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.

With Taylor Zarzour, one of my lovely Sirius XM colleagues. Here we’re at the Open in St Andrews in 2022.
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.

Scottie’s back – not that he’d actually really gone anywhere! But 31 under is a tad special. [PGATOUR.com]
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.

Jordan Spieth is showing signs of a return to form – but will it be enough to propel him into the most exclusive club in golf? [Courtesy of Jordan’s twitter account.]
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.