The players from the Land of the Rising Sun had a supremely successful time last week at blustery, scenic Royal Porthcawl in the final major of the year, the AIG Women’s Open.  Three players in the top four, that’s a resounding result in anyone’s language and the thoroughly deserving winner was the diminutive Miyu Yamashita who led from start to finish, ultimately triumphing by two shots from compatriot Minami Katsu and England’s Charley Hull.

This was the championship’s first visit to Wales and it didn’t disappoint.  It’s hard to beat Porthcawl, a glorious course at the best of times but simply outstanding when presented, as it was, with its best bib and tucker on.  I was salivating at the quality of the turf, the clever run-offs and hollows that make the bunkers larger than they truly are and the challenging angles of tees and greens, all enhanced by the switching of the gusting breezes from the Bristol Channel.  It was all an Open challenge should be – tough, but fair and demanding of a wide range of skills.

 

It was exhilarating watching for the spectators who had managed to find their way to the venue despite the distinct lack of  tournament signage.  There wasn’t a single sign on the M4 proclaiming anything was even taking place and I overheard some spectators say they couldn’t find their way from their car park to the course.  They ended up climbing over a fence to gain access to the golf.

It was worth it, though, and much home interest was provided by local favourite Darcey Harry who finished tied 40th and a quartet of English players – Georgia Hall, Mimi Rhodes, Lottie Woad and Charley Hull – all of whom finished in the top 20.  Lottie recorded a joint 8th finish in her second week in her new job, comfortably taking her fortnight’s earnings to beyond the half million dollar mark.  It’s amazing when you think about it……..and long may it continue.  We actually have a real chance of having a home player who may one day ascend to the pointy top of the world rankings.  It’s been a long time since Dame Laura occupied that spot.

The fireworks were provided in the final round by Charley Hull at her (almost) swashbuckling, brilliant best.  She’s fun to watch, wastes no time and was all business as she set about making five birdies in her first fourteen holes to close within a shot of the leader.  The word spread like wildfire and the galleries swelled as they marched in the wake of Hull, who momentarily looked like she might just pull it off.

The pied piper lost her way, however, and a poor finish of a trio of fives all but handed the title and a first major to the tiny Japanese player, Yamashita, who, at four feet 11 inches seemed impervious to the buffeting breezes, sailing below them to a well-deserved victory.

I had worried at the start of play on Sunday that Charley’s all-out, go-for-broke style would not serve to unlock the secrets of Porthcawl, a course that demands so many skills, including guile.  And so it proved unfortunately.  Back to back bogeys on the 70th and 71st holes meant that Charley really would probably need to eagle the par five last to stand a chance.  A superb drive into position A meant she only had an 8-iron left to the green.  The priority was now to hit the green and give herself an eagle putt, but not only did she miss the green, she short-sided herself, leaving a very difficult up and down, which she failed to achieve.  Game over.

When you are one of the best players competing on the world stage, you get judged by the highest standards and you don’t win majors finishing like that.  Whether she reflects on it and learns from it remains to be seen.  Her post-round comments didn’t seem to indicate there would be much effective analysis going on afterwards.

“I really enjoyed it out there,” she said. “I felt so in control of my game.

“It’s not like I whiffed a drive or whiffed a shot.”

It takes more than ball-striking to win a major and with 60 or so of them under her belt I hope she can soon discover that vital missing piece of the jigsaw.

One player who was completely in control on Sunday was our young friend Paula Martin Sampedro of Spain who won the Women’s Amateur last month at Nairn.  She followed that victory up with another, winning the European Amateur in Germany two weeks ago and then at Porthcawl she shot a best-of-the-day final round 68 to finish in joint 8th spot and win the Smyth Salver for the leading amateur.  Five consecutive birdies on the back nine meant she came home in 30, the best inward nine of the week.  Bravo Paula.

Bravo, too, to Julie Thomas, the home club’s former Wales international, who was called in to action at the weekend to act as a marker because an uneven number of players had made the cut.

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Maureen wouldn’t be the greatest cricket fan but last Monday, as we were driving home from Wales after enjoying the Women’s Open at Royal Porthcawl, we both listened, enthralled, to Test Match Special and the last knockings of the fifth and final test between England and India at The Oval.  It was brilliant radio, tense, compelling, vivid and I had to work hard not to sit on the edge of my seat because I was driving.

The ground was pretty well packed, even though everybody knew that there’d be about an hour’s play at most, weather permitting.  After all, England only needed 35 runs to win and India only needed three wickets (I think; what with all the excitement and emotion the fine details now escape me!), including that of Chris Woakes, down to one arm because of a dislocated shoulder.

You wouldn’t dare make it up.

The atmosphere crackled and sizzled across the airwaves and Mo and I were so hooked that we listened to the last few balls sitting in a service station car park.  Radio rules OK.

Our maternal grandfather was a keen cricketer and he gave me his bat – a big, heavy thing that I couldn’t wield as an adult let alone as a single-figure child.  He had three daughters and four granddaughters and decided that I, the tomboy, was the nearest he was going to get to a grandson.  Sadly, the only cricket we played was in the garden or on the beach, with Mum keeping wicket in her rubber gloves and me being bamboozled by Dad’s cunning spin.

I’ve passed the bat on to Pampa’s great grandson, the first boy in the family for a generation or two; hope you’ve still got it, Chris!

Cricket correspondents undoubtedly work hard but the TMS team have all the action there in front of them and don’t have to put in a lot of legwork – except to try and keep in some sort of shape; I believe they still get cakes and other goodies from grateful listeners and some cricket lunches are legendary, so waistlines must be under constant threat.  I suppose that’s the case for many of us as we get older but tramping around golf courses does wonders for the step count.

Goodness knows how many miles the BBC’s golf correspondent Iain Carter has walked over the last few weeks.  The Beeb doesn’t do golf on the telly any more – apart from the odd highlight – but its radio coverage of the big events is still second-to-none and in this country that means Carter and his colleagues are on the course more often than not.  There’s nothing flat and boring about Portrush and Porthcawl, so following matches every step of the way is more like hiking than strolling.  They won’t need any rocking at night.

In fact, the inestimable Iain, a big cricket fan, was so cream-crackered after Porthcawl that he didn’t have the energy to go to The Oval on that memorable Monday; that’s exhaustion for you.

Terrain apart, following the leaders – or birdie-blitzing Brits who are threatening to lead, perhaps even win a major – is not an easy job, even from inside the ropes:  you have to keep a clear head, remember who’s hit what shot where, take in the leaderboard, watch out for brambles and bunkers, avoid buggies and tv cameramen, all while sounding calm and informed, well, it’s a job for an expert.  And it’s mentally and physically taxing.

In amongst the championships on this side of the pond, Cameron Young was winning The Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina, his first victory on the PGA Tour.  He was also billed as the 1,000th winner on said tour, dating back to 1860, apparently, when there was no golf at all in America.  It is a claim so ridiculous as to be beyond ludicrous.

Talk about making yourself a laughing stock.

Not Cameron Young.  He was anything but.  He won by six shots and admitted to a certain amount of confusion after hugging his caddie and shaking hands with his playing partner on the 18th green.  “What do I do now?” he said.

“Every time I’ve come off the last green my entire career, I have shaken the hands of whoever I’ve played with, thanked the standard bearer and our walking scorer and then walked through the tunnel to scoring.  Today there were about 150 people between me and that tunnel….I didn’t know if I did that first or if I spoke to somebody first.  That’s the first time I’ve done anything any different after holing out on 18.

“I would prefer that outcome more often.”

A lot of good judges think it’s something he’ll probably get used to.

Meanwhile, back here at a more lowly level of performance, I’m trying to teach myself to breathe properly after decades of getting it wrong.  It’s not straightforward but my friends and family will be glad to learn that part of the process involves taping my mouth shut…

Can you hear the cheering?

 

 

 

 

For avid sports fans the cup indeed runneth over at the moment.  There’s the Lions’ tour of Down Under to entrance us;  there’s the cricket to keep an eye on;  there’s the amazing Eur0 victory of the gritty Lionesses;  there’s Padraig Harrington’s Senior British Open victory at gorgeous Sunningdale to admire.  And then there’s Lottie…………wow, just wow!

Lottie is Lottie Woad, a 21-year old Englishwoman, one tournament into her professional golf career and already a winner on this stage.  Last Sunday she won the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open, a co-sanctioned event on the LPGA and LET schedules.  It’s another professional national title to set alongside the Irish one she hoovered up two weeks previously when still an amateur.  This time, however, she was able to bank the cheque – a $300,000 one in this case.  I wonder just how many pros can boast that their first cheque was a six figure one?  I think my first one was £343.00 – even when you take out the decimal point it doesn’t make the six-figure mark.

She is destined, I feel, to become one of those athletes whose surname becomes redundant.  Whenever you say Lottie no one will say Lottie Who?  There’s even room for misspelling her name if you are having a thick-fingered day at the keyboard – Lottie/Lootie.  It all adds up to the same thing – a complete young player who is technically sound, physically toned and mentally strong and who will undoubtedly ascend to the very top of the world rankings, looting the coffers of the world’s golf tours for years to come.  I am hoping for a front row seat to watch her career unfold.

Thank goodness for the women’s golf.  Readers of this blog will be well aware of my sorry, but growing, disenchantment with the men’s professional game.  I find their greed and sense of entitlement misplaced and seriously unattractive and while I’m on this subject I want to register my dread (and that is not an exaggeration) at the prospect of the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black this September.  I fear golf will reach an all-time low with boorish, alcohol-fuelled, unsporting spectator behaviour which may just tip the players over into acrimonious, ill-tempered matches.  Respect, fair play and sportsmanship are words slipping away from the vocabulary of Ryder Cup crowds and also, unfortunately, from the lexicon of some of the players themselves.

But I digress……..Back to Lottie.

Normally, I hold back from jumping on the bandwagon when a new kid on the block arrives at the top of the podium but this is no overnight success or flash in the pan.  Rather, it is the culmination of more than a decade of careful nurturing by England Golf and Florida State University along with a serious commitment by the player herself as well as by a myriad of coaches of the swing, putting and strength and conditioning variety.  Not to be forgotten either is the invaluable and essential support of family and friends.  There are lots and lots of ingredients required for a recipe designed to produce a champion.

The only time I have seen Lottie look slightly out of her comfort zone is during her post-round interviews.  She looks a little uncertain, almost wary, as Global Golf Post’s Lewine Mair so aptly described it.  Although accustomed to scrutiny during her tenure as the amateur world No 1 and her successful quest to gain a full LPGA card through a new fast-track results programme, that is as nothing to what she faces at the moment.  It’s her own fault, of course, – two wins in three weeks on the pro tours with a third place in a major sandwiched in between doesn’t exactly lend itself to flying under the radar.

Will she cope?  Absolutely.  And I hope she learns to enjoy the media aspect of her career because it will be taking up a considerable amount of her time in the future.  This week at Royal Porthcawl at the AIG Women’s Open she is playing in her eighth major but first as a professional.  Seven players were slated for pre-tournament press conferences – one local player Darcey Harry, a winner on the Ladies’ European Tour this season and five major winners/Solheim Cup players.  And Lottie.

Despite her experience out on the course there is much for her to learn as she progresses in the paid ranks.  The aforementioned media attention will demand superb time management on her part so as not to be detrimental to her game.  There’s relationship-building too, both with a manager and a full-time caddie for the first time and the removal of  amateur travelling team-mate companions can leave a new pro feeling quite lonely.

These are exciting times for her but despite how it may appear,  it’s not easy and she has new skills to learn, new people to meet and new folk to trust.

She reminds me in so many ways of Karrie Webb, that wonderful Australian player and former world No 1.  To my eye, the way Lottie powers through to her finish is reminiscent of Webb and these early interviews reveal a confidence in her game similar to that displayed by Karrie.  Sitting alongside it, however is a strand of shyness at being so much the centre of attention, again strikingly similar to the Aussie.

When Karrie did, indeed, achieve world No 1 status she said she had dreamt of that moment all her life. After scaling the mountain, however, she couldn’t for the life of her understand why she had wanted it so much!  Thankfully, she did grow into the role.

Hopefully, Lottie will enjoy the process and keep loving the game – and all the trappings that go with it.

They say it’s a good idea to start at the beginning, so perhaps that’s the best thing to do. The problem is that I’ve pressed a button or two and am now writing this piece in an unfamiliar format and have no idea if it’ll turn out all right or not. In the general scheme of things and given the state of the world, it matters not a jot but it’s become a source of pride (prepare for the fall) to get the damned thing out on time, more or less, every week. Is it a chore? Not really, more a joy but there are times when it’s more complicated than it should be and this looks like being one of those occasions – especially since my technical adviser has gone to bed and I’m hunting and pecking on my iPad having forgotten to pack the keyboard.

It seems I’m starting at the end after all but perhaps I have half an excuse because on Monday I gave blood for the 69th time. Nothing much to boast about really but not a bad effort either. My (modest) ambition was to match my age and all being well I should squeeze in two more sessions before my 72nd birthday next summer but now I’m desperate to get to 75 donations. Then you get some sort of token – emerald I think – to mark the achievement.

I go in to Birmingham to donate and there were two treats in store: a new (to me) train route in because our line is closed for works of some sort – we passed through places I’d never heard of – and The CBSO (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra) playing in the middle of New Street Station at lunchtime. What a joy. Just the boost a blood-depleted bod needed.

Birmingham City Council, which is properly (or improperly) bankrupt, decided to cut the CBSO’s funding and I suggested to one of the staff that they should consider changing their name.  The very sensible reply was:  “We’re the City’s orchestra, not the City Council’s and we have a name that’s known worldwide.”   And so they do.  Renowned, in fact.   They also want their home city to embrace them and bring the joy of music to all and sundry.

Sometimes golf makes the heart sing and sometimes it makes the temper tantrum – perhaps simultaneously.  At a very benign Whittington Heath on Monday, in the PGA Midland Open Series, James Freeman from Rotherham GC had the round of  his life – a 59 that featured 12 birdies (seven of them in a row) and no bogeys.  It didn’t count as a course record because, for whatever reason, at the height of summer, there were preferred lies. Even more galling, it was a 36-hole event and James eventually finished second, three shots behind Irishman Niall Kearney, who surged to the top with a second round of 60.  

I didn’t have any birdies when I played the course on Wednesday and there was no sign of a 59 at a (mostly) bright and breezy Royal Porthcawl on the first day of the AIG Women’s Open, the final major championship of the season.  There was some excellent golf but Mo and I saw not a single sign advertising the event on our way to the course.  Yes, there were signs directing you to the car parks – green, blue, whatever – but they were only meaningful and useful to those of us who knew there was something going on.  Perhaps all the advertising is being done online – by AI bots.  Or is it botts?

We watched quite a bit of Lottie Woad, the woman of the moment but mostly we fell in to chat as we bumped in to friends from far and wide.  Most memorably, the inimitable Kirsty Taylor (née Speak, a Lancashire lass long based in Minchinhampton, introduced us to Corinne Durber, a single figure golfer and a former Gloucestershire county captain now renowned as the router of gambling giants Paddy Power.

Shamefully, this story of  the Golfing Gardener from Gloucestershire (think Gambling also fits in to the alliteration somewhere) had passed us by but it transpires that Corinne, playing some sort of online game, won the jackpot – a mere million quid or thereabouts – only to be fobbed off with a measly £20,000 by PP.  They claimed some sort of technical hitch – a problem with the software/hardware/wiring/satellite biorhythms/whatever – but reckoned without Corinne’s tenacity.  She took them to court and earlier this year, after five years and a lot of angst, the judge found in her favour.  Hurrah.  

(For full, technically and judicially correct details, please do further research elsewhere.  This is the bare bones, gleaned on the golf course while trying not to disturb Woad and co with gasps and half-stifled shrieks.)

More sedately, it was wonderful to see Bridget Jackson, that great and enduring woman of golf, who played in the Curtis Cup at Porthcawl back in 1964.  The Americans won, though not by much and Bridget was not disgraced.

NB  Please note that I have waited until the very end to mention this score, from Hong Kong:  Arsenal 0 Tottenham Hotspur 1.