The “Activity Rings” on my fitness app aren’t registering too highly at the moment, most of my activity being of the thumb-exercising variety while changing channel from one sport to the other on the remote control.  And, of course, temperatures in the mid to high thirties aren’t conducive to much more than staying indoors, out of the heat, curtains drawn, fan on, with copious bottles of cold water in the fridge.  Curiously, G’nT hour IS active – creeping earlier and earlier from 6pm to something nearer 4.30pm.  Ah, well – summer’s here.

There’s always a feast of golf on at this time of year, from professional majors to elite amateur events to club championships to captains’ days the length and breadth of every country.  One happy chappie will be the, now double, US Open champ Wyndham Clark who triumphed last weekend at shiny Shinnecock.

Vilified for his behaviour at last year’s event at Oakmont where he vented his frustrations by murdering a century-old locker, Clark was most definitely not the fan favourite.  Cries of “get in the bunker” and the cheering of poor outcomes of some of his shots led to the eviction of several members of the gallery who made it clear that Scottie Scheffler was their guy.

Contrary to the widely-held belief that the fans were against him because of last year’s behaviour I suspect there are two other factors at play here.  The New York fans, for reasons best known to themselves, revel in and love the tag of being the toughest crowd in sport.  For them that seems to unilaterally open the door to boorish, loud-mouthed, off-putting behaviour that is inevitably fuelled by a huge alcoholic intake.  Their own mothers would disown them and it’s disgusting that we are moving towards acceptance of this in our sport.

It’s not a one-off either – remember the Ryder Cup?  And the mild-mannered Scheffler suffered some final round abuse last year at the Open at Portrush.  It broke my heart to hear that and I felt ashamed.

Who wants to be a favourite of those sort of fans?

The second item on my radar and one I think may prove a dangerous catalyst for increasingly unsporting behaviour is the proliferation of betting on golf.  Back to the US Open for a minute.  I’m sure many fans had money on Scottie to win and were therefore cheering him on and I also wonder how many had hefty wagers on him to complete the career grand slam?  This surely led to more anti-Clark behaviour.  The opportunity for a carefully timed shout or comment to alter the result in golf is massive and I fear an outside intervention, somewhere, sometime is inevitable.  If we don’t want that to happen we need to do something – perhaps the banning of the sale and consumption of alcohol would be a good start.

On this occasion, however, Wyndham Clark stood strong, like a sea wall, repelling all those who attempted to whittle away at his six-shot lead entering the final round.  In the end he won by a shot from Sam Burns and Scheffler slipped down to tied fourth, on level par, thus sparing us a load of syrupy commentary on the Texan completing the career grand slam on his 30th birthday and on Father’s Day to boot – as if Scottie is the only one in the world who has, or is, a Dad.  Moving on………

In the group a single shot behind Scheffler was Joaquin Niemann of Chile.

A good performance, you may say, but remember, this is the player who momentarily thought he was up in Braemar at the Highland Games and tossed his club a good fifty yards as he was making a horlicks of the 6th hole (his 15th of the day) in the first round.  Arriving on that tee level par for the championship he watched in dismay as his first two tee shots sailed out of bounds and his third came to rest in a tangle of stuff which prompted him to seek relief from a potential fire-ant nest.  This was declined and he hacked his wedge back on to the fairway having played six.

At this juncture darkness caused a suspension of play but not before Niemann had launched his club as far as he could, although he sensibly ensured there were no spectators in the vicinity.  He returned the following morning and finished the hole in three more shots pencilling in a nine.  And that, he thought, was that.

Not so fast.  That 9 turned into an 11 after he was informed he was being penalised two shots for violating the tournament’s code of conduct.  It all added up to an opening 78, fourteen shots adrift of first round leader and ultimate champion Clark.

My initial reaction to this yarn was that this was all a little harsh but on reflection, I think the players should indeed be held to a high standard of behaviour.  There are many more youngsters in the game today than there have ever been – thanks to monumental efforts from governing bodies, junior organisers at golf clubs and pros going in to schools and spreading the word.  We don’t want these boys and girls learning that this behaviour is all ok.

Niemann himself said,”I mean, it’s their decision, and I feel like, yeah, I wouldn’t be happy seeing players throwing clubs and behaving that way, so yeah, I mean, I agree.”

In the 2019 rules revision, committees were granted the authority to penalise players for unbecoming conduct.  This year, however, is the first time that the organisers of the four majors – the Augusta National Golf Club, the PGA of America, the USPGA and the R&A – have agreed upon implementing a code of conduct.  I applaud them but am uncertain as to how they will implement this in a fair and equable way.  Who will police the behaviour and issue the penalties?  Multiple referees may lead to multiple standards.

Niemann’s closing three rounds of 65/72/66 eclipsed anyone else’s and the Chilean says he has learned his lesson.  I suspect we are attempting to stuff the genie back into the bottle, however, as the professional tours will not be quick to follow the lead of the other organisations.  In my opinion this is a shame – especially when we are demanding better behaviour from those outside the ropes.

Golf continues to be in a tricky place.

Who can resist a black lab puppy with a mouthful of flowers?  An adorable image adorning one of my birthday cards, from the British Heart Foundation.  The bonus is that on the back there’s a QR code, which you can scan to teach yourself CPR in fifteen minutes apparently.  “All you need is your mobile and a cushion.”

The blurb also tells us that most cardiac arrests in the UK happen at home, so learning CPR – cardiopulmonary resuscitation – can be a lifesaver.

I had to double-check just exactly what the initials stood for – Canadian Pacific Railway, Central Policy Review were easily ruled out – and then resist the temptation to browse the dictionary.  “Crabbit” caught my eye because this heat is indeed inclining me towards irritable, if not downright bad-tempered, as well as hot, sweaty and devoid of ideas!

It could also be an age thing, given that I had a birthday in mid-week, sharing it with luminaries like Lionel Messi, footballer extraordinaire who’s now 39 and still lighting up the World Cup and Robert Reich, who has packed a lot into his 80 years.

I got a lot of great cards that made me laugh but it was probably the simplest one that made me laugh the most.

Another card gave me food for thought, almost literally and is bound to resonate with all the inveterate gadget collectors out there.  I’m a recent convert to the air fryer revolution but not yet a day-in-day-out user, so there’s a little niggling doubt at the back of my mind that it might not always have a place in the kitchen…

Just in case you can’t make out the caption, the kettle’s saying:  “He’s all smug now but believe me, this time next year he’ll be in the garage with the bread maker!”

I do rely heavily on my kettle and my toaster – which is kept neatly in a cupboard, allowing other stuff to clutter up my precious (and limited) worktop space – but what are the essentials these days.  The cocky kettle could be on its way to extinction, elbowed out by the Quooker tap that “does it all”, according to the ads.  Mind you, a friend has one and it scared the life out of me, so much so that my tea intake was vastly reduced as I did my best to avoid it; it was a joy to get home to my old-fashioned, much-loved, much-used kettle.

Most of my birthday was spent skulking inside with the curtains closed and a fan whirring, very effectively keeping the temperature feeling manageable on the UK’s hottest day ever.  Said fan was supplied by Maureen but she took it back home with her and that’s when I realised that it could become the latest household essential as we endured a succession of record-breaking “hottest days ever”.

The friend who sent me this, via WhatsApp, wondered if we’re now less resilient than we were fifty years ago but perhaps we’re just more clued up, less naive?  Or perhaps we’ve just mislaid our sense of perspective?  Answers on a postcard please.  Or a birthday card.

The highlight of the big day was not Scotland’s match against Brazil in Miami, where thousands of Scots, many of them in kilts (do they do a summer tartan?) braved heat and humidity unknown in their homeland; and you’re right, to rework the Flower of Scotland anthem, they’ve been sent homewards “tae think again” after a 3-nil defeat.

Apologies for the digression, extreme heat and old age (?) play havoc with the remaining brain cells.  Where was I?  Ah, yes, the highlight of my big day.

It was undoubtedly the party a friend hosted for a few of us, firing up her bespoke outdoor pizza oven in defiance of the sizzling temperatures that closed schools, shut down businesses and turned places into ghost towns.  She is, of course, Irish and undaunted by the irrational.  She managed the whole thing with her usual aplomb, helped by the fact that her seating area was in the shade at just the right time.  Thank goodness for trees  and many thanks to Liz, Imad, Sophy and Ronny (the dog) for being the perfect hosts.

For me it’s been far too hot for golf  but there are tales to tell:  Lottie Woad’s near miss at the Meijer LPGA Classic; County Louth’s Stuart Grehan winning the Amateur Championship at Hoylake; the Women’s Amateur at Muirfield for the first time; the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and its record purse at Hazeltine; the Club Championships at WHGC; the list goes on.

However, I’m going to finish with a first for me:  a sighting of a hedgehog in the wild.  Well, by my front door.  Very late on, after the party and the footy, I went out to get a breath of cool air and saw this dim lump, like a wee rock, a few feet from the step.  I wasn’t wearing my specs and it was quite dark, so I got a torch and confirmed my first thought:  it was a real, live hedgehog.

Before it could scuttle off, I scuttled inside and grabbed the phone to grab a snap.  Chuffed is not the word.

 

 

 

 

 

The better half is off motorbiking all over Europe with pals at the moment so I nipped up to the highlands of Scotland to have a bit of R and R with some longstanding friends of my own.  By happy coincidence the Curtis Cup was being played at the amazing Bel-Air in Los Angeles and Suzanne Cadden, Gillian Stewart and I, all former Curtis Cuppers, had a lovely few evenings glued to the box watching the matches unfold.  Admittedly the eight-hour time difference meant we’d a bit of catching up to do in the mornings but it was a wonderful focal point for the start of our week together.

Ah, the Curtis Cup………the vehicle for so many friendships down the years and the 44th playing last week left me inspired and feeling slightly amazed that I should have even the teensiest connection with this incredible event.  At the heels of the hunt the American team triumphed by 13 points to 7, a comfortable enough looking scoreline on paper, but there was a squeaky hour or two for them during the singles when it looked as if the visitors might just possibly cause an upset of epic proportions.

Seven points to five down with the eight singles to be played, GB and I won the opening two matches to level the score with the remarkable Patience Rhodes overturning a four-hole deficit after seven holes in the top match.  Ever resilient, however, the American team dug in, winning all six remaining matches, three of them on the final green and two on the 17th.

Catriona Matthew, the GB and I captain and Meghan Stasi, the American captain had faced each other in the same roles two years ago at Sunningdale and both were rightly proud of their teams.  This time it was Meghan who wore the biggest smile.

“Cannot describe it.  Just so proud of the girls, their fight all week.  It’s just been so much fun to watch the last couple of years and just so proud of them.  What a day.”

And what a week for Farah O’Keefe who clinched the winning point and became just the fourth player to win all five matches since the event went to a three-day affair back in 2008.  She joins Stacy Lewis, Kristen Gillman and Bronte Law in a very select band and my feeling that she (along with a couple of others) might run out of steam after the gruelling test of a US Women’s Open the previous week was unfounded.

Hats off to them all.

The tentacles of the game reach long and far and sometimes into the most unexpected of places when golf is farthest from your mind.  One of the days of our Highland odyssey saw us visiting the delightful little village of Findhorn and our local guide, i.e. Gillian, took us to a coffee place down by the water’s edge.  It was nice enough for us to sit outside so we sent Gill in to grab the refreshment.  It wasn’t coffee she returned with, however, but one of American golf’s most famous names – Charlie Yates.

Charlie’s father, Charlie senior, was a golfer of note, winning the Amateur Championship at Troon as a 25-year old, beating Rosses Point legend Cecil Ewing in the final.   Charlie also played in and captained his country in the Walker Cup and was a good friend of Bobby Jones.  He was involved with Augusta National Golf Club from its early days and was a long-standing member, an association carried on by Yates junior who told us with some pride that he has attended 64 straight Masters tournaments.

Charlie senior enjoyed a great friendship and rivalry with Cecil, Dad’s idol as a young boy and visited the west of Ireland course on many occasions.  Senior was the low amateur in the Masters on five occasions and I met him first through Patricia and my late brother-in-law Dai when Charlie was the main link for all visiting press to the Masters each year.  Indeed he provided the tickets for my first visit to the Masters back in 1991 – the year wee Welshman Ian Woosnam triumphed.

What an unexpected treat to have an “ordinary” coffee turn into an extraordinary meeting like that – and all because of a shared passion for this ridiculous game.

A few days later one of our famous July club members, Sandra Ross, joined us for a wee jaunt and we decided to drop in on a gem of a nine-hole course called Covesea, pronounced Cow-sea, along the coast.  Not even our local Scots had played it – but what a setting!  Stunning golf in the raw and a welcome to boot from Angela Burnett, who with husband Andy spearheads the whole operation, family built and run.  If I were still playing golf this is the sort of place I would return to time and time again.

Realising at this stage that we were only a few miles away from Lossiemouth, I just had to pop in to the Moray golf club where my paternal grandmother, Helen McIsaac, had been a member in her youth before marrying an Irishman and moving to the west coast of Ireland.  Back in the day she was a six-handicapper – a feat I can hardly imagine with the equipment available to her – and I was chuffed to locate the board declaring she was the 1915 Moray Golf Club Ladies’ Champion.

Dad spent many a boyhood summer golfing in Lossie and staying in the family home there and he’d have been delighted we were enjoying the place under cobalt blue skies and, once out of the wind, lovely temperatures.  I’m grateful the girls indulged me with that visit.

Of course, I’d love to still be playing this game and enjoying a few rounds with friends, discovering and playing new little places like Covesea and not just walking around it.  I have, however, come to realise something on this trip.  It is more than possible to enjoy the richness of this game in different ways – and yes, you can take the girl out of golf after a lifetime of involvement, but you can’t take golf out of the girl.

My fears have proved unfounded.

 

You know all that advice about switching off all your devices an hour or two before going to bed?  That includes the television, assorted iPads, laptops, phones and whatever other smart electronic gizmo you may have in your arsenal.  Well, how difficult is that?  Virtually impossible really, especially for a sporting person when there’s so much going on on the other side of the Atlantic.  Even radios have illuminated dials lighting up the darkness.

I’m still struggling to recover from last weekend when I watched Brazil against Morocco (sorry non-footie people, it’s the World Cup, it’s inevitable) about midnight, then went to bed, armed with radio, iPad and phone, to keep tabs on Scotland v Haiti in Boston and the Curtis Cup from deepest Los Angeles.  Not an easy ask, even for an inveterate butterfly mind like mine.  And it became even harder when Scotland went ahead (John McGinn via two deflections), then seemed to be under siege for the rest of the game; there was no relaxing until the ref blew the final whistle and it was still 1-nil to the Tartan Army.

I have it on good authority that when Croatia equalised against England the other night, the roar from the pubs in Inverness could be heard in Glasgow – and vice versa.  Never forget that the late great Denis Law, who won 55 caps for Scotland, took himself off to play golf rather than watch England beat West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley.  Denis, winner of the Ballon d’Or in 1964, was a Manchester United teammate of Bobby Charlton and Nobby Stiles (and John Connelly, who didn’t play in the final but was eventually, many years later, awarded a medal retrospectively, as was manager Alf Ramsey, elevated rightly to Sir Alf, when FIFA decided to include all squad members and staff).

If England manage to reach this year’s final, courses everywhere should prepare for an influx of disgruntled Scots – unless they’re in the final too, of course…Either way, defrost the haggis (is the plural haggi?) and crack open the Glenmorangie or similar  – or the Irn-Bru.

To the golf!  It’s the men’s US Open this week, at Shinnecock Hills, Southampton, N.Y.  It’s on Long Island, not quite a links but no trees and tough, tough, tough, with winds that will test the skills, mettle and mental fortitude of the world’s best.  For Scottie Scheffler, the world No 1, it’s his first go at achieving the Grand Slam, that near mythical beast that tied Rory in knots.  Will he do it?  Wouldn’t put it past him but I’d quite like him to take another year or two.

Adam Scott, the elegant Australian with the sweet swing, is playing in his 100th consecutive major championship, an amazing run that has taken him 25 years, a quarter of a century, very neat.  “I’ve never really been one to dwell on milestones,” he said.  “However, it’s resonated a little bit more with me the last few days…I’m so appreciative of everyone recognising this.  It’s a strange one because it’s not something you really set out to do or aim for.

“But in all honesty, since Pinehurst a couple of years ago, it kind of was on my radar.  Earlier this year, as I wasn’t automatically qualified for this event, it became a bit of a weight on my shoulders making sure I got there.”

The 45-year old (46 next month) played in the Open at Shinnecock in 2004 and 2018 and was disappointed not to play well either time.  “I still love the golf course,” he said.  “I think it’s as good as any test we have at the US Open.”  This year, as world No 49, he started with a round of  73, three over par.

We at WHGC have a particular interest in this year’s Open because Michelle Quinlivan, one of our members, is over there working on the range with her husband and various family members.  Michelle’s brother Sean is the head professional at Shinnecock, hence the influx and a memorable, exciting week for them all.  Many thanks for the special pics and fingers crossed that an uneven number of players make the cut because that means Sean will probably play.

Now, what’s the furthest distance you’ve ever run?  A mile, 100 metres, 1500, 10,0oo, a marathon?  I was never much of a runner despite being a member of the team that won the Senior Relay (4 x 100) at the All Ireland Schools Sports in, I think, 1972.  A proud moment indeed.  Many thanks to my three teammates Sheila, Sally and Carol-Anne.  These days, I doubt I’d make it to the park across the road, probably less than 100 metres.  So, how about 100k?

Yes, ONE HUNDRED KILOMETRES.  All in one go, time limit 24 hours.

It’s part of the Threshold Trail Series and is “An Epic Tour of South Downs National Park”.  To quote further:  “The full circuit [you can do a loop as short as 30k], taking in both the Coastal and Castle loops for a magnificent tour of the stunning South Downs National Park.  Steeped in history and uniquely varied, the 100k Non-Stop event at Race to the King offers a course truly fit for royalty.”  It’s actually 103.3km aka 64 miles and who knows if you have enough puff to take in the beauty around you.

The very best of luck to Andy, my first cousin once removed, by marriage, who gave up his tickets for the second test against New Zealand at the Oval, to run.  It’s his hobby, so it’s not for charity, it’s for pleasure…

Bonkers.

Continuing the athletic theme, I’ve just got to finish with one of the best things I’ve heard this week.  It comes from a primary school sports day when someone said to a girl, tall for her age, with long legs:  “I’ll bet you’re good at running.”

Answer:  “I get better every year.”

Oh, where does that insouciant confidence go?