It’s Thursday night and that means it’s blog night and I have to think of something to write.  Mo’s done a tip and I wish I’d read it earlier because I’d like to go and test it out right away but my clubs are all in the locker at the golf club – when you don’t have a garage, your shed is so small and crammed that your bike is in the lounge and your car has a small boot, a locker is a good idea.

The other day we at Whittington Heath all got an email from Mike Raj, our lovely pro, suggesting that we might consider investing in a new set of clubs.  I think it said that after about five years clubs start getting a bit beyond their best and you might consider an update.  I hear that there are people who change their clubs every year – don’t think I know many of them – but when I asked Mike how old my Ping Eye 2 irons might be, we came up with something like 20 years.  They’re classics!

My take is that when you play golf at my lowly level, with a swing speed that barely registers on any known scale and bones that are starting to creak off the scale, it really doesn’t make much difference what you’re using – a manufacturers’ dream NOT.  And it’s probably not true.  Maureen and her mate Gillian went on a coaching course at The Belfry not so long ago and came away astounded at how much difference new wedges made to the quality and accuracy of their pitching.  Apparently, the top men change their wedges every three weeks or so, maybe even more often, so no wonder we can only wonder at their skills……

Anyway, Mo tells me that I’m not to change my clubs until she’s given me a few lessons and sorted out my swing, so I’ll be one of the many members not making Mike a rich man.  Given that most of my lessons are in the garden or on the patio and last less than five minutes, it could be another 20 years before I’m eligible for a new set of clubs.  That’d make me more than elderly, given I last that long.

As usual, there’s lots of golf going on all over the world and I have to admit that for me the least interesting is the stuff that’s going on at East Lake in Atlanta, Georgia, where the big boys (or most of them) are playing in the Tour Championship, the culmination of the FedEx Cup.  They’ve tweaked the format this year but you know what, I really can’t bring myself to care about it, it’s just a load of multi-millionaire golfers playing for shedloads more money, which is great for them – they’re professional players after all and that’s what they do, play for money – but matters not a jot to the rest of us.

I’ve just started reading Matt Cooper’s book about the rise and fall of Tony O’Reilly, the dashing Irish rugby star who became the boss of Heinz, a man of immense talent who over-reached even himself and eventually crashed and burned.  At the height of his powers he travelled the world in a private jet, oblivious to the queues and searches endured by lesser mortals.  It made me think of all our favourite golfers, who’ve got so used to the high life that they may be in danger of treating 15 million dollar first prizes as the norm, just one of those things, just wanting more of everything.  Ah well, at least the game itself, infuriating and unpredictable as it is, may help to keep them grounded.

Pop stars are probably even more stratospheric than golfers but a lot of them are keen on the game – though Alice Cooper used to keep his obsession quiet for fear of ruining his wild man image – and Niall Horan, who’s big in the music business, has undoubtedly confused some of his fans by founding Modest! Golf Management.  They presented the ISPS Handa World Invitational Men|Women at Galgorm Castle Golf Club, in Northern Ireland, where the men and women played in their own events but for the same prize money.

Stephanie Meadow held on for an emotional victory on home turf, finishing one shot ahead of Charley Hull, the highest ranked woman in the field and Jack Senior won the men’s title, beating fellow Englishman Matthew Baldwin in a play-off.  Meadow, who’s had her struggles as a professional, said, “It’s unbelievable to win here really.  I’m so excited and honoured…..to come home and compete at home – and win at home.  It’s very, very special.  Hopefully I can take this win and use this as momentum, it’s big for my confidence.”

Meadow is playing in the CP (Canadian Pacific) Women’s Open in Aurora, Ontario, this week, where Brooke Henderson, the pride of Canada, is defending the title she won last year.  She has no worries beyond playing well but  it’s a particularly tense time for the Americans who are trying to make the Solheim Cup team to play Europe at Gleneagles next month.  This is their last qualifying event and the US captain Juli Inkster has two wild cards in her gift.  She admitted that she’s been having some sleepless nights as she mulls over her options and the next few days are unlikely to be the most relaxing of her distinguished career.

 

 

Perhaps it’s an age thing but I’ve lacked what might be called focus this past week.  Admittedly, focus has never been one of my strong points – I blame my mother for my butterfly mind, flitting here, there and everywhere but at the great age of whatever it is I have just become, it’s a bit of a cop-out to keep blaming your parents, no matter what Philip Larkin might have written.

Belatedly perhaps, I looked up “focus” in my trusty Chambers dictionary – one of those old-fashioned book things – and realised that it was never liable to be one of my strengths.  Here’s a sample:  “a fixed point such that the distances of a point on a conic section from it and from the directrix have a constant ratio (geom); a point in which rays converge after reflection or refraction, or from which…they seem to diverge (optics)…….”.  I never knowingly studied optics but I did once get 75 per cent in a geometry exam and I didn’t cheat; it was a fluke of epic proportions, never to be repeated, though I did pass maths O level in the days when it consisted of separate papers in geometry, algebra and arithmetic.

Eventually, hidden in the small print were the words “to concentrate”.  At last.  That’s what I thought I was meaning.

Does being 3 up with 4 to play and losing the 15th, 16th and 17th indicate a lack of concentration or a lack of skill or a doughty opponent playing well?  Or a combination of all three, plus a lack of fitness?  When you’ve been trying to play golf for as long as I have, you know that anything can happen and take nothing for granted.  Six up at the turn?   All over bar the handshake, surely?  No way.   If I can win six holes in such short order, I’m damned sure my opponent can.  And there was one excruciating occasion when he did.

I was playing one of the brothers-in-law at his home course and was 6 up very quickly, playing gratifyingly well, much to my surprise and delight and his horror.  In those days he wasn’t much of a golfer but he was always a competitor and a grafter – still is – and I wasn’t that good, so he clawed all the holes back and might even have gone 1 up.  I tried not to panic but the situation was dire.

If I lost this match, I’d have to give up golf; there was no way I could ever have appeared on a 1st tee anywhere ever again.  The ignominy was beyond imagining.  He was that bad.

I tried a bit of gamesmanship but, though I’d been well trained in the Stephen Potter dark arts, my heart wasn’t in it, not least because my man, versed in the art of coarse rugby, recognised it for what it was and laughed it off.  I was a woman scorned – and increasingly desperate.  He holed an outrageous putt, downhill, for a par 3 at the 17th and I had to hole a nasty, slippery 5-footer across the slope for a half.  Looking back, it might have been the best putt of my life.

And those Ryder and Solheim Cuppers think only they know what real pressure is!

It was getting dark by this time and, praise be, I won the last because he hoicked his third shot well left of the green into a massive hedge and never found the ball.  Face saved.

I tripped over the missing ball as I made my way to the car park but my conscience remained clear because it was so close to the hedge that it was unplayable; even so it was many months before I returned the ball to its owner……

There’s really nothing as nerve-wracking as matchplay.

James Sugrue, from Mallow, county Cork, who has just won the Amateur Championship at Portmarnock, was 5 up after 9 in the 36-hole final against Euan Walker of Kilmarnock Barassie and 3 up after 18.  By the 33rd hole it was all square and Sugrue admitted he was worried.  However, he regained the lead with a par 4 at the 35th and was conceded the last when Walker got into bother.

The Women’s Amateur at Royal County Down was another tense affair, with Emily Toy, from Carlyon Bay in Cornwall, beating Amelia Garvey of New Zealand by one hole.

Good luck to Toy and the rest of the Great Britain and Ireland team who today take on the Continent of Europe in the biennial Vagliano Trophy at Royal St George’s in Kent.   It’s a big ask for Elaine Ratcliffe and her side because the Europeans have won the last six matches and GB and I last won at Chantilly, near Paris, in 2005.

Bonne chance.

 

 

 

The Brolly Dollies, featured above, barely brought their Z game to ladies’ captain’s day at Whittington Heath last Saturday but earned an honourable mention (and a wee prize) for their team name.  It was left to a team anchored by a seemingly ageless octogenarian to win the spoils and provide us youngsters (!) with the inspiration to hang on to the clubs and keep persevering.

There was inspiration on a different level at the US Open, where Gary Woodland kept his nerve and game intact to win his first major title and deny Brooks Koepka, who also played beautifully, his hat-trick.  It was worth staying up into the early hours to watch a competition that matched the surroundings.

A couple of days later, Maureen, not so fresh from her journey home from Pebble Beach, had caught up on Neighbours – nothing much seems to have changed on Ramsay Street, except that most people, bar Paul, who probably has a pact with the devil, are looking a wee bit older – so we had a look at the Women’s World Cup.

England against Japan was unwatchable because there was something wrong with Jonathan Pearce’s microphone and he faded in and out, outdone by the noise from what looked like a very sparse crowd.  Pearce, cruelly christened “the strangulated screamer” by Dai many years ago, was ditched in favour of Scotland versus Argentina, which turned out to be compelling stuff.

It took us a while to realise that the Sweaties were wearing the pink shirts and the Argies were the ones in the dark blue, so we had to adjust our befuddled thinking to cheer on the right team.  I confess, we are easily confused (at least Mo could use jet lag as an excuse) and know as much about the women footballers as my sisters-in-law know about women golfers – not nearly enough.

As it turned out it was a great game to watch, full of incident, controversy and good goals.  The Scots, who needed to win to have any chance of going through to the next stage, played some slick and exciting stuff and were 3-nil up with not too long to go.  It wasn’t the time to relax – goal difference might prove vital – but Scotland switched off, Argentina switched on and suddenly it was 3-2 and the Scots were twitchy.  Then, in the last minute, they conceded a penalty, awarded after seemingly endless scrutiny by VAR (video assistant referee).

Calamity.

But worse was to come.

Scotland’s goalie Lee Alexander not only saved the penalty but also blocked the follow up.  Then VAR intervened again.

It was decided that the goalie had left her line too early, so she was given a yellow card, the penalty was retaken and Argentina equalised.

The Scots, as so often, in whatever sport you care to name, had been the architects of their own downfall but there are aspects of VAR that are far from satisfactory and the tweaks to the rules make life very difficult for defenders and goalkeepers in particular.  If the position of your toes is subjected to slow-motion trial by video, penalty saves could become a thing of the past and don’t get me started on defenders having to defend with their hands tied behind their back…..

My football career never got beyond kicking the ball against the garage door and practising Willie Carr’s donkey kick flick in the garden – think I even managed it once.  Mo reminded me that I’d wanted to go to a women’s football get-together of some sort in Kells but Mum vetoed it and refused to take me and I didn’t have the gumption to find alternative transport.  In those far-off days, girls who wanted to play football were regarded as more than a little weird.

There was no golf on the agenda for me this week – collecting Mo from the airport on Tuesday took precedence – and preparing for yesterday’s Ascot Day took some doing, what with squeezing in a spray tan (probably a bit excessive for the Staffordshire enclosure, judging from the comments of my companions) and sorting out a shoe mix-up.  Having bought shoes to match my dress, I drove to Cheshire, took the shoes out to show my cousin and, horrors, found only one shoe in the box – and it was the wrong shoe!   From a pair I’d rejected because they didn’t fit.  Can one go barefoot in the rain at Ascot?  Is hopping allowed?

In the end, all was well because I had time to get back to the shop and collect the right shoes – two of them – but that’ll teach me to fall into chat when I should be concentrating on my purchases.  I’d include a photograph of the finished outfit but that would entail revealing the depth of my tan……

It would be remiss not to mention the success of WHGC’s members in the handicap section of the English Senior Women’s Stroke Play Championship at the sublime St Enodoc in Cornwall earlier this week.  Jenny Smale won, Chrissie Fisher was third and Jayne Fletcher finished eighth.  Congratulations Heathens; perhaps someone will write a poem…..In the meantime, here’s a picture.

Finally, I must just mention that the indefatigable, irrepressible, incomparable Pat Ruddy has a new book on its way out (publication date July 1st).  It stems from “a lifetime dreaming golf holes” and is an account of Pat’s course designs and his musings on a great many golf design topics.

What’s it called?

“Holes In My Head”.

What else?

 

 

 

 

 

There are no apologies for rah-rah-rahing about Spurs again.  After all, even the legendary Double team didn’t reach the final of the European Cup (am pretty sure they lost to Benfica in the semis and I think there were a couple of dodgy refereeing decisions….!)  That was in the days when you had to win your league to qualify (none of this finishing 4th stuff) and every round bar the final was a two-off – home and away – so you could make an argument for it being tougher to win than it is now.

Anyway, we’re in the final for the first time, against Liverpool, whose European pedigree is second to hardly anyone and they’re overwhelming favourites.  Am I bovvered?  Yes, of course I am.  We arrived in Madrid on Wednesday night but Liverpool, who lost to Real Madrid in the final in Kiev last year, aren’t pitching up until tonight (Friday) because their manager Jurgen Klopp reckoned they’d gone too early last year.  And their players are still hurting from that defeat; they don’t want to lose again.

I’m trying to banish the images of me being gracious through gritted teeth as I accept the condolences of ecstatic Liverpool fans as the Spurs players lie splayed out all over the pitch just like the Manchester City and Ajax players who couldn’t believe we’d sneaked past them on the sainted away goals rule.  (I confess I usually feel sorry for the losers because they’ve given it everything and still come up short.)  Beautiful game or not, I’ll settle for a ghastly, dull match (unlikely, given the nature of the two teams) and an outrageously lucky 1-nil win.  A repeat of the FA Cup final between Leeds (at the peak of their powers) and Dad’s Sunderland, the underdogs of all underdogs, who scored early and held on to win by that single goal, would do nicely.

Trouble is, I know we’re good enough to win but can we make that big jump from BBUs (brave but unavailings) to champions?

It’s the US Women’s Open Championship at the Country Club of Charleston in South Carolina this week and it’s a pity that the biggest event in women’s golf seems to have passed a lot of people by, even people who should know better.  Hank Haney, a coach of some note, who has a radio show that purports to be about golf, got himself into a lot of trouble earlier this week with some crass, unfunny, frankly obnoxious comments on the subject of the Women’s Open.  Was he sexist?  Was he racist?  You know what?  What he was was a pillock, a prat, a disgrace.

Read the transcript of the exchange with his co-presenter and what stands out is the utter ignorance.  This is a man of golf, supposedly and he did himself no favours at all.  He was, above all, unprepared and unprofessional.

It’s the US Women’s Open this week, he was prompted.  Oh.  Is it?  Where’s it on?  And it got worse.  Haney knew that Michelle Wie wasn’t playing because of a wrist injury but he hadn’t a clue who was playing, apart from a load of Koreans.  At best, for a broadcaster who should have a bit of a notion as to what’s going on, that’s just lazy.  At worst, well, it oozed contempt.  Not your finest few minutes Hank but perhaps your most destructive.

The irrepressible Alfredsson (see photo), who should have won at least one US Women’s Open (I won’t dwell on Crooked Stick in 1993; suffice it to say that, writing for The Times, I didn’t mention Lauri Merten, the champion, once until she’d won….We all learn.)  Anyway, the Swede who has always made sure that golf is never dull when she’s around, apparently strode into the press room (or media centre) in North Carolina the other week and asked, “Where’s the wine?”  Come on Alfie, don’t you remember that it’s the winner who provides the champagne?  Haven’t you heard of Tony Lema?  What’s the Swedish for mean streak?

Scheduling is always difficult and this week the women are up against Jack’s Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village, featuring Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, to name just a few of golf’s biggest draws.  Probably not quite as bad as the year the USGA (United States Golf Association) managed to put the US Women’s Open up against the 2000 Open Championship at St Andrews.  Not their finest decision; it still makes my blood boil and my jaw drop.  There was only one game of golf in the world that week.

It’s hard to believe but it’s ten years since Maureen and I spent an unforgettable, unrepeatable week at the Memorial, Jack Nicklaus’s tournament in Ohio.  The players honoured that week were JoAnne Carner and Jack Burke and Dai was one of the journalists honoured, so off we went for the golfing week of our lives.  At lunch on the first day Barbara Nicklaus and Tom Watson came up and introduced themselves – we managed to stop gawping at the thought that we might not know who they were and croak hello.  Turned out we were in the hotel room next to Tiger, who won with a late charge.  We had breakfast with Padraig Harrington, drinks and chats with JoAnne Carner, our photo taken with Jack and Barbara; it was that sort of week.  Never to be repeated.

The (very) happy snap with our hosts is not reproduced here because Maureen is very unhappy that she was snapped in her tattiest old sun top, having been dragged off the golf course where she was watching Jose Maria Olazabal, content that all official duties were done.

Never one to turn down a chance to spout, I made an acceptance speech – four minutes max I was told and hard though it may be for my friends to believe, four minutes max it was.  Mo and I have never been so spoiled and we knew that we never would be again.