I’m feeling very cross.

This is 2018 and we’re in the middle of Major season in golf.  Three weeks ago the first US Senior Women’s Open was held at Chicago Golf Club and Dame Laura Davies put on a peerless display winning by ten shots.  A couple of weeks ago we were enthralled by Francesco Molinari at Carnoustie.  Last week we saw Tom Watson shooting his age round the Old Course at St Andrews in the men’s Senior British Open and this week I’m at Royal Lytham & St Annes for the Ricoh Women’s British Open, the fourth of the women’s five majors in the game.  So, why am I cross?

It was impossible to see any coverage of Laura’s win – I certainly didn’t find any – and if you cannot come to Lytham, and do not have a Sky Sports package, the only sight you will have of the world’s best women golfers this week is a paltry hour on the BBC, squeezed in either side of midnight.  Disappointed doesn’t begin to cover it.

Then I picked up the September 2018 issue of Golf World magazine.  There are 130 pages of informed, interesting and well researched pieces on golf.  Two pages are on women’s golf – TWO!  There is a huge section to help us all improve our games with tips and advice from 14 different professionals.  How many female professionals are featured?  You guessed it – none.  And not a single article written by a woman either.  I thought the clue was in the title – Golf World.  Aren’t women part of the world?  It’s really just Golf for Men, isn’t it?

All this is taking place at a time when the R&A have announced a Women in Golf Charter, stating their joint ambition with other members of the golf industry is to increase the numbers of women playing and working in the game.  Quite how that fits in with having no golf on terrestrial television is a puzzle to me.  Martin Slumbers, chief executive of the R&A,  is driving the initiative and promises “measures designed to achieve positive change”.  They are planning to increase “overall investment in women’s, girls’ and mixed golf to £80 million over the next ten years”.

Then, last week, a Gender Equality Summit kicked off proceedings at the Ladies’ Scottish Open and Martin Gilbert, CEO Aberdeen Standard Investments and title sponsor of the tournament, was fulsome in his support, saying his company was “keen to see as much equality in sport as we can”.

This is all good news and hopefully not just all talk, yet when I look around me at our golf clubs, our TV coverage, our print journalism, I feel discouraged.  Golf is so heavily stacked towards a white male demography and does not for one moment reflect the world we live in.  The women’s game is not boring, it’s not inferior to the men’s and it is at least as entertaining.  It is bursting with fabulous role models for us all.

On the plus side I was hugely cheered to learn this week about initiatives from England Golf and Irish Ladies’ Golf entitled Women and Girls’ Golf Week 2018 which celebrates females of all ages and their involvement in the sport.  We can read inspiring stories of career women and volunteers and each day a new topic is covered culminating with a round-up on Sunday, the day the next Ricoh Women’s British Open Champion will be crowned.  Go to the respective websites – englandgolf.org, golfnet.ie, ricohwomensbritishopen.com – and be inspired.

All this makes me realise how imperative it is for women’s golf to have more support from within the industry.  We need more of the shakers and movers within the game shining a light on women in golf and giving our professional athletes the platform they deserve.  More exposure will generate more interest and subsequent increased female participation at grass roots level can guide our sport to being more family friendly with all the attendant social and health benefits. The game needs to be grown from the top down as well as from the bottom up.  These decision makers who are ignoring women’s golf and keeping our profile virtually non-existent wouldn’t get away with this behaviour in the boardroom nowadays.

I learned ten days ago that a three-time Solheim Cup player recently received a request from a club manufacturer to return the product that she wasn’t using.  I could scarcely believe my ears!    Could you imagine that request going to a three-time Ryder Cupper?  Of course not!  There really should be no place for these discriminatory practices that are still all around us.  Women are no longer willing to be second-class citizens and that goes for us golfers too.

There’s still a huge mountain to climb, I’m afraid, but, crampons on, ice picks in hand, we’ll keep on going.

 

I was speaking to a friend yesterday, a golfer and that rare being, a daily reader of a newspaper, the journal that used to be known as the thunderer.  “Did you see that Ernie Els’s nephew won the Amateur Championship?” sez I.  “No,” sez he.  “Oh,” sez I.  “It was up at Royal Aberdeen and Murcar.”

So, if there had been a mention of Jovan Rebula’s victory, it must have been in the small print because my mate doesn’t miss much golf, even though he’s more hooked on the cricket.  I saw a bit of the 123rd Amateur on Sky early in the week when it was blowing a hooley and the commentator described winds that were gusting up to 40 mph as “a strong breeze”.  He obviously came from Dad’s school of Beaufort assessment, refusing to categorise a hurricane as anything other than “a bit of a zephyr; hardly blowing at all”.

In the final, over 36 holes, Rebula, aged 20, defeated Tramore’s Robin Dawson by 3 and 2, to become the first South African to win the title since Bobby Cole way back in 1966, at Carnoustie.  In that final (over 18 holes) Cole defeated Scotland and Duddingston’s  RDBM (Ronnie) Shade, the man whose multiple initials and accuracy off the tee meant he was universally known as Right Down the Bloody Middle.  Cole, who later married Laura Baugh, the glamour girl of American golf, with whom he had seven children, came within touching distance of completing a magical double when he finished third in the Open Championship at Carnoustie in 1975.

In that championship, Cole had two successive rounds of 66 but in the final round, when the wind blew a little, he had a 76, to finish alongside Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller on 280, one stroke behind Tom Watson and Jack Newton.  In the play-off, Watson had a 71 to Newton’s 72, to win the first of his five Open titles.

So Rebula, who earned exemptions into the Open at Carnoustie next month, the Masters next year and the 2019 US Open at Pebble Beach (providing he remains an amateur), knows that his predecessors, whether related or not, have set the highest of standards.  At least uncle Ernie, who’s won the Open twice, never held the Amateur trophy aloft.

It’s the time of year when championships are coming thick and fast, everywhere you look.  This week, to mention just a few of the big ones, it’s the Ladies’ British Open Amateur at Hillside, the lovely links adjoining Royal Birkdale; there’s the third women’s major of the season, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Kemper Lakes, near Chicago; and the old codgers, sorry, the ever-competitive members of the flourishing pension fund that is the Champions Tour, are competing in the US Senior Open at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.  That’s where Annika Sorenstam won her first US Women’s Open, way back in 1995, the start of a long and illustrious career.  It was her first win on the LPGA Tour, although she’d won the Australian Open, her first victory as a professional, at the end of 1994.

I was there at The Broadmoor and beautiful though the place is, I’m not sure I’ve been going to the gym long enough to cope with the heat they seem to be having this week.  I’m having enough trouble with our heat here at sea level, let alone in the thinner air of Colorado, about 6000 feet up if I remember rightly.  On Tuesday we had our Ladies Open Team Alliance at Whittington Heath, which was at its dry, fast-running, bouncy, unpredictable summer best.  Operating on the famous Pammy Principle (named after the inimitable golfing guru and motivator Pamela Saunders) that when there are two scores from four to count you need to average five points a hole to be in with a chance, we were doing ok with 44 points after nine holes.

Trouble was when we stopped for a cuppa at the halfway house, we realised we were ready to go in!  Phew what a scorcher!  Anyway, I doused my hat with water, my teammates topped up the water bottles, rooted out the bananas and on we went.  Five points at the 10th, same at the 11th, then the wheels came off and we limped home with 31 points, well off the pace, knackered.

The winners had 85 points and although one of their number was a young thing, two of them were in their 80s, totalling 164 years between them.  All hail to Margaret Hogarth, Ivy Smith, Jayne Fletcher and Helen Robson.  They’re obviously made of stern stuff and adhere to the Gary Player Dictum that age is only a number – though one of my recent birthday cards had a bit of a bitter take on that supposedly optimistic, life-embracing saying……

Congratulations are also in order to WHGC’s peripatetic Sue Spencer, who is doing that good wine thing of getting better as she gets older.  She finished 4th, six shots behind the champ Helen Lane of Scraptoft, in the English Senior Women’s Open Amateur Stroke Play at Belton Park GC in Lincolnshire.  I’d have a pic of Spenny here but I forgot to ask Tim, her husband, caddy and official photographer, for a decent snap, so it’s a great excuse to use what I think must be the pinnacle of a presentation pic, loud, proud, even, dare I say, a trifle garish.  There’s certainly nothing wishy-washy about it and it also gives us time to practise a name that we might be coming across a few times over the next few years:  Kanyalak Preedasuttijit.

She’s the young Thai who won the Ladies European Thailand Championship at Phoenix Gold Golf and Country Club in Pattaya last Sunday.  As well as the splendid trophy she earned 45,000 Euro and, even better, an exemption into the Ricoh Women’s British Open at Royal Lytham and St Annes and the Evian Championship at Evian-les-Bains on the shores of Lake Geneva.

Finally, a quick note to say that the featured picture at the top of the piece is just to introduce Alice, who is 10 weeks old and has come to live in Lichfield, where she’ll soon be joining the dogs and their walkers in Beacon Park.  I had the tricky job of looking after her on Wednesday as she settled in and got used to her new surroundings…..Tough gig, as you can see.

 

 

 

 

 

Writing this blog every week requires rare commitment, dedication and professionalism, as Mo will tell you – and more often than not a dose of The Proclaimers at full blast.  In this corner those qualities are proving rarer than ever after a day at the races, supping champagne in the sun and losing money on Gold Cup day at Royal Ascot.  The glad rags were rooted out, the hats recovered from their boxes in the attic, the Prada sandals, a little careworn now but still my most impressive footwear, removed reverentially from their bag.

Those sandals have been a lifesaver ever since I bought them in a sale goodness knows how many years ago.  I was meeting Dai in London and was early for once, so filled in time by browsing in Selfridges, where I gravitated to the shoe department, thinking I’d be safe with my big, slightly misshapen feet.  I rarely ever look at anything Italian because it’s too depressing.  They don’t do big people.  However, by some miracle I found an exception to this rule and not only did the sandals fit, they were so comfortable that even I could walk in them.  I looked at the price tag and hesitated – but not for long.  After all, if questioned, I could honestly say I’d bought them in a sale and I’m pretty sure Dai wouldn’t have known his Prada from his Primark.

Those shoes repaid me countless times.  From the moment I bought them I packed them first in the bottom of my bag, alongside the waterproofs and the thermal underwear.  Every time I wore them, whatever else I had on, I felt a million dollars; whatever the do, however grand the company, I stood taller – unless I was sinking into a lawn or catching a heel in ill-designed decking.  Minor mishaps in a lifetime of service.  Mille grazie Milano.

I should add that my Ascot day took place in Staffordshire, with friends just up the road from home and it was brill.  We were regally fed and watered and repaired to the gorgeous garden between races and I think my losses amounted to a mere £3, despite my picks being unplaced in all but the first race.  That’s when I made the sensible decision to plump for the combo of Ryan Moore and Aidan O’Brien but even they’re not infallible and came in a valiant 3rd.  Carrying my money is not a recipe for success and I now only bet on a golfer if I want him to miss the cut – which in practice means I don’t bet at all on golf because even I’m not that mean-spirited.

There are two golfers I’d like to mention this week.  Not the now double US Open champ Brooks Koepka (still known as Bruce to my computer if left to its own devices); not the would-be US Open champ Phil Mickelson, who made one of the worst decisions of his golfing life at Shinnecock Hills (see Maureen’s post for more details); not Susan Sims, the in-form Scot who had a nett 66 to win WHGC’s Centenary Trophy by miles on Tuesday; not even Leona Maguire, who’s making an encouraging start to her professional career; nor Sara Byrne, of Douglas, who won the Irish Women’s Amateur Close title in brutal weather at Enniscrone, emulating her club mate Eavan Higgins, who won the title 25 years ago (seems like only yesterday to some of us Eavan!)

No, I’m giving pride of place to Tom Alford and Peter Thomson.  Tom, 17, a member at Branston Golf and Country Club (and Whittington Heath), won the Staffordshire Boys’ Championship at Barlaston last Sunday by 12 shots with rounds of 67 and 69.  He gets a mention because I was playing a club match against his mother Carol at the time (his sister Rachel Emma was also playing and the youthfulness of the Branston team made us Heathens feel pretty ancient but I digress).  The match, a scratch B affair, ended in an honourable draw 2 1/2 – 2 1/2 and we toasted Tom’s success in tea and G and T.

Peter, 88, who died at home in Melbourne earlier this week, was a lovely, generous, erudite man who gave Australians – and golfers – a good name.  He won the Open Championship five times – only Harry Vardon has won it more often – in 1954, 1955, 1956, 1958 and 1965.  No, I have not mis-typed, that’s three years in a row, four years out of five – and in 1957, at St Andrews, he was runner-up, three strokes behind Bobby Locke.  That was the year that Locke marked his ball on the last green and mistakenly put it back in the wrong place.

Peter Thomson won the claret jug for the first time at Royal Birkdale and that same year Doug Bachli, a fellow member of Victoria, one of Melbourne’s famed sandbelt courses, won the Amateur Championship.  Apparently no one thought to commemorate that outstanding achievement by taking a photograph of the two men together with their trophies!  They’re sometimes a laid-back lot these Aussies.

Ben Hogan won the Open at Carnoustie in 1953 – Thomson shared second place, four strokes behind, with Dai Rees, Antonio Cerda and Frank Stranahan, an amateur – but in the 1950s the Americans were mostly conspicuous by their absence and tended to downplay Thomson’s dominance.   They had to revise their opinion when he won at Birkdale again, in 1965, with Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tony Lema, the defending champion, in the field.

In The Guardian Pat Ward-Thomas wrote:  [Thomson]….achieved the supreme performance of his golfing lifetime……His total of 285 (74, 68, 72, 71) was two strokes ahead of [Brian] Huggett and [Christy] O’Connor who sustained a magnificent challenge to the very end, while all the great Americans, save Lema, were nowhere…….It was a surpassing triumph for one of the purest swings that golf has ever known, a technique that has few peers in British conditions, a remarkable golfing intelligence, an assurance and composure of manner that have become such a familiar part of the golfing scene in this land for a decade and more….”

The game was his life but there was a lot more to Peter than just golf and it’s worth reading the obits to get a sense of his influence, not just in Australia but all over Asia.

“I had a very joyful time,” he said, “playing a game that I loved for the sheer pleasure of it.  I don’t think I did a real day’s work in the whole of my life.”

That’s the beauty of doing something you love for a living.  It never feels like work.

Talking of joy and fun, if you’re in Lichfield this morning, come and sing with the Social Singers in the precinct from 1030-1200.  The programme includes classics like How Much Is That Doggie, Oklahoma and, heaven help me, Swing Low (in my defence, it didn’t start life as England’s rugby anthem).

The season’s now in full swing for just about every golfer, no matter the standard, age or gender.  My old colleague on tour, Laura Davies, has been busy making history in Denmark by becoming the first woman to play in a men’s European Seniors Tour event.  She finished 44th, beating Jose Maria Olazabal, Costantino Rocca, Gordon J Brand and Philip Walton, all of them former Ryder Cuppers.  Fierce competitors as they all are, that must have smarted.

The competition was no less fierce at The Spire Trophy, an annual event held at the incomparable Castle Stuart Golf Links which, for the uninitiated, is situated five miles from Inverness, overlooking the Moray Firth.  The match was the brainchild of Simon Chapman, a stalwart of Walton Heath Golf Club in Surrey and Stuart McColm, the general manager of Castle Stuart.  Simon captains the visitors’ team, the Sassenachs and I was thrilled to be invited to play for the home team this year.  Actually going to an airport with my golf clubs brought back memories of those faraway days of tournament golf.  I must have got a little over excited because on the Friday I took full advantage of the superb practice facilities with Gillian Stewart who is the resident imparter of golfing wisdom.  The shock of this unaccustomed practice was too much for my system with my back locking up completely so I was unable to play at all on the first day.

I did walk a few holes, however, and was delighted to catch up with former Scotland international Sally Watson, who after four years of professional golf has decided to return to her studies to pursue a Masters degree in Business Administration in Chicago.  She starts her internship in a few weeks but rusty as she may have been, she still swings it impressively.

 

The match was 20-a-side with fourballs on day one and foursomes on day two.  I did manage to play on the second day and was carried round for the most part by my very able partner Jack Bonner, from Myrtle Beach.  We were doing OK – 2 up with 3 to go – but were reeled in by the combined expertise of the London legal duo, Darren Almeida and Alastair Hodge, who won the 16th and 18th to halve the match.  Overall, the trophy slipped neatly from the home team’s (the holders) grasp to that of the Sassenachs and our team captain Grant Sword dutifully tried to paste on a bit of a smile as he handed over the magnificent trophy.

Next stop during the week was another of my favourite places, Royal Porthcawl, for a sporadic yet regular fourball match with three illustrious members.  Pam Chugg, former tournament professional and founder member of the Ladies’ European Tour as well as former chairman of the Ladies’ Golf Union, has very current skills, however, as regards playing the game.  She is partnered by our long-standing friend Tink Graham while my partner in crime is Emer Disley.  This means the match neatly falls into a Wales vs Ireland contest but it was a one-sided affair on this occasion as we were no match for the seven birdies our opponents had in the first 14 holes.  [Obscene:  ed]

Alongside this classy golf there was also the little matter this past week of the US Women’s Open.  The championship admirably splashed its way to an enthralling finish despite the atrocious conditions and serious amounts of rainfall.  Ariya Jutanugarn, winner of the Ricoh Women’s British Open at Woburn in 2016, looked home and dry (figuratively speaking) with a 7-shot lead with only 9 holes to play.  A triple at the 10th and a bogey, bogey finish, coupled with a closing 67 by South Korea’s Hyo Joo Kim, meant the new two hole play-off format would come into play for the first time.  It took until the fourth extra hole before Ariya prevailed, doubling her tally of majors.

Further serious stuff is on the horizon, with the men’s US Open, the second of their four majors, due to start next Thursday at Shinnecock Hills on Long Island, New York.  More than half the field has to qualify through sectional qualifiers and for former Masters champion Adam Scott, World Golf Championship winner Shane Lowry and former PGA champion Keegan Bradley the challenge of the 36-hole qualifier was not something any of them relished.  This trio was all successful but Bradley summed up the whole experience,  “It’s awful, really awful.  It’s humbling.  We get treated so well on Tour, and you can kind of forget what maybe minitour life was like or even Web.com.  This is a reminder of how hard you’ve got to work to be out there on the Tour.”  I shall look forward to seeing them all in action next week in person.

Finally, enormous luck to Elaine Farquharson-Black, who tweeted out the picture below, and her GB&I team who begin the defence of the Curtis Cup today at Quaker Ridge Golf Club against the United States.  More of the same from Dun Laoghaire two years ago please.