It’s only Sunday and, uncharacteristically, I’m already pondering my blog topic for the Friday that this missive will be posted.  I have a busy week coming up, you see, and a wee trip to Norn Iron to fit in, so time for blogging will be very short indeed.

I can hardly believe that next week will be the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.  I have to admit that having the men’s four majors crammed in to a twelve-week period doesn’t sit well with me.  In a mere nine days time that’ll be the meat of the season over for me as far as men’s golf is concerned – and nine months to wait until we once again get a peek behind the scenes at arguably the most exclusive club in the world, Augusta National, when they host the 2027 Masters.

And don’t get me started on the women’s majors!  There are five of them in total.  The last scheduled tournament on the LPGA tour was the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, the third of the five.  This week is the Amundi Evian Championship and in a couple of weeks  the AIG Women’s Open is at Lytham.  That’s three majors in a run of four tournaments – it’s just bonkers.  Scheduling gone awry in my opinion.

But back to Birkdale – always one of my favourite courses to play and commentate on.  There have been so many marvellous Open Championship moments there from Justin Rose’s scintillating fourth place finish in 1998, marking his swansong in the amateur game, to Jordan Spieth’s electrifying finish in 2017 of birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie, par which completely demoralised the hapless Matt Kuchar.

However, my all-time favourite, unsurprisingly, was the 2008 edition when Padraig Harrington retained the Claret Jug that he had swiped out from under the nose of Sergio Garcia the previous year at Carnoustie.  The genial Irishman arrived at the Lancashire venue nursing a wrist injury and his practice rounds consisted of walking round armed only with a notebook, a putter and a few golf balls.  I was allocated his group on the Thursday morning when he was off really early and we all arrived at the course not knowing if he was going to be able to tee it up.

Believe me when I tell you there were gale force winds blowing and it was hard enough navigating the links with a microphone never mind a set of clubs.  I think that played into Harrington’s hands as the entire field struggled, with knock-down, windcheating half-shots being the order of the day, thus giving the defending champion an extra day of not too much pressure being put on his balky wrist.  His opening round of four over par, 74, did not leave him too far adrift thanks to the conditions and no one could touch him over the ensuing 54 holes.  The standout shot, of course, was the five-wood into that horror of a 17th green that set up an eagle and, ultimately, a four-shot victory.

Royal Birkdale always provided a great test for the best women players as well and it was there that a Swedish superstar laid down a marker that led to an outstanding career which included five LPGA wins, sixteen Ladies’ European tour victories and eight Solheim Cup team appearances.

I’m talking about Sophie Gustafson’s win in 2000.  I played in that championship and remember Sophie being aghast at the thought of the prizegiving and having to deliver a winner’s speech.  She suffered from a chronic stammer and the thought of speaking in public at that time paralysed her with, not just fear, but abject terror.  She enlisted the help of her pal, the talented Italian professional Federica Dassu, to deliver her words for her, which greatly surprised the waiting galleries as Sophie’s speech difficulties weren’t widely known at that time in the UK.

Over the unfolding of her marvellous career Sophie ceased shying away from public speaking, even doing a long one-on-one television interview to show fellow sufferers what was possible.  Talk about the mantra of “face your fears and do it anyway.”  Sophie walked the walk – and more importantly, in this case, she talked the talk.

Fourteen years later the diminutive Mo Martin of the United States won her only major with one of the most spectacular of shots.  At the closing hole she hit the pin with her three wood second shot from some 240 yards away setting up a winning eagle.

“I could hear it hit the pin from the fairway,” she said. “That was a pretty fun feeling. I think I still need to be pinched.”

I remember the shot for two reasons.  Obviously, it was because it was a brilliant golf shot under the circumstances but there was another reason as well.  I was in the commentary box when that shot was on its way and we were viewing it from a camera from behind the green.  I could see the lone figure of a photographer fifty yards or so directly behind Mo with his lens trained on her as she took her shot.

It was the one and only Dave Cannon – one of the most famous golf photographers in the world.  Think of the iconic picture of Seve celebrating his 1984 Open win at St Andrews – that was Dave, always going the extra yard to get that one picture, that one winning moment that no one else would think of.  He was the only one of the snappers to capture this 2014 championship-winning shot and swing – the others were following Suzann Pettersen and Shanshan Feng who ultimately finished an hour later in joint second place, one shot behind.

Later on I asked Dave why he was where he was. He replied that after all the years of traipsing round at championships he had developed a very acute radar of where he felt he needed to be at pivotal moments.  Sometimes, he said, it didn’t pay off but more often than not it did.

How cool it was to watch simultaneously two people at the top of their games in two different professions.

I wonder what Royal Birkdale has in store for us this year.

 

 

I have a friend who plays an awful lot of golf – more than most professionals – and is always posting pictures asking, “Where are we today? ”  I never know – trees and lush green fairways all meld into one for me – but while I’m pondering, pointlessly, floundering really, other people dive in with their suggestions and there are one or two regulars who rarely get the answer wrong.

Now, one excuse for my ineptitude is that if I were to show you a photo of any of the 18 holes on Portstewart’s famous Strand course, you’d be hard pushed to spot anything remotely approaching a tree because they’re in very short supply along Ireland’s rugged north coast.  In fact, Dad, who was brought up playing at Rosses Point, another famous links, thought that trees did not belong on a golf course at all and, as ball-attracting magnets, should be banned.

Anyway, for the last few months they’ve been doing a lot of work on the Strand course (no tree planting as you can see above) and last Saturday, the club had the Grand Re-Opening, with the 16th, 17th and 18th back in play.  The 16th, which used to be called Plateau, has been changed so much that it needed a new name and all suggestions were welcome.

The winning entry, from Garry O’Neill and Michael Nicholl, was “The Hopley” and the story behind it is quite brilliant, so I have no hesitation in reproducing it here, in full, verbatim, from the club newsletter.

“The George A. Hopley was a magnificent 549-tonne square rigger built in Charleston, South Carolina, which was wrecked on Portstewart strand during a fierce gale on 7th July 1856 while sailing from Liverpool to Baltimore and onward to her home port in the United States.

“Her cargo included brandy, run, linen and fine china, much of which was quickly ‘liberated’ by locals after the wreck.  In an effort to evade customs and police large quantities of the cargo were buried in the surrounding sandhills, with local folklore claiming that more than 100 cartloads were hidden in this way. Some of the fine china is believed to have been used on the Strand Head house mosaic which can be seen from the 16th!

“For years afterwards locals were said to dress in their ‘Hopley suits’ and toast weddings and funerals with Hopley rum and brandy – a true Portstewart version of Whisky Galore.

“Our member Garry O’Neill’s great-grandfather Henry O’Neill organised the dramatic rescue of all 38 souls on board using his salmon fishing boat and crew from the local salmon station.

“The wreck itself still lies offshore and can occasionally be seen at dead low water.  If you stand in the centre of the 16th green and look towards Inishowen Head, the wreck site lies approximately 300 metres from the present shoreline along that line.  The large sandhill to the left of the 1st green is still known locally as Hopley Hill because it stands directly opposite the wreck site.

“The ship’s bell later come into the possession of the golf club and was used to sound the all-clear at the blind 2nd hole on the newly-opened Strand course around 1909.  Unfortunately, the original bell was borrowed and never returned.  Past captain and president Jock MacKenzie later donated a replica, which resided in the clubhouse for many years.

“Recently this bell has been absent without leave but has now been recovered and is undergoing a refurbishment awaiting its new permanent home.”

Well, what a brilliant tale, all of it new to me.  Fantastic.

You may be wondering where on earth the sea and the beach are, so I’ve rooted out a photo from the Irish Open at Portstewart in 2017, showing Tommy Fleetwood and partners striding off the 1st tee.

 

And it all looks even more magnificent when the sun is shining.

 

Living here in land-locked Lichfield, I suddenly felt in need of a fix of sea, complete with sun and sand.  Perfect.

The biggest golfing events are coming at us thick and fast but I’d like to mention the LET’s Jabra Ladies Open de France, a 54-hole tournament played at Evian Resort Golf and won by Helen Briem of Germany – by seven shots.  It was her second tour title and the 20-year old admitted that when she birdied the 11th, 12th and 14th in the final round, “It was easy from there on.”

Lydia Hall, of Wales, Sara Byrne, of Ireland and Shannon Tan, of Singapore shared second place.  It was Byrne’s best finish in her short time on tour and her first time in the final group, so she was happy and Hall laid some Evian demons to rest.

“This golf course has done the worst things to me mentally over I don’t know many years I’ve been coming here and last year I made the decision not to come here,” she said.

“This year, with a lot of mental work over the past three years with my psychologist, it was more coming into this week as a challenge mentally, to see if I could stay patient, play the golf I know I can play aggressively – and try and enjoy playing this golf course; accepting you’re going to get bad breaks and make bogeys; and stay in the moment…

“I’m really proud that I had a couple under par in the final round because I tend to slip away sometimes, which is very frustrating.  I’m just really pleased to stick in there…”

As we all know, whatever our level (have a peek at Scottie Scheffler’s frustrations in the first round at Muirfield Village) golf is and always has been a FOUR-LETTER WORD.

Happy swinging and don’t forget the deep breathing.

 

Scorchio.

Are you enjoying the weather at the moment?  Or is it all just too, too much?  After all, consecutive days in the 30s in May are not usual for us here in the UK and Ireland.  I wonder have you altered your usual mode of going so that you can “get things done” before the heat of the day?

Boy, it reminds me of playing the Asian tour back in the nineties and using those special umbrellas that reflected the heat back away from you.  We, the players, all carried those while the poor caddies laboured under the weight of golf bags laden with several litre-bottles of water.  After each set of three holes each unopened bottle was swapped for one directly out of the fridges at the handily-placed refreshment huts – so there was an unending supply of cool, refreshing liquid.

We were normally out in Asia in February and perhaps a bit of March and the tour took us from Taiwan (now Chinese Taipei) to Thailand to the Philippines and Indonesia.  Generally, it was considered too hot for us to be safely on the course in the heat of the day so it was as if time had slipped and our working/waking hours changed drastically.

Alarm clocks were set for just after 3am with our transport from the hotel departing at around 4am.  Normally we had at least an hour’s travel to the course – and as you can imagine there wasn’t much chat on the coach at that hour of the day.  We arrived at the course in the dark, had breakfast and were able to hit the range just as the sun was coming up.  The first tee-off time was 6.30 and I seem to recall us all being off the course and back on the coach around 2pm or so.

We’d roll back to the hotel roughly twelve hours after we had left it.  This was in the days when, on this tour, it was mandatory for the players to all stay in the tournament hotel and use the official transport – it was considered safer to do so.  It did, however, make for very long days indeed, because if your tee time was, say, 9.30am, you still had to be on that bus that arrived at the course just after 5ish.

By the time 7pm rolled around you were bushed, searching for dinner and bed in very quick order.  It really was a strange existence shifting our waking and working hours to the 3am to 8pm timeframe.  Don’t get me wrong, we were very grateful for the tournaments but we did have a lot to contend with in those early days – apart from the awkward timings, travel and different food, that is.

I remember playing in Manila and I was drawn with a Japanese player who spoke no English and of course, I spoke no Japanese.  Neither caddy spoke English and we were a two-ball as the third member of our group withdrew because she was ill.  I had the habit of putting my identifying mark on my golf balls on the 1st tee and I always put one dot in a specific place on the first ball I was going to use.  I would always give my caddy a ball to keep handy in case of a need to reload or, indeed, play a provisional.  That ball would have two dots on it to distinguish it from ball number one.  (I always played the same number.)

Anyway, on this occasion I knocked the ball on in two at the par 4 1st hole, marked the ball and handed it to my caddy to clean.  A couple of putts later and I had a nice opening par under my belt, as had my Japanese partner who maintained the honour from the 1st.  It was inevitable that as a two-ball, in amongst a load of threes, we would be waiting all day – and so it proved.

As we were waiting on the next tee for the group ahead to get out of the way I looked at the ball in my hand and my heart stopped as I saw two dots on the ball.  I realised instantly what had happened.  I had given the ball to my caddy to clean and she had handed me the other ball which she was keeping in the pocket of her caddy bib.  That was going to mean I had a two-shot penalty for playing the wrong ball and I’d have to return to the green to the point from which I had putted, replace the correct ball and proceed from there.  Try explaining that to a trio of non-English speakers who couldn’t understand why on earth I wanted to retrace my steps to the 1st green!

Eventually, a referee arrived who did speak English and confirmed what I already knew and a six was entered on my scorecard after I had returned to the green and re-putted.  It was my own fault but my little Filipina caddy didn’t meet my eye for a few holes.  Finally, she took a deep breath, drew herself up to her full five feet, and in very broken English said, “So sorry, Miss Mo.”

I tried to reassure her by gesture that I wasn’t blaming her and so we continued on with the round.  As chance would have it the referee who had come out to confirm the ruling was doing a stint in the recorder’s office when I arrived to sign my card.  When the clerking was all done she complimented me on how nice I had been to my caddy.

I said, well, it was ultimately the player’s responsibility to which she responded, “Yes, you’re right, but so many players use a particular ball for putting that she would be used to handing over the “putting ball”.  I couldn’t believe my ears and asked was that common amongst the Asian players to which she responded with a cheerful affirmative.

Did I kick off about the unfairness that at least a third of the field were merrily doing what I had mistakenly done and yet they weren’t being penalised?

No, I didn’t – I sucked it up and got on with it – two wrongs don’t make a right.

And anyway, a bit like this week, it was far, far too hot.

Scorchio, in fact.

It’s been a different sort of week with a quick little trip back to the homeland, – not for golf-related things, but to attend the North West 200, one of the world’s great motorbike road races.  I haven’t been to the North West, as it is called, since my student days and the race course is slightly different from then but it’s as thrilling and bonkers as ever.  My better half was, of course, in seventh heaven, albeit a little cross with me that it has taken me twenty-plus years to organise this trip. All other jaunts were heavily weighted in the direction of golf, you see – and well, the dates never really suited.

Despite forecasts of rain the weather was predominantly sunny, but chillingly cold, rarely staggering up to double figures Centigrade.  With the bikes reaching speeds of up to 212mph there’s no earthly use positioning yourself on a straight bit of the circuit, so we sensibly tucked ourselves in at selected hairpins and got a first-class view.  Only then could you begin to appreciate the incredible skill level of the riders – and their fearlessness.  It’s a potent mix to witness.

I did manage to pop in to Portstewart golf club, my old stomping ground and found the members relieved and pleased that recent renovations to the two courses are coming to an end.  There’s still some work on the practice ground to be completed but it looks like it’s well on the way.  The 16th hole on the Strand course has been altered and the distinctive plateau that gave the hole its name is no more, therefore a request has gone out for suggestions for a new name.  I decided I’d put in my two pennies worth.

My suggestion for the new name is “Red Sails” as in the “Red Sails in the Sunset” song.

The well-known Irish lyricist Jimmy Kennedy was inspired by the sight of the yacht “Kitty of Coleraine” with her red sails out in the bay off Portstewart strand and penned the words to the famous song.  You can just see a portion of the bay in the poster to the left of the clubhouse.   The song has subsequently been covered by numerous well known artists including Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Fats Domino and Dean Martin.  You can see this bay as you play up towards the green.

So, that’s my modest submission but I did rather like the idea of another member – “Thank God, we’re almost finished.”  Possibly a tad too long and potentially tricky for the printing of the scorecards, I fear.  It’s a pity Patricia wasn’t with us – she has a great knack for coming up with just the right name or phrase on these occasions.

We got back home on Sunday just in time for me to settle down to see if the Alex Fitzpatrick fairy tale was set to continue.  He had a one stroke lead going into the final round of the Truist Championship at Quail Hollow in Charlotte but lots of contenders were snapping and snarling at his heels.

He fought hard but a late double bogey at the 17th ultimately put paid to his chances and he finished solo fourth, “settling” for a cheque of $960,000.  As he left the final green his Mum and Dad were there to congratulate him with sage advice – “Don’t forget to sign your card.”  Can’t imagine they’d have felt the need to say that to older brother, Matt.

The last twelve rounds of golf have yielded Alex a tad over $2.8 million and it’s fair to say his life has changed beyond recognition.  He now has a two-year exemption on the PGA tour, he’s eligible for the limited field, big money events and he’s teeing it up this week at Aronimink in the men’s second major, the PGA Championship.

The only time I’ve met Alex was when in the company of former Curtis Cup player Maureen Richmond (nee Walker).  The week before the 2023 Open Championship Mo and I had arranged to walk the course at Hoylake.  I was on commentating duty and Mo, a long-time member was kindly giving me the benefit of her extensive inside knowledge.

Alex and his caddy arrived on the first tee at exactly the same time as us and Mo and Alex soon renewed their acquaintance from the 2019 Walker Cup which had been held at the club to celebrate its 15oth year.  Mo had been lady captain and Alex was making the first of his two appearances for the GB&I Walker Cup team.  He was outgoing, friendly and charming and here he was, four years later, back at Hoylake to tee it up in his first major.  I’ll be watching him closely this week in this, his second major, as he rides this incredible streak of results – and I will be hoping he doesn’t wake up any time soon.

Kudos, too, to Kristoffer Reitan (picture at top), from Oslo who won the Truist Championship, a signature event, on his 15th start on the PGA tour.  Eighteen months ago he was on the HotelPlanner tour, the second tier of the DP World tour.  Now the world is his oyster as he follows in the footsteps of close friend Viktor Hovland in becoming the second Norwegian to win on the toughest tour in the world.

Like Fitzpatrick he will be making his debut this week in the PGA Championship and thus will complete the goal of teeing it up in all four majors.  He made his Masters debut last month and his first appearance at the Open was in 2025 but you’ve to go all the way back to 2018 when he was still an amateur to find his name on the start sheet for a US Open.  He qualified at Walton Heath and so became the first Norwegian to play in that championship – one of the few times he’s beaten Viktor to anything.

It’ll be interesting watching how these young Europeans fare this week, but don’t forget we’re on Grand Slam watch with Jordan Spieth who “only” needs this title to complete the set.

Oh, and, of course, there’s Rory, Xander, Scottie, Tommy, Cam, Rosey, Bobby Mac et al………….

Should be quite a watch.