Last Sunday the PGA Tour brought down the curtain on a very contentious season with fan favourite and all-round good guy Rory McIlroy scooping the big prize, winning the Fed-Ex Cup for an unprecedented third time – something not even the great Tiger Woods has accomplished.  It must have felt like a home match for Rory with the crowds chanting his name as he battled down the stretch with American world No 1 Scottie Scheffler.  Poor old Scottie must have wondered if he’d strayed over to Europe.

At the start things didn’t look good for Rory.  Six behind going into the final round he still wasn’t on the par 4 1st green after three shots and, in fact, Scheffler had a seven-footer for a seven-shot lead.  He missed and, unbelievably, a mere six holes later they were tied.  The roars for Rory reached new heights when he holed for a birdie across the 15th green and the two were still tied with three to go.  An incredible up and down on the 16th from the Irishman saw him hit the front for the first time and it was enough to see him squeak over the line for his third win of the year.

It’s extraordinary that McIlroy has performed as well as he has with all the unpleasant, off-course distractions of the rival LIV Golf league.  As he explained, however, being inside the ropes has proved to be a sanctuary for him where no one could get at him.  His ability to compartmentalise things, focusing solely on the job in hand, has been key to his success on the course.

It remains to be seen, however, if his off-course efforts will bear fruit.  Only this week Cam Smith, the Open champion, has announced he has joined Liv Golf, ending the speculation that has swirled about him for the last few weeks.  Currently second in the world rankings, Smith is undoubtedly LIV’s biggest catch so far.  He is the game’s latest major champion and at 29 years of age he spearheads an exciting crop of talent whose best days are not yet in the rearview mirror.  And, very importantly, he appears to be largely injury-free.

Bearing in mind that Dustin Johnson reputedly signed on with LIV for around $200 million it’s safe to assume that Smith has commanded something north of that eye-watering sum.  He’s presumably gambling on being able to play in the majors and it’ll be interesting to see if Smith’s decision results in the trickle of talent from the established tours becoming a cascade, or even tsunami, as players rush to cash in before the Saudis declare that their coffers are closed.

If a tipping point is reached where LIV has the majority of the world’s best, that will surely spell the end of the tours as we know them today.  The tour or league that boasts the best players will hold all the power and the majors (which are outside the control of the main tours) will be diminished by the absence of the world’s best no matter where they play.

Ugly.  Messy.  Money.  Power.  Put all these words in a sentence and you get right to the heart of the matter.  Can you see it ending well?

Meanwhile, in Kettering, Ohio, the fourth edition of the US Senior Women’s Open produced the first home winner in its short history.  Jill McGill, a “young” senior, having only just reached fifty years of age, won her first professional title and consigned such luminaries as defending champion Annika Sorenstam, former champions Helen Alfredsson and Laura Davies and major champions Juli Inkster and Catriona Matthew to the minor placings.  It was a joyous victory for a player who played here in Europe with us back in the 1990s before gaining her LPGA card.

The redoubtable JoAnne Carner, “Big Mama” to all who know her, has played in all four editions of this championship but, alas, never managed to make the cut.  She has, however, equalled or beaten her age in five of the eight rounds she has played, a truly remarkable achievement.  She has announced now that, at 83, enough is enough.

“I think this is finally it,” she said, bowing to the inevitable.  “It’s just hard work trying to get the whole game going.  I let it go too bad.”

Her game, however, before she “let it go too bad” netted her eight USGA titles, 43 LPGA wins, three Player of the Year awards and five Vare Trophies for the lowest scoring average.  She has loved this game relentlessly her whole life and competed fiercely over a span of six decades with a refreshing, no-nonsense attitude.  She was the dominant player and intimidated her opposition with a never-ending string of fearless golf shots, often from the trees.  Watching Big Mama was an exhilarating experience.

A lover of practice, Carner inevitably had her share of injuries over the years but didn’t come from a generation that worked on her fitness.  Eminent golf writer Ron Sirak tells a delightful Sorenstam story about Carner.  Annika was in the fitness trailer having a back massage when Big Mama stalked in.  Annika takes up the tale:   “The therapist asked how he could help and JoAnne said, ‘two Advil’ then walked out.”

My only meeting with the Great Gundy (her maiden name was Gunderson) was in 2009 when Patricia and I were guests of the Nicklauses at the Memorial tournament.  JoAnne was receiving one award and Patricia another, given posthumously to her late husband Dai.  After the formalities were over we had a wonderful evening being entertained by the great one.  Needless to say, there were a few adult beverages consumed and I remember JoAnne ringing up Marlene Streit in Canada at an ungodly hour when she discovered that Marlene and I knew each other and had played together.

Full of life, full of vim and vigour and full of love and passion for golf.  Big Mama  – what a legend.

Phew, it’s that time again, the time when I should be winding down for bed but instead am winding up to write the blog.  At least I have an excuse for this particular late start – I was playing golf!  And at times it was even recognisable as such.  Looking at the card, I can hardly believe my eyes because I had eight of those par things – EIGHT.  And six of them came in the space of seven holes.  Sadly, the shock proved too much, and my partners and I tailed off towards the end but we still more than held our own in the Captains’ Charity Am-Am on a bright and very breezy day.

No wonder most proper golfers go to the gym and flog away on the treadmill or the jogging track, lift weights, do stretches, all that sort of stuff.  Playing good golf is not nearly as knackering as playing bad golf but you have to be fit to keep swinging and concentrating until the last putt drops.  One of the guys behind us hit a majestic second shot to the long, uphill 17th – a 3-wood from 240-odd yards to 10 feet from the pin – and then realised that he’d left his wedge by the 16th green, a heckuva long way away thanks to more high speed diggings.  He legged it back down the hill, across the diggings, retrieved his wedge and puffed his way the 500-plus yards up the hill to his ball.  He missed the eagle putt.

“I hadn’t really done any running for 40 years,” he said when I asked him if he’d got his three.

On reflection, it’s a miracle we amateurs play as well as we do, given our lack of prep.  It was my second 18 in three days and at least it confirmed that the dog-bashed knee had recovered its equilibrium.  We were also an all-female four, playing off the red tees but using the men’s stroke index, plus one courtesy shot.  That makes the last – a par 5 for us normally – a par 4 and a tough reach, especially into the wind.  Oh, for a bit of extra strength and length.

Perhaps I’d better try those Body + Soul exercises in The Times.  Did you see them?  How many press-ups can you do?  (None.)  Stand on one leg for ten seconds.  (Not bad.  Thank goodness for tai chi.)  How many times can you sit and stand from a chair in 30 seconds?  (Tougher than it sounds and a great indoor exercise.)  Get up from sitting on the floor without using your hands.  (No chance.  Getting down to the floor is hard enough.)  How many animals or fruits can you name in 60 seconds?  (A friend just worked her way round Twycross Zoo!)  Walk as far as you can in six minutes.  (Thank goodness for golf.)

I see that not only is the sainted Rory playing in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth next week (with a load of LIVers – should be feisty) but he’s also playing in the DS Automobiles Italian Open the following week, at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club.  That’s where the Ryder Cup is being held next year (September 29th – October 1st).  Luke Donald, Europe’s Ryder Cup captain and his vice captains Thomas Bjorn and Edoardo Molinari will be there too, alongside US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick, the 2018 Open champion Francesco Molinari, Victor Hovland and the Hojgaard twins Nicolai, the defending champion and Rasmus, plus many other Ryder Cup hopefuls.

Donald has six picks in his gift, so he’ll be a popular man for the next few months and his diplomatic skills will undoubtedly be tested to their limits.  The former world No 1 said all the right things when he was first appointed to replace Henrik Stenson when the Swede defected to LIV:  “It is truly one of the greatest honours that can be bestowed upon a golfer, to lead a team of your peers and be an ambassador for an entire continent.  I feel extremely privileged to have been given that responsibility and it is a responsibility I do not take lightly.

“Some of my best experiences in golf have been in the Ryder Cup and I would not swap those for anything.  It is an event like no other and I cannot wait to create more special memories in Italy next year.  I love everything the Ryder Cup embodies, from the camaraderie and companionship of being part of a team, to the history of the contest but most of all playing for something bigger than yourself.

“Rome will be a fantastic host city and I have always enjoyed spending time there.  It is a city rich in history and hopefully we can create some of our own next year.”

Well, let’s hope we’ll all be there cheering a fantastic contest between two talented teams but who knows exactly where men’s professional golf will be by then?  Perhaps the Colosseum could host a contest to end all contests…

On a more joyful note, a belated happy birthday to the legend that is Jill Thornhill, who hit a number last month that she usually avoided on the golf course.

 

 

 

Last week’s few days in Scotland meeting up with our South African friends was a great success on many levels, none the least because the BIG MATCH was played for the first time since the pandemic.  The BM is a hotly-contested game of golf between my husband and his long-term mate Rick.

The two men have spent almost forty years trying to beat each other’s brains out on a golf course, dating back to a time when my better half was also living and working in SA.  They are a competitive couple of souls and although my hubby has probably only played a dozen times in the the last twenty years he announced a few days before the off that he was going to the range to practise and would I accompany him?  I was a little nervous about this as he tends to overthink everything and I was worried he would be wanting some technical info from me which I knew from experience would send him off down a rabbit hole from which he may never emerge.  It took a while to find his clubs as, true to form, they hadn’t had an airing for quite a while but eventually off we went.

His instruction for the day was simple.  Think in big pictures, no detail whatsoever, and just swing away with his only thought being to try and middle the golf ball.  Direction didn’t matter – just swing in a comfortable way for his body, feel balanced, and time it.  Then just observe what was happening to the ball and how his body felt.  There was to be no attempt at “fixing” anything or forcing the ball to go somewhere.

I then purposely left him to it.

Thankfully it was one of those really roasting days so he wasn’t tempted to have more than a bucket of fifty balls.  I had noticed that towards the end of his session he had started aiming at different targets with catastrophic consequences.  He had started to try and “make” the ball go to the target instead of just attending to his rhythm and timing and then looking to see what the result was.  It was as if I wasn’t looking at the same player.

Before we’d left the car park he had announced his intention of a second and final session the following day.  This was to be his total prep for the BM.

More big picture thinking was the recipe for day 2 with a gradual introduction of different targets.  His quality of shots was perfectly acceptable when he was just hitting down the range but tended to slip when he was aiming at a specific target.  The minute that happened we just returned to hitting straight out of the bay, paying attention to how his body felt during and after the shots he liked.  Brian’s task then was to take aim at his target and when set up, forget all about the target and reproduce the movement and feeling of the shots he liked.  A bucket of fifty balls was enough, followed by a few putts to get the rust off the stroke; he was ready for Scotland.

The BM this year turned out to be a nine-hole affair over Muthill golf course a few miles from Crieff and as is often the way with these sorts of matches (you know, Ryder Cups, Solheims et al) came down to the last putt on the last green.  The two days of practice paid off as hubby rolled in the winning 8-footer to retain the much-coveted trophy of the famed, framed fiver.

There was one serious casualty of the day, however – the footwear didn’t quite match the quality of the golf!  And with every retelling of the match the handicap of the flapping shoe grows greater and the last I heard the final putt was up to being a curly 25-footer!

While this epic struggle was taking place I was spending a fascinating and informative time with Rick’s wife Natasha who this year has become the first person from SA to become an internationally qualified bee sommelier.  Who knew such a thing existed?

Tash is a beekeeper extraordinaire (see pic at top of blog)) producing the most divine Lyon Raw Artisan honey.  Her honey is never heated above hive temperature and never processed, filtered nor pasteurized.

You can see from the picture above how the colour varies.  Every harvest is unique and an expression of the available nectar, weather and soil conditions, captured at a moment in time.

Spending time with friends is a joy.  Spending time with friends with a passion is infectious.  Tash’s inner fire is lit by bee education and I felt this past week that my own bee education got off the ground – and about time too.

What a wonderful few days.  Bees and golf – an unbeatable combination.

I’ve been hors de golf for a few days after being run over by a couple of dogs in the park but the swelling has gone down, the pain has subsided and weather permitting, I’ll be testing the knee out this afternoon in the madness that is the Friday Frolics.

The dogs – a lovely Alsatian and a big, good-natured bruiser of a black lab (not Alice) – were frolicking together and careered into me before I could move out of the way.  Apparently, after a small pause I sank gracefully to the ground, which doesn’t quite ring true because I’m not sure I’ve ever done anything gracefully in my life but, then again, who am I to argue with independent, unbiased onlookers!  It never occurred to me to ice the knee or take painkillers until it was too late and it blew up, seized up and made me much more sympathetic to everybody with a limp or a mobility scooter.

Nothing seems to be broken and all the red wine over the years seems to be staving off the osteoporosis.  It’s probably not a prevention backed up by science but as a member of The Wine Society what else am I to think?  It could of course be down to all the free school milk all those decades ago.  Is that a YUK I hear from the dairy haters, many of them Scots, sickened by the wee bottles warmed beside the radiators?

Anyway, I’m back out walking in the park, with dogs abounding but I’m keeping more of a wary eye out for just where that bounding is taking them…

There’s always something going on in the park – the Proms are coming up next month and this weekend it’s the altogether more headbanging  Crooked House in the Park, with engineers available to analyse the sound frequencies and make necessary adjustments should there be any complaints from the neighbours.  One year things were so noisy that one of the DJs, late for his set, got out of his car and said, “Blimey, that’s a bit loud.”  Now, where are my earplugs?

While I was taking things easy, I decided to do a bit of spring-cleaning – a bit late, or early perhaps, though looking around, it might take until next spring to get everything sorted – and inevitably there was reading.  That’s the trouble with having books and mags in the house – if you start sorting through them, you start reading and before you know where you are, it’s time to go out, eat, go to bed, whatever.

I finished Alan Shipnuck’s wonderful, compelling, unauthorised biography of Phil Mickelson, poster boy of the LIVers who are sending tournament golf into such a tizzy.  The PGA Tour are throwing money at the problem, Rory and Tiger are in business together and it’s beginning to look as though the DP World Tour (previously the European Tour) has been left scrabbling for scraps.  How’s that for an incisive assessment by an eejit who doesn’t know how to lay out a spreadsheet and rarely deals in noughts of any variety, let alone multiple multiple multiples?  Is it really bonkers to believe that there’s more to golf – and life – than spreadsheets?

It’s the Omega European Masters at Crans-Sur-Sierre this week, which used to be a must-not-miss event with a stellar field, many of the star names tempted by the promise of luxurious treatment in a beautiful setting – and appearance fees.  The event started as the Swiss Open in 1923 at Engen and has been at Crans, a quirky, scenically stunning course right in the middle of the town, since 1939.  It was one of Dai’s and my favourite tournaments and the memories came flooding back when I read that Alejandro Canizares, of Spain and Thriston Lawrence, of South Africa, were sharing the lead after first rounds of 62, eight under par.

One of the books I looked at properly for the first time was Dave Cannon’s gorgeous Seve, His Life Through The Lens.  Seve won three times at Crans, where his magic seduced the crowds and he was later tasked with revamping the course in his own unique way.  He was larger than life and Dave’s book will help those who never saw the Spanish genius play have some idea of his power and charisma.  There was no one quite like him.

Back down to earth, at a slightly – ok, vastly – less elevated level of skill, we’ve been sent our instructions for this week’s frolic and true to form, it’s another head scratcher.  It’s entitled Time To Change Partners; the game of Dots, with partners being decided at the beginning of each hole’s play.

The instructions read thus:  “Players take their tee shot and teams are formed according to where the balls land.  The two balls landing to the right of the fairway are designated as one team and the balls landing to the left of the fairway represent the other team.  Each player plays the hole as they normally would, using Stableford scoring and the best ball score from each pair.  Partners with the best Stableford score mark a dot under their score on the scorecard.  If neither partner scores or they both get the same score, neither player gets a dot!!  At the end of the round, the player with the most dots is the winner.

NB…In 3 balls the player to the left side, on each hole, after all have driven, plays hole on own and at end of game a blind player is given to gain results per each hole.”

Supremo Sue finished this explanation with “fingers crossed (in emoji form) you all understand”.

Fat chance.  Sorry Sue.

But no doubt all will be revealed in due course…