chance next year but here we are. I’ve just given myself and my family such a good opportunity, so really looking forward to it.”

Eugenio Chacarra, the young Spaniard whose confidence has yet to take any sort of hit, was attempting to join Seve and Sir Nick as the only players to win three consecutive European Tour events but he missed the cut. However, he still finished top of the Tour’s European Swing, to snag a bonus of $200,000, among other things. What’s more, that very week, his sister Carolina kept the family name at the top of the leaderboard by winning the Hulencourt Women’s Open in Belgium. She’s a rookie also playing on the LPGA after succeeding at both Q-Schools in December.

It’s been a great few weeks,” she said. “Life is treating us amazing. My brother is my inspiration and to see him win gave me lots of momentum to keep going and try to win myself. I’m very happy. I’m super excited for the next month, to play in two majors. I can’t wait to be there.”

Well, she’s competing at the Amundi Evian Championship this week high above Lake Geneva and will also be playing in the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Lytham and St Annes, less picturesque but unquestionably one of the great golf courses, one of my favourites.

Let’s hope Carolina gets to a great age and is still in love with golf. Today (Friday 10th July) Bridget Jackson, the pride of Staffordshire (other places may try laying claim but we’re not letting her go), is celebrating her 90th birthday. If there’s anything Bridget doesn’t know about the game, it’s unlikely to be worth knowing. She’s been at or near the top since she won the British Girls’ in 1954, played in the Curtis Cup and became an administrator of distinction. I’m not going to list her achievements, mainly because I don’t have the room but also it’s not necessary: it’s her essence that is the key. Simply, Bridget is brilliant; she is the best. Thanks for everything.

Now, you’ll have noticed that there’s been no mention of football this week but I just have to say that I doubt England have ever had a better result than their 3-2 victory against Mexico in Mexico City. It was a match that had everything; you really could not have made it up; thrilling did not do it justice. Beyond brilliant. Who knows if they’ll beat Norway but that should be another cracker. Off to watch France against Morocco.

Viva el futbol.

Many, many years ago, probably decades, when the Dinah Shore was still at Mission Hills and a very big deal indeed, an American journalist did that oh-so-dangerous thing:  she made an assumption.  She took it for granted that a Scottish friend and I were professional golfers manquées, that we’d have given our eye teeth to be out there playing against Laura Davies and co instead of writing about them.

My mate was a much better golfer than I ever was but we looked at each other in horror, said, as one, “Absolutely not,”  and burst out laughing.  Our American was nonplussed, unable to understand that we had never harboured dreams of playing golf for a living; in fact, could think of few things worse.

Diversion alert:  every time I use a semi-colon – or a colon come to that – I think of the incomparable Lynne Truss, who would, I’m sure, despair at/of the randomness of my punctuation.  Panic has now set in – and overthinking – and my defence of any abuse of usage is that it’s an Irish construction, dating back to Swift and beyond.

Lynne, who is not to be confused with Liz, prime minister for a few days in 2022, is a stickler for correct grammar and one of her best known books is Eats, Shoots & Leaves, which sold millions.  She’s also written many other books, plays, reviews, articles, you name it, she’s penned it.  I was lucky enough to meet her when one of her jobs was writing about sport for The Times.    Those years inspired her book “Get Her Off the Pitch:  How Sport Took Over My Life”.  She’s a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and her website lynnetruss.com is well worth a visit.

Now, where was I?  Ah, yes, feeling mightily relieved that every time I missed a tiddler, my life and my livelihood were not ebbing away.  Growing up I was surrounded by people who were better at golf than I was, much better.  What’s more, most of them, even the most talented, worked harder.  They knew where the practice ground was and spent a lot of time there.

The other day Maureen was remembering my trips to Newcastle, Royal County Down, to have lessons with their legendary pro Ernie Jones.  Newcastle is not next door to Portstewart but Mum would drive me there and I’d spend the time trying as hard as I could to make Ernie laugh and avoid hitting balls.  What a plonker (me, not Ernie, you couldn’t have found a nicer, better-natured man).  Quite shameful now I look back on it.

At events like the Dinah, I’d look at the pros working on the putting green for hours on end – my back twinges just thinking about it – and wonder, “Should I be inside battering away on my typewriter (it was a very long time ago) practising my intros?”  In fairness, I did spend quite a lot of time thinking about how to start my pieces and if nothing suitably smart and arty-farty came to mind, I learned to keep it simple and straightforward.  The office did not want to know that at the last minute they had a space, however titchy, to fill because I couldn’t start a piece off with a Shakespearean flourish.

I can be fussy, fretting away at a phrase but forensic I’m not and the attention to detail of the top golfers – most of the successful sports people – is unreal.  Their devotion to their craft borders on the bonkers but that’s not the way they see it.  I don’t begrudge them their success but I don’t envy them either.  Some of them nowadays make an obscene amount of money, not just a very good living and that’s the luck of the draw.

If you’re good at darts or snooker, you can now do very well financially, if not as well as footballers and golfers.  If you’re tops at tennis, athletics, cycling, boxing, cricket, rugby, no doubt you can make a fortune with a good agent, a central contract, an honest accountant and a resilient body.  Rowers, kayakers, badminton and table tennis players, to name just a few, they have their circuits and their championships and put in the hard yards but how many of them make a decent living?  And roar in to their forties without creaking?

Golfers are luckier than most in that they can still be competing well beyond most of their sporting contemporaries.  Padraig Harrington, for example, is now 54 and this week he’s trying to win his third US Senior Open title, at Scioto, in Ohio, the course where Jack Nicklaus learned to play the game.  By his own admission the Dubliner has always  been a bit crackers and laughed when he was reminded that he’d once pronounced:  “You chase improvement and not perfection.”

“I think I should write that down,” he said.  “Look, obviously, I can’t say that I live up to that aspiration, unfortunately.  If I hit the very best shot on the range, say the purest 5-iron you could hit, I’d try and hit the next shot better.  That is the stupidity of me.

“In a game that’s all about consistency, I wouldn’t try and hit the next shot the same, I’d try and hit it better, which is kind of mad.”

And that’s why he’s had the success he has and most important of all, is still in love with the game, besotted really.

No football so far you’ll have noticed but I can’t resist this, the Norwegian row (as in rowing with oars), although you need a video to do it  justice.  It’s a joy.