It’s the hope that kills you, they say but really it’s what sustains you, even in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.  Without hope, what’s the point?  When Dai was ill – very ill – he used to call me his “ever-optimistic wife” and I’d say, “That doesn’t mean I’m not realistic…”  And it didn’t.  Deep down I knew he wasn’t going to do but…you never know.  Keep hope in that heart of yours until it stops beating.

The start of a new football season, important though it is to many people, is not in the same league but it does matter and it’s lovely because you’re still able to dream of glory.  Aston Villa, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, were crushed at Newcastle in their first match but they’ve bounced back with two big wins of their own and, who knows, they mightn’t lose again for months.  But they now know there’s a lot of work to do to become as good as they thought they were…

Years ago, thanks to Rachel Heyhoe-Flint, who was a big cheese at Wolves, we took Dad to Molineux to watch his beloved Sunderland.  They were 3-nil down within 15 minutes and his head was on his knees for the rest of the match.  “Thanks for reducing my expectations for the season,” he said, meaning it.  He was resigned to a ho-hum campaign but Sunderland didn’t lose another league game and ended up promoted!

My sometimes beloved Totspurs (I can be a fickle fan) managed an excellent draw at Brentford on the opening day and I admit I took the train down to London last Saturday more in hope than expectation.  We were playing Manchester United, who really aren’t much better than us but should be much further on in their rebuilding, so I hadn’t a clue what would happen.  Usually they beat us at our place (now Tottenham Hostspur Stadium but still White Hart Lane in our hearts).  We were 3-nil up at half-time in one match and Fergie had a go at his lot, saying, “For God’s sake, it’s Spurs….”  United won 5-3….And no Spurs fan was surprised.

The fans in our huge South Stand (opposite me in the normally less vocal North Stand) were on it from the start. Most of us were hoarse by the end of a wonderful evening.

Well, happy day, this time we won 2-nil.  We could just as easily have lost but we rode our luck and the atmosphere was terrific.  We were very, very noisy – not a given because we’re a bit picky and do have an unfortunate tendency to tut if we don’t like what we’re seeing – and the away fans were unusually subdued; perhaps they’re not happy with what they’re seeing, they have very, very high expectations.

A very empty away end, a good sign for the home fans who hung around to serenade the team and new manager long after they’d left the pitch.

Train down, car home because my fellow Spurs tragic Essie had driven from Wales – she said it was more than worth the detour – and then drove us home.  Above and beyond.

The next day, I cycled to Whittington to watch the Women’s World Cup final in the pub.  It’s only three miles but I hadn’t been on the bike for yonks and puffed my way rather pathetically up a hill that would hardly register as a pimple to a proper cyclist.  Then, in a turn of events that would have come as no surprise to Dai, I got my 50-50 chance wrong.

There are two pubs in Whittington and I plonked myself in The Bell just before kick-off, wondering where my footie friends were.  Turns out they were in The Dog, a few hundred yards away.  I had a pot of tea and watched the first half of England v Spain, then headed up to the right pub for a pint or two.  I was cheering for the Lionesses but they were outplayed by Spain, who overcame assxe3w – this was written by Alice, who can’t understand why we’re up so late, so put her nose on the keyboard and took over the typing.

What I was trying to say was the Spaniards overcame all sorts of off-field rows and shenanigans to perform amazingly and their captain, who scored the winning goal, found out after the game that her father had died.  The highest of highs and the lowest of lows.

The sainted Alice is staying with me for a few days and apart from her dibopis tut[[;;jg Society (dubious typing skills) she is the perfect guest.  I have a list of instructions that even I can follow and so far so good.  We’ve avoided the picnickers in the park because as one of the parkies put it:  Alice puts nic(k) into picnic.  That’s a labrador for you, they never know when they’ve had enough; in fact, they’ve never had enough!  Apparently it’s all down to a gut hormone called ghrelin – some humans have it as well, so we shouldn’t  be too quick to judge the overweight.

Alice making a splash. She’s much better at swimming than typing…

On the golf front, Europe’s Solheim Cup team has been announced but Stacy Lewis, the US captain, still has some thinking to do.  Playing is one thing, being the boss quite another, much less straightforward and simple, not least when it comes to deciding who makes your team and who doesn’t.    Perhaps after that the match itself is relatively stress free….

Stacy Lewis (right) pondering her yardages at Walton Heath. No doubt she has even more copious notes as Solheim Cup captain.

There’s only one place to start this week and that’s by wishing Jeanne Bisgood, the pride of Parkstone, many happy returns on her 100th birthday.  Maureen and I are delighted to pay our respects to the oldest living Curtis Cup player and will not spoil her day by recording a rendition of “Happy Birthday”.  Admittedly, that’s as far beyond our technical skills as it is beyond our singing skills.  We sent a card instead.

“Sunset” Bamburgh Castle, from an original painting by Roger Whitham. Just liked the card. Northumberland is a long way from Jeanne’s home in Dorset.

You may have heard that the most honest assessment of my singing ability came from our school singing teacher many decades ago:  “Shows no aptitude for this subject,” he wrote.  Harsh but true.  I can’t imagine Jeanne ever received such a scathing assessment, being one of those people who seemed to be good at everything, including golf, perhaps the most frustrating game of all.

The Englishwoman played her best golf in the 1950s, winning her native championship three times, plus the Swedish, the German, the Italian, the Portuguese and the Norwegian.  She was Surrey champion in 1951 and 1953, then popped up again in 1969.  She played for England many times and played in three consecutive Curtis Cups, in 1950, 1952 and 1954.  She was also the non-playing captain in 1970.

This info is from the invaluable Avia Watches Who’s Who (1985), in the days when everything was in print and the internet was barely a gleam in the most far-seeing eye.

There was also some valuable information in The Shell International Encyclopedia (sic) of Golf (1975), one of my favourite reference books.  And there was a pretty aged pic (below), which, if I read the credits right, was taken by Frank Gardner.

Somebody told me that Jeanne edited her own Wikipedia entry, so it should be accurate and here’s a sample:  she went up to Oxford to read history during World War II, lasted a year or so before joining the WRNS and working at Stanmore, an outstation of Bletchley Park, code-breaking and all that cerebral sort of stuff; qualified as a barrister; joined Poole Council, specialising in education; became a magistrate; appointed CBE in 1982 as chairman of Dorset Education Committee; made an honorary Doctor of Education at Bournemouth University in 2018; oh, and there’s the charitable trust to mention too.

Jeanne at the Curtis Cup in 2016, tramping the course at Dun Laoghaire.

No wonder she came across as formidable at first but you couldn’t hope to find a kinder, more generous and entertaining companion.  Bridget Jackson, the pride of Handsworth, who won the British Girls’ title in 1954 and was English champion two years later, recalled that Jeanne couldn’t have been more friendly or encouraging to her new home international colleague.

And Jill Thornhill, current president of Walton Heath, remembered being terrified when Surrey captain Diane Bailey told her that Jeanne was to be her trolley puller at the county finals.  Not quite like having Jack Nicklaus pitching up to caddy but overwhelming enough nonetheless…I believe Jill and Jeanne proved an unbeatable combination.

Jill Thornhill, taking a break from a Women in Golf summit at the AIG Women’s Open at Walton Heath.

No doubt there’ll be cake to celebrate the century and on a fleeting visit to the media centre at Walton Heath earlier this week, I wondered if Mary Berry had discovered the joys of golf and was opening up the game to the baking fraternity.  There was a lot of cake, proper cake, on offer, replaced almost as rapidly as it was scoffed.  The photographers in particular need plenty of sustenance because even in this digital age they have to lug around an inordinate amount of heavy kit.  And that’s just coming from the car park…

Crumbs: disappearing sponge.

It was delightfully sunny on Wednesday during the pro-am (not a sentence you ever write about the Open) and guess who had forgotten the sunscreen?  Not only that but I’d chucked at least three waterproofs into the boot of the car and not a single sunhat.  Given the summer we’ve been having, I thought it was a brave decision to head for the course without a brolly and there were some in use at the practice ground – but not to keep the rain off.

Bliss: beautiful blue sky, puffy white clouds and brollies being used for shade.

Out on the course, where the players play the 1st, then promptly get into buggies to be driven to the 2nd tee, this spectator decided not to roam too far but still witnessed one notable player so absorbed in her own game that she ignored her pro-am team altogether.  Blimey.  Perhaps they had an agreement of some sort.  Or had had a mega row.  Or perhaps she was just plain rude, which is what it looked like to the casual observer.

Fortunately, Angel Yin and her team pitched up at the 16th green and restored my faith in professional manners.  They were laughing, teasing and encouraging each other, engaging with the spectators and everybody looked as though they were having a great time.  Angel duffed her first attempt at a chip from the back of the green, said to the gallery, “You didn’t see that,” then nearly holed her second attempt without missing a beat.   “That’s more like it,” she said, in unison with her newfound fans.

On the side of the Angel: Yin engaging with the next generation or three.  Don’t you just love the bright outfits.

And it wasn’t just the youngsters who were opting for a dash of colour.

Think I’ll be ditching the navy and white…

The sister was with us last weekend in Cheshire.  She was en route home from her epic public transport journey from Lichfield to Dornoch to Ireland, north and south, and was pausing with us before completing the circle.

Patricia, travelling light, leaving Dornoch en route to the Emerald Isle.

We were stationed in front of the telly watching the lengthy play-off for the Made in Himmerland title in Denmark between Spaniard Nacho Elvira and home hero Rasmus Hojgaard.  We had no particular favourite for the trophy but acknowledged how fabulous it would be for Rasmus and the partisan galleries if the Dane could manage to pull it off.  Elvira had ascended the 18th tee in the final round with a one-shot lead but was relieved to hole a nasty little one for bogey to fall back into a play-off with Rasmus, who’d shot 64 and been finished for ages.

The 18th was a bit of a brute of a hole with a very testing tee shot, trouble lurking everywhere. The pair shared pars on five occasions before Elvira finally came unstuck on the sixth time of asking and the title was won by a Dane for the first time in its history.

Rasmus with his precious homemade trophy [Getty Images]

The sun was also shining way back in 1988 when I played in Denmark for the first time at a lovely course called Rungsted.  I’ve a feeling it was the first time the Ladies’ European Tour had visited Denmark and our collective breath was taken away by 19-year old Belgian Florence Descampe, who was making her professional debut.  She swept all and sundry aside with power, grace and accuracy, leaving a trio of US Open champions (Laura Davies, Ali Nicholas and Lotte Neumann) in her wake.  I suspect she won before she realised just how difficult it was.

My parents had travelled to the tournament with Patricia, who was there in a working capacity, and all three were going to mosey along together the following week to the next tournament in Sweden.  That gave the four of us the opportunity to share an unforgettable experience on the Sunday evening the tournament ended.  The golf was played a few miles down the road from Elsinore castle, the ghostly setting for Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Dad’s favourite play, and amazingly that evening there was an open-air production of the classic set in the grounds of Elsinore castle.

Kenneth Branagh, from the 1988 programme.  Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi and Geraldine McEwan were also involved in the production.

We were treated to a wonderful performance by a very young Kenneth Branagh and it really was unforgettable to watch the opening scene unfold with the ghost of Hamlet’s father appearing on the ramparts of the actual Elsinore castle – just where the Bard had set the scene.  It was a special evening and we knew it at the time.  It’s still special 35 years later.

The lengthy play-off on the DP World Tour prompted another discussion.  What was the longest play-off I’d ever been involved in and what was the result?   Well, my first win on the US college circuit was at the Temple Junior College tournament in Texas a million years ago where I won on the eighth extra hole.

I was having trouble with my contact lenses that week and had to play in glasses, which I never, ever did.  Just before the play-off I dropped my glasses in the car park under the wheel of the university van just as our coach, Pat Park, was reversing into the parking space.  There was only time for a lightning, running repair before I’d to go to the tee.  This consisted of one third of one lens being bound with elastoplast to hold the frame together in one piece, obviously massively inhibiting my vision (left eye).  I managed to win on the eighth extra hole.  We didn’t keep playing the same hole over and over as the boys did last Sunday – we started at the 1st and just kept going.

In my weekly letter home – remember, no emails, no texts and no facetime in those days – I wrote on the back of the envelope “good news inside”.  Not long before her death Mum gave me a little bag and when I looked inside there were all those airmail letters I had written home from the States.  She and Dad had kept them all.  Granted there were a few shopping lists on the back of some of the envelopes and instructions to Dad to put the dinner in the oven at such and such a time.  I have the letters, and the bag, still.

Precious memories.

So, now my eyes, along with the eyes of most of the golf world, are turning towards the Open and Royal Liverpool golf club aka Hoylake.  I’ve already spent a wonderful day in the company of local member and former Curtis Cup player Maureen Richmond (née Walker) going round the course.  Picking her brains was a joy and if I have a good week broadcasting it’ll be in no small measure thanks to her.

Mo Richmond, former Scottish champion and Curtis Cup player.

The course is in magnificent order and with frisky breezes forecast to test the players it would be prudent to clear the diaries of all engagements.  I promise it’ll be compulsive viewing.

Beautiful bunkering on the left of 18th green at Royal Liverpool.

I have a busy week ahead so will be unlikely to check in with you next Friday – Patricia can hold the fort.  After that I’ll certainly be back to tell you about the week and lots of behind-the-scenes stuff.

Enjoy the Open.

Making connections is one of the great things about playing any game and golf is no exception, it’s a joy; but if you’re travelling, there’s nothing more stressful.  Miss a connection and you’re in real trouble, liable to find yourself in a spot marked not by an X but chosen in desperation as a result of recourse to plan Z.

A good friend is a great fan of having a plan, be it A, B, C or if needs be Z.  Last Monday, after much debate and consultation, I set off from Dornoch with only one plan and if the bus to Inverness didn’t run more or less up to time, my travel itinerary was scuppered.  Mo and Brian walked with me to the bus stop in the Cathedral Square and we were all a bit alarmed when we saw how tatty and aged the bus timetable looked.  After all, looking online, as one is required to do these days, the departure time varied depending on which website you were consulting and a chart that had seen better days didn’t inspire confidence.

Fortunately the bus arrived early enough for some of the passengers to get off and have a quick ciggie before re-boarding.  One regular who’d done just that went a bit ballistic when she found a young man who’d got on at Dornoch sitting in her seat, unaware that it had already been bagged.  “I”m no’ sittin’ doon the back,” she complained, loudly, then stomped off to the loo, leaving her pal to apologise for the outburst.  The young man moved and we all settled down to a quiet, uneventful journey that was well up to time.

Waiting for the bus in Inverness, a Highland tourist hub. Why would a busy bus station not have a roof? Or a bit of organisation?

The 1020 coach from Inverness to Glasgow was a bit late leaving because the loading of luggage verged on the chaotic and a guy who’d been playing in a competition at Royal Dornoch the day before was particularly anxious that his clubs should be treated with care.  Eventually everything was safely loaded and we set off on a lovely tour that took in Aviemore, Pitlochry and Perth.

At this point I have to confess that I was heading for Glasgow Airport, having realised that an eight-and-a-half hour train journey from Inverness to Stranraer, then ferry from Cairnryan to Larne (or is it Belfast now?) was not the most sensible travel option.  I gave up on my notion of avoiding flying and booked myself on an easyJet flight to Belfast International.  Even that was not without its alarms when easyJet’s own website claimed that they didn’t fly that route….

Turns out they did.

Welcome to Aldergrove airport – oops, showing my age, it’s now Belfast International. There are people who won’t eat any other crisps and have their supplies shipped over to the UK.

All this toing and froing, up and down and roundabouting was with one end in mind:  to play in the Therese O’Reilly Fourball Trophy at Grange in Dublin on Thursday (yesterday).  Therese, universally known as Tiny, died, far too young, in 2008.  She was, as they say in Ireland, a gas character, a joy to be with, impossible to ignore or forget, so no matter the weather or the state of our golf, her friends and family love to get together to remember her.  Thanks very much to Jen, one of Tiny’s daughters, a whiz with social media, for the picture of the trophy.

Sheena, president of Grange and one of  Tiny’s best pals with Des O’Reilly, Therese’s husband and  Jen, who set up the picture to look more professional than my usual efforts…

I caught my old sparring partner Lilian Starrett, an Ireland international and captain in her day, in a weak moment and she agreed to play with me.  By the time she collected me from the airport on Monday evening, she was panicking about the state of her game.  I needed a pair of golf shoes, so the next day we took a trip to Cairndhu, her home club, where there were no shoes for me but a quick lesson for Lil from pro Wayne Telford. She explained the problem and he sorted it in no time.

Cairndhu, high on its hill above Ballygally, is not for the faint-hearted but the views are worth the climbs.

Nothing an expert eye and a brief explanation couldn’t fix.

Et voilà: a sweet striker still is our Lil. Many thanks to Wayne for his time and expertise.

No, my partner and I did not win the trophy, though we hit some good shots in pretty difficult, blustery, damp conditions and managed a few pars between us.  I came in early, then left most of the scoring on the back nine to Lil – the travelling had taken its toll I think!!  We had a brilliant day nonetheless and thanks to everybody at Grange for making us all so welcome.

Summer golf in Ireland is much the same as in Scotland: unpredictable but liable to be wet. Lil, Midge (aka the incomparable Mary Gorry) and Mairead dressed to impress the rain gods…

We’ll be back next year.

Finally, just to confirm that Lilian and I are navigators of the old school with no clue how to work the sat nav and a bit giddy when it comes to googling.  We still managed to get to Dublin with barely a hitch.  We did it the old-fashioned way, with our directions scrawled on a bit of scrap paper.

Pushing the envelope?  At journey’s end….