It’s the morning after the Sunday of the AIG Women’s Open as I write this and I can’t help but wonder how on earth Lydia Ko is feeling as she opens her eyes and remembers she has just won a major round the Old Course at St Andrews.

It’s been a  fairytale fortnight for the Kiwi with a gold medal-winning performance at the Olympics in Paris and now this, her third major title coming more than eight years after her last.  She described these past few weeks as “Cinderella-like” which should serve as a reminder to us all that Cinderella spent a lot of time unseen and unappreciated, methodically working through her chores with no reward.

Hard work and persistence do get rewarded in the end in all good fairytales, however, and Lydia has navigated the difficult waters of unprecedented early success (she was the youngest-ever world No 1 at a mere seventeen years of age) followed by a relatively barren period with no majors to her name.  Her resilience, perseverance and steadfastness then enabled the slow steady climb to the realisation of all her dreams – that Olympic gold, entry into the LPGA Hall of Fame and her third major.

The firsts keep coming for her – she’s the first New Zealander to win the Women’s Open;  the first player to win both the Smyth Salver for the low amateur, which she did in 2013, and then the title itself at the same venue, in this case on arguably the most famous course in the world.  And she’ll be the first champion to defend her title in Wales, which she will do next year when the championship moves to glorious Royal Porthcawl.  It’ll be Lydia’s first time to visit Wales as well, which she is looking forward to, and all this chat reassures me that her retirement from the game may be slightly further away than I previously thought.  Thank goodness for that.  She’s very special and the longer she graces the fairways of this world the better our game will be.

The winner of the aforementioned Smyth Salver, which is presented to the low amateur each year, was England’s Lottie Woad.  What a thrilling moment for her to stand beside Lydia at the prize presentation and realise that eleven years ago Lydia was receiving that very same salver.  Lottie must be hoping and thinking that she has what it takes to win the big prize sometime in the next decade or so.

At 20 years of age she is already building her own impressive resume.  In April of this year she was the first European to win the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and now she has snared the low amateur prize on another storied venue.  Lottie entered the final round five shots ahead of her nearest challenger, Spain’s Julia Lopez Ramirez, which you may have thought would provide her with a comfortable day.  Not so.  Out several hours ahead of Lottie, Julia must have frightened the life out of the Englishwoman when she birdied five out of her first ten holes.  The difficult, swirling conditions on the back nine derailed the Spanish challenge and Lotte took the salver by four shots, signing off at the last with a birdie and a creditable tied tenth finish in a major.

So, now it’s on to the Curtis Cup for Lottie…..and for this humble blog and many of its friends.

Over the course of the last week the two teams contesting the Cup have descended on the wonderful heathland venue that is Sunningdale and on the day this blog is posted Lottie will proudly lead out her Great Britain and Ireland teammates in the greatest women’s amateur golf event of them all.

Past players from both sides of the Atlantic are present, relishing their reunion and reaffirming friendships made way back when.  There have been friendly contests – the Supporters’ Saucer and the Past Players’ match;  there have been lunches and dinners and drinks receptions and lots of chat, reminiscing and catching up.

Hopefully, the following snaps will give a flavour of proceedings so far.

 

The week is already a colossal success from the point of view of us oldies and watching the skill and athletic play of the two teams, always a joy and a delight, is still ahead of us.  What a privilege to be even a small part of it all.

 

 

I know where I wish to visit next and which golf course I’d like to play.  Yes, it’s time to think of hitting the M6 and going north again to Scotland, this time to the Kingdom of Fife and Dumbarnie Links.

Dumbarnie Links, a handful of miles from St Andrews, near Leven, has been open for a whole 14 months so must surely qualify as the UK’s newest links course.  It looks like it’s been there for years and last week it played host to the Trust Golf Women’s Scottish Open. The television pictures really did paint a thousand words and it was certainly to the liking of 34-year old American Ryann O’Toole, who won for the first time in her professional career.  A co-sanctioned Ladies’ European Tour (LET) and Ladies’ Professional Golf Association (LPGA) event, it was O’Toole’s 228th start as an LPGA Tour player but the first time she had led after 54 holes and only the second time time she’d played in the final group in the final round.

We get accustomed to seeing a smiling face and tears of joy on a Sunday at the end of a tournament but very nearly all of these players have an interesting backstory.  Ryann’s first year on tour was 2011 when she was plucked from relative obscurity by Rosie Jones, the US Solheim Cup team captain, who awarded her one of her captain’s picks.  Even the Americans didn’t know this rookie.  It looked like they’d found a potential regular in the side when she played in four out of the five matches, recording two wins and two halves.  Her half in the singles cut deep however.  When bad weather led to a suspension of play the American was two up and two to go on Europe’s Caroline Hedwall.  When play resumed Europe won the closing two holes and halved that match, ultimately winning the trophy by the slenderest of margins.  It was a long time before we heard of Ryann O’Toole again.

The intervening years saw her lose her card, fight back and change coaches and it was when she started to work with the uber-talented Jorge Parada in 2014 that she felt she could turn things around.  Her final round of 64 on Sunday was as close to flawless as it is possible to be and despite admitting she’d been very nervous on the Saturday evening there was no trace of that the next day.  She even stopped to pat a spectating dog on her way to the 72nd tee.

A closing par and a cosy three-shot victory was achieved and then followed a winner’s speech as eloquent as her golf had been elegant.  The last decade, the hours spent practising, the grind, the constant travel were all worth it, she said, “for this moment”.

The instant she finished she FaceTimed her Mum, who had been nervously watching at home back in California.  I’m not sure Mother O’Toole was awfully impressed with a Scottish links, declaring that Ryann looked like she’d “been playing on the moon!”  Just wait, Mum, until you see Carnoustie!

Ah, Carnoustie – often considered the most ferocious, the most unforgiving of all major championship venues.  This week it’s the test that faces the women in the AIG Women’s Open, the last of the five majors in the annual female golf calendar.  Someone will have gone to bed two nights ago little realising they are about to follow in the footsteps of the greats.

Fair to say, it’s a pretty exclusive club, including Ben Hogan, who won in 1953, his only appearance in the Open, Gary Player who won in 1968 and in 1975 it was Tom Watson winning on his Open debut, beating Jack Newton in the 18-hole play-off. Almost a quarter of a century later, in 1999, Paul Lawrie realised every little Scottish boy’s dream, winning the greatest prize of all on home turf.  Padraig Harrington opened the floodgates to Irish major championship success with his extra holes win over Sergio Garcia in 2007 and in 2011 it was the incomparable Yani Tseng who stormed to victory, successfully defending her Women’s Open title procured the previous year at Royal Birkdale.  Finally, 2018 saw Francesco Molinari hold off Tiger Woods, amongst others, to etch his name on the oldest trophy in the world, the first Italian to do so.

Carnoustie is not for the faint-hearted and it is more than fitting that the best women players in the world get to tee it up at one of the most exacting venues.  It gives credibility to the women’s game and it gives a fitting stage to these athletes.  Cool, drizzly weather with a bit of a breeze is the forecast – foreign conditions indeed for many of the LPGA players accustomed to following the sun.

And for anxious Mums watching on from California it might just look exactly like the players are on the moon.

Well, chalk one up for the oldies!  What an amazing win of Phil Mickelson’s at Kiawah Island’s Ocean course!

If you’re at a loss as to what I’m talking about you need to get out more.  Phil Mickelson won his sixth major and his second US PGA Championship at the weekend, thus becoming the oldest man to hoist one of the major trophies.  He’s a handful of days away from his 51st birthday but he triumphed over a field of world-class players many of whom are half his age.

I have to confess I didn’t think he’d do it – I suspected he would falter and be run over by legions of players passing him as his normal, all-out-attack game started to explore the outer reaches of Pete Dye’s daunting creation.  Not a bit of it!  This was uber-cool Phil, hidden away behind the dark shades and dressed daily in mostly dark colours like a gunslinger in the wild west.

He hadn’t been in contention in a major since that phenomenal 2016 Open Championship shoot-out with Henrik Stenson which the latter won for his finest moment in the game.  Five years removed from that kind of pressure is a long time in sport and, familiar though it may be, it isn’t a given you can conjure up the resilience of your younger self and produce your best under the most exacting conditions.

But Phil had trained himself for this moment.  In the last few years he has worked harder physically so as to be able to practise longer.  He identified and dealt with the problem of a lack of focus by taking up meditation and playing more holes – often 36 and sometimes 45 – to help improve his ability to concentrate and think clearly over a longer period of time.  Being physically and mentally sharper helped him deal with everything a major throws at you and although he was always recognisable as the Mickelson we’ve known for years there was an added dimension to him last week as well.

Even a last-minute glitch on Sunday didn’t derail him.  With his last full shot on the practice range he cracked the face of his much-loved 1-iron and Tim had to scurry off to put a replacement in the bag, a 4-wood, a club he hadn’t used all week.  That would have unsettled most players but Phil never faltered.

He maintained his composure; he was never flustered; the rhythm of his golf swing was exceptional; his walk was measured and unhurried even when he was threatened with being overrun by a tsunami of adoring fans down the last fairway; he was fully in control of all the controllables – his emotions, his thinking, his choices, his decisions.  That is the epitome of being on top of your game.  Mastery of these skills allowed him to access his best physical and technical performance and in this instance that was good enough to see off the opposition.

Over the years I’ve had ample opportunity to walk with Mickelson, commentate on his golf and interview him afterwards.  When I first started working in the States some 15 years ago, he wasn’t a particular favourite of mine – too cheesy, I thought.  A little too superficial, perhaps.

It didn’t take long for my ill-judged and preconceived notions to be blown out of the water.  Phil was consistent in his behaviour time after time.  Whenever he came to do his media work, he would accord each question due consideration and answer to the best of his ability.  If he had messed up the final few holes of a round and lost his cool, he would send Jim “Bones” McKay, his caddy, out from the recorder’s office for a sandwich and he’d remain in there having his lunch and waiting till he’d regained his cool.  Only then would he come out to do interviews and answer the questions of the media.

It was a very professional approach and he managed it marvellously for the majority of his career.

Where he really excelled, however, was with his interaction with the fans and the hours he spent each week signing autographs, for youngsters in particular.  I witnessed it time after time, tucked away out of view of the television cameras – there would be Phil and a long line of kids and Phil stayed there till there was no longer a line.  He has no equal in this regard and for me it was all the more impressive that it was done quietly, far away from the public’s gaze.  He even learned to sign his name in Chinese to satisfy the demand for his signature when he plays out there.

For me, however, one of his trump cards this week was the dark glasses.  For years Phil has been the consummate entertainer, connecting and interacting with the fans and too often we have seen his emotional barometer react and sync itself to the up-and-down responses and emotional rollercoaster of his fans.  Not this time.  Sure, he reacted to them, acknowledging their applause with his slightly goofy grin and trademark thumbs-up gesture, but this time he kept them at arm’s length mentally, not identifying with them.  He wasn’t influenced by them nor deflected from his supreme focus on the task at hand.  On this occasion this cool remove and isolation from the emotion around him was hidden behind the shades, yet his fans still felt included in their man’s tilt at history.

It was clinical mastery of achieving top sporting performance and a joy to witness.

So, now, even before the dust has time to settle, the inevitable questions have started.  Can he win the US Open at Torrey Pines next month, the one major still to elude him?  That would make him only the sixth player to achieve the Career Grand Slam.  How many more majors can he add to his tally of six?

Well, I, for one, refuse to get caught up in what may or may not happen.  I prefer to sit back, ponder and enjoy having witnessed an historic, wonderful and inspiring golfing performance by a very special player.  It was reputed he was offered $100 million by the Saudis to join the alternative golf tour they are attempting to set up.  The price has just gone up.

Experiencing frosts, hail and copious rain here in the UK made it all the more heart-warming to witness last week’s golf from North Carolina and Florida.  Not only did we get to enjoy the sight of sundrenched courses, we were also able to get wrapped up in Rory’s first win for eighteen months as well as in the high drama of the 48th Walker Cup at oh-so-scary Seminole.

Let’s start with the Walker Cup – or Walkover Cup – as some rather unkind journalists dubbed it.  The GB&I team, so ably captained by Stuart Wilson, was not given much of a prayer by many commentators, but no one seemed to have told the away team that they weren’t supposed to be able to contend with the powerful, high-ranked American side.  With both teams ravaged by sickness and reserves having to be called into play, this became a war of attrition for the contestants in what will surely be remembered as the most physically and mentally demanding match in the series.

Seminole in its awful loveliness was a PhD of an examination paper with absolute precision required to hit and hold putting surfaces reputed to be running at 14 on the stimp.  At least at Augusta National you can often hold the heavily sectioned greens – you just won’t be that near the pin; but at Seminole you could be swept away into a treacherous bunker from which, sometimes, there was no escape.  It was riveting stuff and mentally challenging as a viewer, never mind a player.  It was awe-inspiring to see these amateur players cope with all that was thrown at them and the 14-12 scoreline in favour of the US side was indicative of just how good a tussle it was.

It was also refreshing to have a high level match that is definitely a sprint and not a marathon, as the rest of the top events tend to be and the pace of play, particularly from the players from this side of the Atlantic, was a joy.  I suppose it was unfortunate that the very first shot I saw of the whole contest was a poor bunker shot by an American player.  His reaction was to spit on the ground, hence he was referred to in this household from that point on as “the spitter”.  Ah well, I suppose if the No 1 ranked player in the world is unchecked in that behaviour we must expect others to follow suit.  I wish they wouldn’t though.

A little further north on the US eastern seaboard is the lovely and challenging Quail Hollow golf course in Charlotte, North Carolina, an opinion obviously shared by Rory McIlroy who notched up his third victory there on Sunday.  He loves the place but what he learned was that he loves, and needs, the noise and vibe of the spectators more than he realised.  Expect his post-pandemic performances to be much improved.

“I thought I’d like the peace and quiet when we returned but I missed the crowds,” he said. “I feed off the energy so much. I’m certainly glad that the crowds were back and I’m glad that I was able to get the job done in an atmosphere like that today. And I’m excited going forward now that we get to play in front of crowds like that. It was just an awesome experience to feel that again over the weekend.”

Pete Cowen, with whom Rory is now working, has made an immediate impact, encouraging a change of shot shape off the tee from a draw to a power fade.  It’ll take a while to bed down but validation of the work they are doing together will be a tremendous tonic for the Irishman and his trademark jaunty step is back out there on display for all to see.  Nice timing with three majors coming up in the next eight weeks or so.

News comes that the first of those majors, the PGA Championship, which is played over Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course and where Rory notched up one of his four major victories, will be a stern test of 7876 yards.  That is the longest course in major championship history and it makes me wonder where it’ll all end.  Seemingly the major defence against equipment that allows players in their 70s like Tom Watson to continue hitting the ball as far as when in his prime is to build greens with an abundance of sections and slopes and then shave them to within an inch of their lives.  That sort of approach necessitates skill in two departments alone – sheer brute force for driving and silky skills around the green.  We are in danger of completely losing the nuances of shot-making through the bag.  Varying trajectories, shaping the ball, half and three quarter shots are all in the endangered species category nowadays and the game is not improved because of it.  Somebody, please DO something!

It looks like my sorties to the US for the men’s majors are a non-starter for the second consecutive year but hope springs eternal that the Ryder Cup may signal a return of normal duties.  We shall see, but in the meantime I’m happy to unashamedly cheer my favourites on from the sidelines without the slightest responsibility to impartiality.  Good to know that some clouds do have a silver lining.