I wonder how Shane Lowry has been sleeping this past week after his hard-to-believe final three holes at last Sunday’s Cognizant Classic.  Despite playing in The Palm Beaches on the PGA National course, which has historically always been slow to show Lowry its kinder side, the genial Irishman admitted, “I thought I had it.  I thought I was going to win.”

For those of you who don’t slavishly follow the goings-on of the PGA Tour or the weekly scores of certain players, allow me to put you in the picture.  Shane Lowry had played virtually flawless golf all week and found himself standing on the 70th tee three shots ahead of the field and with the finishing line firmly in sight.  It would have been a first individual victory in three and a half long years for a player who openly admits he doesn’t win nearly as much as he ought to win.

He felt confident, his game was in tip-top shape, and all that remained were a par 4, followed by a par 3 and a closing par 5.  Then it happened.  A phony Shane, an imposter, appeared from nowhere and inhabited his body, somehow taking control and forcing the real Shane to lose all the skill and belief in his game, painstakingly built up over the years.

A three-iron for safety, which had worked well all week off the 16th tee, squirted way right on him and found a watery grave.  Then came a drop, a recovery wedge back to the fairway, an approach shot into a greenside bunker and a gutsy up-and-down.  Six.  Double bogey.

Traditionally, a player will regroup on the next tee, take a few deep breaths and clear his mind.  Shane stood on the 17th tee and saw where the ball of Nico Echavarria, his nearest challenger, had managed to cling to the putting surface, oh-so-close to rolling into the water.  He then watched helplessly as the Colombian rolled in the birdie putt to wipe away the three- shot deficit completely.

At that point the real Shane left the course altogether and the imposter had a free run of things.  Another tee shot into the water, another double bogey and a forlorn final par left the Irishman shell-shocked and at a loss to explain what had happened.  A three-shot lead with three to play and he’d lost by two.

I suspect that’ll be what is keeping him awake at night.

Is he flaky under pressure?  Well, a resounding no must surely be the answer to that, mustn’t it?  After all, this is a player who won his national Open as an amateur way back in 2009.  He won an Open Championship in his home country with the weight of expectation of an entire nation on his shoulders.  And only last year he withstood the stresses and pressures of a Bethpage Black Ryder Cup to deliver victory for Europe.  Lowry is no stranger to pressure and he has come through time and time again.

Is he arrogant?  Did he think victory was in the bag?  Did he get ahead of himself?

No.  Probably.  And yes.  No – arrogance isn’t in his nature.  Probably – he admitted he thought he was going to win.  And yes, the most revealing comment in his post-round interview was when speaking of his four year old daughter, Ivy.

I’ve been at two wonderful, very different concerts this week and apart from the technical excellence of the performers the thing that impressed me most was the teamwork.

Friends and I were in awe at the CBSO’s Scheherazade, a vibrant performance inspired by their charismatic Japanese conductor Kazuki Yamada, pouring his energy and enthusiasm into his musicians.  They responded with every ounce of their skill and musicality, working together to weave Rimsky-Korsakov’s magic, leaving us all entranced – and breathless.

In the first half, we’d had a bit of Berlioz and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, with the renowned Scottish pianist Steven Osborne, so we were totally spoiled.  We floated home, full of the joys and on the train home we encountered a similarly euphoric group who’d been to a comedy club gig at the Town Hall.  The only unhappy punters were the Villa fans who’d just watched their team lose 4-1 at home to Chelsea.  Football bloody hell.

At least it’s only Villa’s title hopes that are disintegrating; at Spurs it’s the whole edifice, with relegation looming.  On Thursday night, we lost 3-1 at home to Crystal Palace, continuing our role as Doctor Tottenham:  if you’re finding wins hard to come by, just come to us, we’ll revive you.  Down to ten men before half time – captain sent off – we went down with barely a whimper.  Oh, admittedly, I did hear, on the radio, the magic words:  “Spurs are having a go…”  Even so, Palace didn’t have to get out of second gear in the second half, so comfortable were they.

Thank goodness I’d decided weeks ago that I wouldn’t be going – the late, eight o’clock kick-offs are a killer, it’s so hard to get home, especially if there’s a lot of added time, which there was.  There were lots of empty seats as people streamed out, fed up and wanting to be in bed before the early hours.  If you were leaving uplifted, after a CBSO-type performance, you wouldn’t care what time you got home…

TEAMWORK.  Ah, would that my football club knew the meaning of the word.

Optimistic note:  wonder if any team’s been relegated and won the Champions’ League in the same season….COYS.

Did I mention that the concert tickets cost a £1, for a seat in the stalls?  It was a summer promotion and we ended up at the CBSO Benevolent Fund Concert, with the players giving their services free.  The Fund is keen “to help put health and wellbeing central to the company’s core values.  The Fitness to Work Scheme was devised to tackle this damagingly embedded culture of normalising exhaustion and injury in the pursuit of excellence.  Now we provide regular free specialist treatment, better access to knowledge about our bodies and minds and work to improve available data on our experiences to strengthen health and wellbeing policy.

“Already we feel the benefits of what we have achieved – including happier musicians, relief from stress and injury and better working relationships across the company.  We are proud to work with some of the best practitioners in and around Birmingham:  sports massage therapists, physiotherapists, counsellors, performance coaches and breathing experts, to name but a few….”

Musicians are athletes too.

You’ll be glad to know that we put some notes in the Benevolent Fund buckets.

The other concert, on Monday evening, was The Serenade Trio of Clare (piano), Lisa (clarinet) and Helen (soprano) strutting their stuff at Sutton Coldfield Town Hall.  The last time I was there was many years ago to give blood but this time it was for Let’s Face the Music and Dance and it was a joy.  The programme gave the threesome the chance to showcase their talents with numbers as varied as Let’s Face The Music and Dance, Ave Maria, the Clog Dance from La Fille Mal Gardee, Oblivion and Cheek to Cheek, to name just a few.

Afterwards, expecting an encore, I waited expectantly with my camera but the girls had disappeared to line up in the foyer to thank us all for coming, so there’s no sign of them in the picture below.  Apologies to all concerned.

Ah, faded grandeur, yet another reminder of Spurs.

Nearly finished the blog and nary a mention of golf, so let’s see what we can do:  Luke Donald has agreed to captain Europe’s Ryder Cup team for the third successive match, this time in Ireland at Adare Manor.  He’s led the Europeans to wins in Italy and New York and is risking biting the bullet again, aiming to became the first captain to win the cup three times in a row.

Hannah Green of Australia won the HSBC Women’s World Championship at Sentosa in Singapore for the second time, made even more special because her husband Jarryd Felton was caddying for her.

And, finally, a moan from me.  We were playing our comp last Tuesday, only a 13-hole Waltz but a comp nonetheless and when my team and I arrived at the 18th tee, one of the greenkeepers had been driving a big machine up and down and the tee markers were lying at the side of the tee.  There were a few more groups behind us, so why on earth he’d been instructed to get stuck in instead of waiting until we’d finished, who knows?

He parked up at the back of the tee and I don’t think he understood my gesticulations and Gallic shrugs asking where the markers had been….We chose a spot and carried on and fortunately we finished well down the field.  Still, I made a formal complaint.  After all, a competition is a competition.

It’s never a bad idea to break the back of a UK winter by relocating to warmer climes, if at all possible, and I’m happy to say my next few blogs will be coming to you from the Canary Islands – that is, if any are forthcoming at all!  But, don’t worry – I’ve left the sister back on home turf holding the fort with her customary aplomb.

I’ve never played golf in the Canaries, which is a great pity because the islands, with their wealth of diverse scenery and terrain, are spectacular.  The most famous home-grown golfers, all professional, come from Gran Canaria – and from the same family.  They are Rafael Cabrera Bello, his brother Miguel and his sister, Emma.

Rafa has been a pro for more than twenty years plying his trade mostly on the DP World tour (formerly known as the European tour), hoovering up four victories in the process as well as a much deserved and coveted berth on the 2016 Ryder Cup team.  He was undefeated in his three matches at Hazeltine but it wasn’t enough to stop the Americans rolling to victory.

He’s a veteran of numerous major championship campaigns and his most successful was a tied fourth place finish at the 2017 Open.  In his most productive years on tour (2016-2018), he notched up three top fives in World Golf Championship events, not a bad return for a wee lad who grew up on a lump of volcanic rock where golf courses were in short supply.  That wee lad, however, remains to this day one of the fittest players in the world of professional golf, his passion for surfing keeping him in tip-top shape.

Miguel, the youngest of the three, has played on the Challenge Tour and is the only one of the siblings I haven’t met but I remember Emma from way back in her amateur days when she was representing her country on the international stage.  It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say her amateur career was glittering, littered as it was with numerous European national titles and representative golf.  She eased seamlessly onto the professional stage in 2008, finishing runner-up in the Rookie of the Year race and then had her best year in 2009.

However, after four seasons of playing full time on tour Emma decided to cut back on her appearances and perhaps she had had enough of the endless travelling that living on a small island necessitates.  Undoubtedly European golf  has been fortunate to enjoy the presence of the Cabrera Bello family, a talented and positive addition to our sport.

So, no golf for me in the Canaries but there is the most wonderful hiking to enjoy and as I still work away at regaining full health and fitness post Covid I was determined to heed all advice to take it easy from the off.  First day in we did a two-hour hike, all uphill for the first hour and then an hour downhill coming home.  When younger, a two-hour hike would have been roughly ninety minutes uphill and then a brief thirty minute skip down the mountain.  These days the downhill bit seems to have grown in difficulty and is booby trapped with loose scree and not the same sure-footedness of my youth.  But it was a nice steady start to things and enough for me even though my better half repeated the same hike later in the day.

On the second day I decided it’d be acceptable to upgrade to a three-and-a-half hour hike, up and over a mountain ridge and down into a famously beautiful gorge to a lovely little, “lost” village.  We’d be passing numerous little hamlets along the way, all with little bars and restaurants, so no need to weigh ourselves down with oodles of provisions, although I do always insist on carrying numerous bottles of water.  The plan was to hike there, have a leisurely lunch and get the bus back to where the car was parked.  At the last minute I threw in a couple of bananas – just in case.  Or as the caddies used to write in our yardage books beside a measurement taken in case of a visit to a water hazard – JICYFU.  I’m sure you can work it out.

Well, the last two letters of that acronym could be used perfectly to describe the hike.  All was fine for the first couple of hours – relentlessly straight uphill (the guidebook described this hike as “easy”!) and we arrived at the first recommended bar.  Shut.  Oh, well, never mind.  We hadn’t far to the next village, so we ate our bananas and moved on.

The next village never appeared – and this wasn’t even the one supposed to be lost.  We were expecting a particular turn in the trail after fifteen minutes but after an hour with nary a sign I had to concede we must have missed it……..and our phone now told us we were three and a half hours from where we were supposed to be.  It was well it was mea culpa because otherwise I’d have killed my hubby.

After five and a half hours in total we found a main road and a bus back to near the car with zero sighting of any open bars or cafes.  It wasn’t quite the gentle start I’d envisaged.

I don’t expect anyone who knows us will be surprised at our appalling lack of sense of direction – even with what I felt was sound preparation.  And no, I hadn’t downloaded any maps because, well you see, it was all so straightforward according to the guidebook.  I don’t recall ever having had that much bother negotiating a golf course.

The scenery, however, was truly spectacular.  Pity I wasn’t quite fit enough to enjoy it.

If there’s such a thing as road lag, this blog writer has it.  She hasn’t been near a plane for ages, let alone a long-haul flight, so jet lag is out of the question but she’s had enough of roads for a while, well, a day or two at least.

It all started on Monday past, with a trip to Suffolk that included an overnight stay in Haverhill, just outside Cambridge, a detour to Stock in Essex, with Thorpeness Golf Club and Hotel the final destination.  There was no need to put the satnav on because I knew the route to Haverhill (M6, A14, a bit of M11, then the B whatever, with the sign to Haverhill being the giveaway) but….distracted by a very slow driver who decided to change lanes at the last minute I missed the road to the M6 and ended up heading for the M40.  Caramba.  Very, very poor road craft on my part, admittedly and it got worse.

Suffice it to say, I ended up having the most convoluted journey imaginable, in the rain, in the dark, through interminable roadworks of the years-long variety near Cambridge.  The next day, amazingly enough, the trip was relatively trouble free and despite having to negotiate the A12 and various Sizewell C and National Grid mega works, I even managed to arrive at my destination in daylight…Result.

The occasion was the third reunion of the founders of the LET, plus the odd bod (me) who’s known most of them for decades and is still in awe of all they’ve done and are still doing.  There’s lots of reminiscing and even more laughter and it’s a great reminder that these women really were pioneers and today’s players, who take it as a given that a professional career is possible, owe them a great debt of gratitude.

On Wednesday the weather was perfect for golf and I ventured out in elite company to play the James Braid course described by Peter Alliss as “a hidden gem in Suffolk”.  It was a delight, human sized, thought-provoking but not intimidating (especially on a glorious day with only a hint of breeze) and in remarkably good condition after a wet winter.

Lang, aka Christine Langford, director of golf at Thorpeness, organiser supreme and the holder of the trophy (see featured pic at the top, fingers crossed), made a stout defence of her title, amassing 34 points barely three months after a hip operation; I managed 33 points (or was it 31?), demonstrating an unexpected mastery of the Texas wedge* from unusual positions; but we – and everyone else – had to give best to our playing partner Bridget Cooper, who won the comp with an impressive 39 points.

At the presentation, Bridget, an Essex girl, recalled winning £50 on her first outing as a professional and splurging it all on a yellow leather jacket at her local market.  She still has it but confessed that she’d only worn it a couple of times!  Her latest trophy (TOFT – the old farts trophy) was originally won by Lang way back in 1979, when Carlsberg were the main sponsors of the fledgling tour.

Now, I wasn’t going to do this but couldn’t resist flicking through the early tour handbooks and came across this pic in what was the WPGA’s 1983 official handbook.  Brace yourself, Bridget.

And here are the results from the tour’s first year.

The enjoyment of the game has endured over the decades but so have its frustrations and as Lang, Bridget and I were making our way down the hill to the 6th green we heard a very familiar four-letter word from the 7th tee.  One of our number (hark at me!  But I was playing in the same comp) had dumped her tee shot into the water and her partners were starting to double up.

Forewarned is forearmed and my threeball all made sure we cleared the water – I took my driver for a hole that says it’s a mere 127 yards and creamed it, well left of the target and well beyond it, on a path, with some sloping, raggedy terrain between me and the pin.  Time for a belt with the trusty TW.  I missed the putt for a par but it’s the sort of hole I’d take a four at every time.

Space, or the lack thereof, saves you from any more details of the golf (4-irons to five feet, that sort of thing; in my dreams) and means that my journey home is reduced to a few sentences.  Thorpeness to Lichfield can, apparently, be done in less than three and a half hours without stops.  I left at 1021 and got home at 1639, admittedly with two stops!

There were lots of diggers and people in orange jumpsuits in the middle of Leiston (no distance from Thorpeness) and a ROAD CLOSED sign with no discernible diversion.  Ah, I’ll try the 1119 to Saxmundham.  More ROAD CLOSED signs with no indication of where exactly it was closed or where we should go instead.

I stopped at what turned out to be a very nice caff in Rendham, had coffee and cake with a load of lycra-clad cyclists and considered my options; bought some local honey from the beekeepers who run the cafe; then headed back on to the narrow Suffolk roads that turn you inside out…

 

*for the non golfers this is the practice of using the putter from off the green, often from a considerable distance.