Spaniard Jon Rahm is looking down on the rest of the golfing world from his lofty new position as World Numero Uno, which he attained by winning Jack’s tournament, the Memorial, at Muirfield Village last Sunday.  His pedigree is not in question.  He is a former amateur world No 1, a position he held for a record-breaking 60 weeks and in the four short years since turning professional he has won ten times, four of those victories coming on the PGA Tour and six on the European Tour.

It still beats me though as to how a player can be world No 1 without a major title to his name.  Rahm has only one top-three finish in the majors and a sprinkling of top tens.  He’s 26 years of age, so I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until he wins one of the big ones – but how on earth is he deemed to be the best there is at this precise moment?  Answers on a postcard please………or am I missing something here?

Still, it’s welcome news for Spain, as we hear of the likelihood of a second lockdown in the Barcelona area and this very strange golfing season limps on in unfamiliar fashion.  For all professional sportsmen and women back plying their trade it must be surreal playing without spectators present and I can’t help but think that some may be more affected than others.  Take Rory McIlroy, for instance.  He’s been a little lacklustre since the restart and his customary jauntiness and joie de vivre is, if not entirely absent, definitely subdued.  It is unlikely he has played in any tournament without a sizeable gallery since he was about 15 or 16 years of age.

The energy and reactions of those watching provide the oxygen that enables these mercurial talents to access the rarefied air in which unbelievable performance levels reside.  Without this catalyst a player needs a new skill, not the accustomed one of controlling the rivers of adrenalin flowing through their bodies, but rather one that is more of a self-starting nature – how do you wilfully flood your system with the endorphins and all those goodies that are pivotal to producing your best when there is no gallery to carry you there?  Top performance coaches and mind gurus such as Bob Rotella, Karl Morris et al may find themselves in even greater demand than normal, albeit with a slightly different agenda.

Followers of this blog will be aware of how fond Patricia and I are of Muirfield Village.  In 2009 we were guests of Jack and Barbara Nicklaus when Patricia’s husband Dai was posthumously nominated as one of the journalistic honorees of that year’s tournament.  Even as we were living through it we knew it was a week we would never forget…and so it has proved.  It was made all the more special by the fact that we had previously visited Muirfield Village in 1998 when it was the host venue for the Solheim Cup, on this occasion with both our parents and some very special, close friends.

That was unusual because Mum was totally phobic about flying and only took to the air on a handful of occasions during her long life.  We knocked her out with a good strong charge of Jameson whiskey on the way over the Atlantic, but her system was wise to that trick on the way home.  It was only down to her careful monitoring of every engine change and her superhuman willpower that we managed to stay airborne until arriving safely back home.  Cars and ferries were much more her cup of tea.  It was Mum and Dad’s only trip to the US and when I asked Dad once if he regretted missing out on some great jaunts because of Mum’s fear of flying, he replied matter-of-factly: “No – it’s the only thing that’s kept me solvent!”

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted the players wearing yellow ribbons in their caps on Sunday at the Memorial.  This was in support of a new charity launched by the Nicklauses last year, the “Play Yellow” campaign.  A joint venture with the PGA and the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, the aim is to raise $100 million in five years for pediatric care not covered by insurance programmes.  The “Yellow” part of the title has been important to Jack for the last 50 years or so, but the reason is not widely known.

Back in 1968 Jack had an ardent fan, 10-year old Craig Smith, the son of family friends.  Craig was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer which took his life when he was 13 and Jack spoke with his young fan as often as he could.  After one of his victories Craig told Jack he knew he’d win that day as he was wearing yellow, his favourite – and lucky – colour.  That’s why so much of the archive of Jack shows him in yellow – it’s for Craig, never forgotten.

I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed last week’s Open for the Ages and watching Jack outlast Tiger Woods round the Old Course.  So what if it was a little predictable that it should come down to being between those two?  The icing on the cake was when Nicklaus tweeted out a picture of himself with his feet up watching the denouement unfold on the final green on the screen in front of him.  He asked:  “Did I just win a 19th major without leaving my couch?”

Yes, you really did, Jack.  So that’s now 19 major titles and 19 second places.  Tidy.

 

 

Patricia and I are always exchanging bits and pieces of golfing news throughout the week, forwarding on to each other emails we think the other may find of interest.  There is plenty to keep us busy – in fact, it’s quite hard to keep up with it all – and that’s without any actual competitive golf to follow.  And so, this week an email thudded into my inbox from the big sister, “Posts from Paris Diary by Laure”.  The latest post was of particular interest to me, announcing as it did that an old friend of ours, Nathalie Jeanson, current vice-president of the French PGA, had been asked to revamp the practice and teaching facilitites at Golf Paris Longchamp.  The largest junior golf school in France with over 600 children is based there, right in the middle of the Longchamp racecourse and the revamp will accompany the opening of a new sportsmen’s restaurant with the aim of it becoming a go-to lunchtime meeting place.

I can’t think of a better person for the job and it prompted me to ask Patricia when we first met Nathalie. I have a suspicion it was at the British Girls’ Championship back in the 70s, possibly at Royal Norwich.  A strong player in the junior ranks, Nathalie trained on, winning her national championships at junior and senior level before turning professional and playing in the US.  She subsequently became the first foreigner to play on the Japanese tour, which she did for seven years, and her fluency in several languages (including Japanese) has been a great boon to her in her many and varied international business dealings.

We last ran into Nathalie at the Ryder Cup in Paris in 2018 and she sent on to us a wonderful book she had written about her friend Lally Segard, the Vicomtesse de Saint-Sauveur, whom I was fortunate to meet and know, although not well.  In winning the British Amateur at Royal County Down in 1950 Lally had become a great favourite of my grandfather’s who, quite frankly, had never seen women’s golf of such extraordinary quality.  He remained a lifelong fan.  Lally, who became a member of the R&A, will forever be mentioned high up in the discussion as to who is France’s best ever female golfer.

Thinking of things French and golf related sent me in to one of my reveries, harking back to all those wonderful encounters on and off the course with these terrific French players.  Our paths crossed, sometimes only fleetingly, through this great game but I have an anecdote or two attached to most of the names!

Marie-Laure de Lorenzi, a premier league player in every way and way above my grade, oozed power, finesse and class.  (I did manage to beat her once in an important amateur thing which just goes to show that even a dog will bark at the right time once in a while);  Cecilia Morgue d’Algue ( Swedish-born but a French International) and her daughter Krystal, who went on to play professionally – such elegant swingers of the club;  the Palli sisters, Veronique and Anne-Marie who leads a professional life combining wine and golf – a dream existence!;  Valerie Michaud and  Karinne Espinasse, two of their country’s most talented, well-liked and entertaining people;  Patricia Meunier-Lebouc, modest to a fault, major winner and Solheim Cup star;  Corinne Soules, who went on to become a revered coach;  Elisabeth Quelhas, pretty unbeatable at her home course of Fourqueux;  Ludivine Kreutz, a powerful, thoughtful player;  Sandrine Mendiburu, hailing from that iconic golf facility atop the cliffs at Biarritz;  Gwladys Nocera, hooverer up of many titles and, of course, more recently Celine Boutier who had a stunning, unbeaten rookie performance in last year’s Solheim Cup.  The list is long and so, so classy – and I haven’t even typed the legendary Lacoste name yet!  Catherine the great!

Many of these inspiring women are still in the game of golf in one capacity or another, passing on their experience and knowledge to the generations following on after them.  They are bound by a love of the game and I, for one, feel lucky to have met them on my own random journeying through golf.

In my professional playing days we had several tournaments in France, playing some great courses – St Germain and Chantilly spring to mind.  The Hennessy Cup used to be played at the former and was a magnificent tournament in every way.  Then one day the French changed their laws as regards sponsorship and alcohol and the tournament moved to Germany.  It was never quite the same after that.  Chantilly stands out for me as well.  I played my second professional tournament there and was going well.  The night before the final round I was out in a supermarket (how glamorous!) doing a bit of shopping.  As I lent over to inspect something in one of the freezers one of my contact lenses popped out, down among the frozen fish, never to be seen again.  I played the final round with one lens.  No, of COURSE, I didn’t have any spares!  Another lesson learned.  I think I managed second place, however, but, oh, what might have been!

There is a rich, rich history of French women in the golfing world forging their paths with skill, dedication, humour and common sense. We would all be so much poorer without their invaluable input and involvement.  Their legacy is thankfully ongoing, it would seem, with Nathalie’s latest appointment.

And I have absolutely no doubt there is more to come.

There are some people in this world who automatically bring a smile to the faces of all around them.  I have a pal who describes such persons as “radiators” – as opposed to “drains”, who are the folk who suck the life out of you and are best avoided.  Any of you fortunate enough to have spent any time with Dr Gerry Costello will know that she was firmly in the radiator camp and it was with deep sadness that I learned that Gerry had died last weekend.

The “Doc” was a huge part of my amateur golf career in so many ways – as a travelling companion up and down the country to various competitions and then latterly as a manager and captain of Irish International teams I was lucky enough to play on.  Bubbling with mischief and endowed with an infectious sense of fun, Gerry would take it upon herself to be the early morning alarm call for all the members of the team.  On my first team trip away with her I rather naively expected this to be a quiet little tap on the door to bring us gently out of the land of nod.  How wrong could I be!  A loud rapping would startle us from slumber and then a deep resonant Gregorian type of chant would penetrate our hotel room door. “Benidicamus Dominum,” Gerry would intone three times and only when she had received an answer would she proceed on her way down the corridor to the next room on her list.

That Latin refrain still has the power to produce in me the delicious expectation and excitement I felt at the start of so many International competitions, prefacing as it did the proud pulling on of Irish green, the nervous attempt at digestion of a decent breakfast and then the announcement of my name on the 1st tee – the culmination of so many dreams and hours of practice.

Always smiling, always glamorous, Gerry was no mean player herself.  A scratch golfer for decades she had the distinction of being the first Irish player to win the British Seniors, paving the way for such luminaries as Valerie Hassett and Mary McKenna to follow.

She was also, by some distance, the very best giver of directions I have ever come across.  Remember, our criss-crossing of the country with clubs and cases piled high was in the pre- Googlemaps era.  If Gerry told you it was the third turn on the left that is exactly what it was.  If she instructed you to change lanes at a certain point so as to be sure not to miss a crucial exit then that was what you had to be sure to do.  She was meticulous in her planning and we were all the beneficiaries of that.

I don’t remember what year it was that Ireland started using the euro but I do remember exactly where I spent my first euros and on whom!  I was meeting some pals for lunch in Bewley’s hotel in Dublin and Gerry joined us a little later than expected.  I went up to the bar to buy her a chilled glass of sauvignon blanc and I dipped my hand into my purse to wrestle with the unfamiliar currency for the first time.  How we all laughed and said that we’d never forget that moment and Gerry exhorted me to continue as I had started.  I’ve done my best to take her at her word!

Condolences and much love go to Ferg and the whole of the Costello connection.  I don’t need to tell you, her loved ones, how much Gerry enriched people’s lives.  She certainly enriched mine and, to this day, when I think of her, she makes me smile.

In these long, lockdown days it never ceases to amaze me how inventive and proactive some of my friends are.  The cancellation of the London marathon last Sunday spawned numerous innovative ways of raising funds for charity, most of them giving a nod to the famous race by having the numbers 2 and 6 figure somewhere in the grand scheme of things.  And so it was that Pam Valentine, my first ever opponent (and conqueror) on the full international stage, decided to raise funds for the Nightingale House Hospice in Wrexham, a cause very dear to her heart indeed.

Pam’s husband, Phillip, died there more than 20 years ago and Pam has never forgotten the care and tenderness shown to all the family at that difficult time.  She subsequently became the chairman of the Trustees for the thick end of two decades, only retiring two or three years ago and she still raises funds for them when she can.

I must confess I was more than a little concerned for her when I heard her latest scheme – she was to attempt to hit 260 golf balls into a net in an hour.  The golf net, willing and able and robust enough to receive 260 beats from the Valentine clubface was duly ordered online but, coming from China, it got lost in transit and so it was on to Plan B and a somewhat more homespun affair.  The cover for the garden furniture was pressed into service and rigged up over a washing line to serve as a net and a bucket with 26 balls was prepared.

As you will have seen from the above picture it was fairly essential to keep the ball low, so Pam hit the first batch of 26 balls with a 2 iron.  (I don’t actually know any female who still owns a 2-iron, never mind can hit one!)  She then moved on to a 4-iron, a 5, followed by two different lofted rescue clubs before working her way back down the line to complete the 260 shots in a staggering 44 minutes and 8 seconds!  An immense effort that so far has raised more than five times her target of £560.  Beat that if you can, fellow golfers – or more sensibly, like me, accept that you can’t and go to Pam’s JustGiving page and donate a few bob if you are able.  After all, it is local supporters who bear all the costs of hospices like Nightingale House, not the NHS and not the government.  Every last little bit really does help.

Finally, I have to say I had absolutely no idea there were so many enthusiastic, budding, one-handed chippers amongst you all!  I hope you’re having fun with it and do make sure you persevere because you will see the benefits once we all get back out again on the course.  Not directly related to the chipping, but one query that came in during the week was from Louise Campbell in Edinburgh.  Like many others she was interested in the golf net that I have in my garden and asked which make it was.  I did a whole two minutes of internet research on it and plumped for one I thought was unfussy, uncomplicated and a good middle-of-the-road price.  I think this one was around the £70 mark and, four weeks in, so far so good.  I am happy to recommend it – and I’m not even being paid!  Below I’ve tried to capture the relevant details in the photos for you in case you want to try one out for yourselves, but as you will have seen from Pam’s photo a homemade effort can do the job just as well!

The boss is back, so Alice-sitting is now a relaxed affair for me, knowing that the responsibility lies elsewhere.  However, (oh, how I used to love a/an ‘however comma’) it’s obviously left its mark because I woke up yesterday morning feeling strangely disconcerted.  What on earth had happened?  Then I realised that I’d been dreaming, which is unusual for me – or at least remembering dreams is; that’s Maureen’s forte.  She has the most weird and wonderful dreams and astonishing recall.

Anyway, I realised that I’d been in the middle of a very large, very green field – an estate really – and was looking around helplessly for a black labrador.  They stand out well against the grass but all I could see was this expanse of green with nary a sign of a dog of any colour….Another case of the missing lab.  Deja vu all over again….

I promised I’d write a bit about Mickey (Mary Kathryn) Wright this week, not because I knew her – sadly –  but because I knew of her and her friends and contemporaries would need no encouragement to sing her praises both as a player with few equals but, much more importantly, as a person of intelligence and warmth.  It’s all very well hitting the heights of your chosen profession, breaking all records and doing the “Look, Ma, top of the world” stuff but what’s it for, really, if you’re an arrogant git or, worse, an unmitigated shit?  No names, no pack drill.

Few people, I suppose, are unloved by all and sundry and you might argue that heroes, especially sporting ones, don’t have to be good people, let alone loveable but I think it helps.  I gave up having heroes after the embarrassment of nearly demolishing a radio studio trying to shake hands with Pat Jennings but it’s still heart-warming to learn that he’s a lovely bloke.

Mickey was a golf tragic – besotted with the game and the pursuit of the perfect swing and she achieved it, as near as dammit.  Kathy Whitworth, who went on to win more tournaments – 88 to Wright’s 82 – had no doubts.  “To my mind, and in many people’s mind, Mickey was the greatest player that ever lived.  She certainly had the greatest golf swing and Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Tom Watson said the same thing.  Her execution was just so near perfect in such an imperfect world……When you could hear the ball leave the club face and see it, you just were dumbfounded, it was so great to watch.  You knew you were playing with someone far superior.”

Betsy Rawls, another noted technician, whose record of four US Women’s Open titles was matched by Wright, was also a fan.  “Mickey set a standard of shotmaking that will probably never be equalled.  Her swing was as flawless as a golf swing can be – smooth, efficient, powerful, rhythmical and beautiful.  Her shots were something to behold.”

There were so many great, jaw-dropping shots but Whitworth loved one cracker in particular.  Wright’s drive had ended up in the middle of the fairway but behind a large tree, with about 160 yards to carry to an elevated green.  Don’t forget that this was in the days when clubs and balls were not the sophisticated, streamlined, super-engineered, sympathetic weapons that they are now.  Most normal mortals would have had to engineer some sort of poke up the fairway for fear of hitting the tree on their follow through and damaging club, wrist, trunk, whatever.  Wright, of course, was no normal golfing mortal.

“Mickey pulled out an iron,” Whitworth said, “made a full backswing, hit the ball just as hard as she normally would and stopped the clubhead at impact.  Just POW!  Hit the ball onto the green!  And the funny thing was that I had seen her practise that shot!”

Wright, the perfectionist, who turned professional in 1955 at the age of 19, had lofty ambitions.  “I’m going to win,” she said. “I’ll work harder and harder and I’m going to be the best woman golfer in the world some day.”

Throughout her career she sought out good teachers and put into practice what they taught her.  Harry Pressler took her on when she was 13 – and she had consulted other good judges as to whether he was the teacher for her.  Thereafter, she would refer to her swing as “Harry’s swing” or “the swing”.  He taught her through repetition, putting her in the correct positions until she could “feel” her swing.  He taught her to feel when the clubhead was square and how to shift her weight.

“It’s unbelievable how I took to Harry’s method,” Wright said.  “Harry thought that a golf swing is a moving of the weight from the left foot to the right and a returning of the weight to the left foot.  At the start of the downswing, the hands do nothing.  They stay there and the weight moves across the right foot.  All I ever did was just move the weight across the right foot.  You coordinate that, it squares the clubhead and you’ll contact the ball squarely with a square clubhead.  That’s really all there is to it but it took so much repetition.”

So, there you have it, a recipe for golfing genius……..

For those of you who’ve never heard of Mickey Wright, here are a few basic, mind-boggling stats:  in 1960 she won six times; in 1961 she won 10 tournaments, including three of the four majors at that time; in 1962 she won 10 times, including four events in a row; and in 1962, she moved into overdrive with 13 wins; in 1964 her tally was 11 wins.

Later in life, she mused on the mental approach that saw her win such a ridiculous number of tournaments in such a ridiculously short time.  “I hate to lose,” she said.  “The perfectionist bit in golf doesn’t have as much to do with doing it perfectly as the total rejection and horror of doing it badly.  And I don’t know which comes first or which is more important.

“Winning never really crossed my mind that much.  It’s trite but I knew if I did it as well as I could, I would win.  If I did as well as I could, it would have been better than anybody else did it and therefore it would win…..I look back on it like it’s somebody else.  What amazes me is that I could have done it as long as I did.”

There’s much, much more if you want to learn about Mickey, a fascinating, complex character and I’m indebted to two great books for some of the tales:   “The Illustrated History of Women’s Golf” by the late Rhonda Glenn (foreword, concise and to the point, by Mickey Wright) and Liz Kahn’s entertaining and illuminating book “The LPGA:  The Unauthorised Version (with Liz it could have been nothing else), The History Of The Ladies Professional Golf Association”.

Trouble is, I open those books, start reading, become engrossed and forget that I need a good night’s sleep if I’m to be any use at all to my unfortunate bridge partner in the morning……

Finally, with thanks again to Wordsmith.org, I’ll leave you with this quote from Ralph Nader:  “The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.”