WHAT’S IN A NAME? On golf, The Open, America, a Greek tragedy, A Greek solution, a whole heap of nonsense and no mention of Victor Dubuisson.

I have been very quiet lately on the blogging front.  Been engrossed in keeping my head down in true golfer’s fashion and getting to grips with course management – whatever that is.  I have also been very busy – but not on the golf course.  It seems I don’t actually need to have a golf course at my disposal to cause mayhem and madness.  Take my recent trip to Waitrose, my favourite food hall, café, and watering hole.  I shop there daily.  I’m in the checkout queue, lunchtime food needs paying for.  Tummy rumbling.  Great new leather in-your-face-cerise-pink tote bag in hand.  Purse is hiding in the unyielding deepest recesses of this bag and I tip out its contents in my haste not to delay the hungry midday queue.  Make-up bag, notebooks, newspaper, dental care bag (I am known to Guy’s and St Thomas’ – go look it up), more notebooks (I am a consummate maker of lists), cardiology mags (serious read), nano i-pod, and…  And an item of underwear very dear to one, Bridget Jones, which I would rather not have to mention.  I am now more cerise than my giant pink handbag while the queue falls about laughing at my underwear foray in fifty shades of embarrassment.

I visit there daily still but I’m the customer wearing a brown paper bag on my head.

But now I am back and I have something to say about golf.  In fact, it’s a bit of a gripe.  The Open: it is almost upon us.  That’ll be THE Open.  It does not need an appendage adjective to describe or prefix it.  It is not The British Open or The UK Open or The Great Britain Open. 

Like Wimbledon and The Masters, it stands alone. 

Naked. 

No qualifier needed.

The Open is the first; it is iconic; it is the prototype and stereotype; it is sacrosanct.  Since the 17 October, 1860 at Prestwick, Scotland, it has been just that.  All else is follow-on, copy, or replica.  Most importantly, it is this side of the pond and we love it.  And we love its name, undiluted and unadulterated. 

Say after me: The Open. Well done.  Now go to the top of the class.  You can add prefixes and suffixes ad infinitum to anything you like under the sun but leave those two words alone when you refer to what happens with a certain Claret Jug in this part of my back yard but once a year.

Now I take the Fifth Amendment before me and my paper bag head make the next statement.  A straw poll vote tells me that Uncle Sam might just be the greatest offender.  You stole our football and gave it back to us as soccer.  You stole our Open and gave it back to us as The British Open.  Lehman Brothers stole our money but, come to think about it, they still haven’t given it back.  Will they ever?  Will they heck as like!

But we have not complained.  The British stiff upper lip has taken the slight on the chin in bulldog style but as I’m neither stiff, upper, British, or gifted with a chiselled chin – but most certainly lippy - I thought I would put it out there for comment.  Hit me with it.  Am I the new Luddite in golf or do I have a creditable point?  

Well, now that I have burnt my boats and bridges, cooked my goose, gone the whole hog and nailed my colours to the mast with a swathe of America, I might as well finish it off with the proverbial and entire nine yards and get the rest off my chest.  Dare I mention The Ryder Cup?  That’s The Samuel Ryder Cup we have won for a bit of a time and a season over here.  I have had the great and good pleasure of watching live coverage of this event with an American audience in Scotland.  That’s when I first learnt that Americans are known as Americans but Europeans are Euros.  Really!!?

Not on my watch.  For the uninitiated, the I-don't-know brigade and the plain I-don't give-a-fig band, the euro is the official currency of the Euro-zone.  That’s it. It equals approximately seventy pence of the pound sterling.  That’s all.  Certain Europeans don’t even subscribe to that currency and none of us are any too enamoured with that monetary gem at this moment in time, given that Greece is on the slippery slope to perdition and leaking euros quicker than water through a sieve, the IMF is clamouring for fiscal union - with the UK in full-on resistance mode to an emergency bail-out contribution of some £850 million – and Angela and Wolfgang are diktat-ing the sale of the Greek Islands.  There we have it: proof that money is the root of all evil and it comes most predominantly in the shape of a euro.  Meanwhile, we natives of this corner of the world stay in the shape of – say it after me - Europeans.  Well done again. 

Now, David Cameron, Alexis Tsipras, Angela Merkel, and Wolfgang Shauble, gather round in a “Grexit” huddle if you please.  I know you’ve been in meltdown melodramatic negotiations of late but, sometimes, you have to stand back and look at the bigger picture, the panoramic view.  You have all been leaning in (someone wrote a book about that lately; Angela, please note).  I need you to lean out - as far as the Duveen Gallery in the British Museum and a certain set of Classical Greek marble sculptures.  Stick with me here.  I haven’t lost my marbles but Greece has – in the form of the Elgin Marbles.  Let’s put aside Thomas Bruce, his controversial permit from the Sublime Porte, and give the people of Greece back their Acropolis sculptures.  It’s time to part with those Parthenon pieces for pity’s sake, and the sake of a bankrupt country that has given us the birthplace of Western civilisation, the square on the hypotenuse, half the roots of our English language, a screw to make water flow uphill, a shipping magnate with a penchant for familial Greek tragedy and espoused to a former First Lady, the all singing Nana Mouskouri and kaftan-touting Demis Roussos.  What more do you need?  Hand them back enterprising Earl Elgin’s loot and let them use those priceless sculptures as debt collateral or sell them to the highest bidder.

That’s my bit done for world peace and entente cordiale but I suspect my American family and friends will be divorcing me.  

Aw-shucks!

.

THE STORY OF RICHARD DU PANTALON L’ESPOIR

It must be something to do with Vintage Golfer for it is beginning to look like anyone who knows him ends up in “the wrong trousers”.  I wasn’t the only one (see my pants of an adventure with VG at foleysmith555.blogspot.co.uk).  There’s his good mate - named after an English king who managed to get himself buried under a council car park and caused no end of expense getting himself dug up again only to be reinterred (I’m a taxpayer: what was that about?) - who shall forever more and amen be known by us for his style in trousers. 

This Richard is very much alive and wears cargo pants - or at least that’s the nearest description I could pin to those trousers if I were blind or had my sight dimmed by the bedevilment of cataracts.  As I’m neither and I pride myself on having a good eye for fashion, I have to confess I’m hard pressed to find a synonym that comes close to capturing the essence that constitutes Richard’s trousers.  To be more accurate, it looks like he’s wearing two golf bags, one on each leg, and, like any self-respecting golf bag, they have oodles of pockets.  Trillions, in fact, and as Richard doesn’t push a trolley round, I have to assume he stuffs his clubs in his trouser pockets. 

I think he borrowed the idea from journalist Vincent Graff (I’m a fan, Vincent), who beat Ryanair at their own baggage game with the aid of a Royal Robbins Field Guide Vest aimed at huntsmen.  Seventeen pockets, myriad zips, strips of Velcro, the kitchen sink later, and he is on board a flight without the hassle of the shape-shifting baggage allowance getting in the way.  Don’t quote me because I haven’t had this confirmed straight from the horse’s mouth but this pony of an idea seems to be the germ for Richard’s baggy trousers.  It’s a prototype.  Well done, Richard.  Patent it and I’ll head up the sales team.  I am already working on a snazzy pitch: “The Legend of Golf Bag Leggings: what every golfer needs to take in his stride”. 

We have had close encounters with those cargo pants on several occasions.  In the distance and with that entire diatribe about keeping your head down while taking shots, it is difficult to identify who is out there.  Not so with Richard.  He’s a man outstanding on the golf course in more ways than one.

“Is that Richard” Gill or I will enquire.

“Not sure but those are Richard’s trousers” comes the evergreen reply.

“It must be Richard then” we opine in opulent harmony.

Woe betides if the man should ever change his garb.  We could be barking up the wrong tree there.  Gill and I like to do a good character assassination from time to time when we are bored or just being plain silly and it is always good manners to identify the right character before you make a start.  Richard could never duck under our radar with those trews.

And so it came to pass, in biblical parlance and on the occasion of some sort of a club “man medal”, that we found ourselves on the tenth hole of our home golf course.  The peerless pants, Richard and his practice session are behind us on the ninth.  He and VG have an important match coming up so he’s alone and focused.  He is busy reading the green while I am busy hitting a pretty naff drive.  It hadn’t gone any distance and is sitting in a dreadful lie, and my swearing genie was having a party in my head.  Gill, meanwhile, has hit a crackin’ shot and is heading off into the great blue beyond.

There is only one thing to do when you shoot a duff shot: follow it with the most brilliant shot you can muster.  And I did.  Rescue club was the rescue remedy and I hit an excellent shot out of the rough on a left-to-right trajectory that saw the ball coast up nicely onto the skirts of the seventeenth tee.  Not any old tee this one – it was the medal tee.  For those of you who read this piffle for the superlative standard of English and don’t have a clue how sacred the medal tee is to men, let me explain: think football aficionado wallowing on Wembley turf, the Pope having a lip-smacking tarmac snack at the airport, the Queen romping with her corgis (I said corgis, not Philip…) or for me, an audience with the late great Mahatma Ghandi.  Too sacrosanct to mess with on even the most innocent level.  I am so stunned that I missed my first opportunity to shout “fore right”.  Yup, it was a corker!

Yes, yes, I know there are tech terms for this sort of golf ball trajectory.  And for you golfers who are grinding your way through this diatribe with gritted teeth, I know you know your slices from your hooks, your fades from your draws but knowing all these terms doesn’t make you a great golfer.  How would you feel if you visited me in my world and I insisted you speak only of your plicae circulares or haustra? In fact, don’t mention those words to me in clinic.  I’m cardiac and those words are much lower down in the grand scale of your anatomy and physiology.  Draw, fade, plicae circulares or haustra: they are all flatulence and wind to me.

There is only one proper thing to do in times like these: die of embarrassment and since I’m very au fait with this sentiment, that’s exactly what I do.  I would like to recount that I walked confidently down the fairway to proffer my apologies to those magnificent men set for tee-off on the seventeenth’s medal spot.  I didn’t.  It was a sort of over arm crawl along the ground, and possibly the only time I’ve kept my head down in true golfing fashion.  I looked like a belly-rubbing-along-the-ground dog returning submissively to his master’s voice after sojourning away in an indulgent spree of disobedience.  In short, I was mortified.

Meanwhile, Gill - still busy laughing at my debacle - took her shot.  Laughing, swings and shots do not hang well together in the game of golf.  This is about the only thing I can tell you with real assurance from my experience with this gargantuan game.  Oh yes, she hit her ball with a dollop of backspin straight on to the green – except it wasn’t the tenth green. Now, if she had been really clever, she could have executed a shot like Rory McIlroy when he literally dropped a shot in a spectator’s pocket.  Heaven knows Richard of the Cargo Pants has enough spare pockets but, instead, she plopped the ball down, slap-bang, beside Richard who was busy minding his own business on the ninth green.  Give that man his due, he responded with stalwart dignity in the face of Gill’s unexpected right-to-left shot across the fairway.  Straight-laced, straight-faced and straightaway, Richard magiced-up a large white cotton handkerchief from the bowels of his pantalon – with a sort of Tommy Cooperesque “just like that” flourish - and held it aloft, flag-like, in the light breeze.  Shakespeare once said, “Brevity is the soul of wit” and I’m with Will all the way on this one, but I now suspect Richard is a Bard fan too for he uttered only two sterling words as Gill wended her way sheepishly forward to retrieve her errant ball.  “I surrender” was his tongue-in-cheek comment.

There is now chaos on the course.  I have arrested medal play on the seventeenth (cardinal sin), Gill has stopped play on the ninth (mortal sin), and there isn’t anything happening on our tenth (to-hell-and-beyond sin), as we are too busy apologising and swooning with embarrassment.  I think this sort of behaviour might cause a furrow or three with the “Frown on Slow Play” brigade but the only wrinkles on everyone’s foreheads that notable afternoon were those of laughter.  Respect to those medal men who made me feel my game was a million dollars and a high five to Baggy Trousers who gallantly dealt with Gill and her wrong-green gaffe.  Golf legends were they or, in Richard’s case, golf leg-ends.

And now, Richard, a few words in your shell-like.

Those cargoes are worth their freight in gold, flying as they are in the face of fashion.  A distinctive logo for your go-low rounds, you might say, but should you abandon those, erm, pants, I have it on good authority that HM Paras would be grateful for the yardage.  In these harsh days of economic cutbacks, they could literally be flying by the seat of your pants.  What a profound and patriotic thought!  Keep it in mind when you retire those pantalon.  There might yet be a knighthood in them.

But a word of warning.  White cotton handkerchiefs, sunny days, and a lack of protective headgear from those UV waves seem to bring out the worst in men of a certain age.  I’ve been on too many English beaches and seen that four-cornered, knotted-hanky look being aired.  It’s not elegant.  If I ever find you’ve substituted your golf cap for this odious look, there will be trouble.  Let me put it to you gently like this: I’m out of oestrogen, I’ve got a gun, and I’m not afraid to use it.

Do I hear you say “Why the French title?”  Indulge me here.  I keep the French flag flying in case Victor Dubuisson might swing by and follow my blog.  It hasn’t happened aujourd’hui, nor is it likely to happen au demain but je vis dans l’espoir.  Oh yes, Richard, I live in hope!

FROM PANTS GOLFER TO VINTAGE GOLFER: a tribute

I got the big invitation.  Suddenly and without warning.  From Vintage Golfer.  He wanted to know how his protégé was doing. Much like a loud and unexpected thunderclap on a fine summer’s day, it came like a bolt out of the blue.  I suspect it’s a bit like getting an invitation from The Queen to her gaff at the end of The Mall - except this came from VG and was a sight more impromptu than anything I’d seen Her Majesty trot out.  Not that I’m in the habit of getting invitations from Elizabeth II, you understand.  She’s a meticulous planner – so I’m led to believe – but, for my part, I am unable to lay claim to any first hand experience of this.  I can’t see it happening in the not-too-distant future either but, Elizabeth, if you’re reading this, I would be happy with a dame-hood to rack up alongside my collection of silly hats.  Just sayin’, Ma’am.

VG isn’t likely to get an invitation either but that’s a whole other story and, quite frankly, I lack the inclination here to enter into the combinations and permutations of why those born between the Turf Wall and Hadrian’s Wall might not qualify for a royal summons.  Just letting you know, Ma’am.

Suffice it to say the I spent a short time wondering how much of the contents of a salmanazar of fine Rioja he had drunk when he decided to beckon me into his presence.  Or maybe he had been hit on the head with a kettle of wet mackerel? Who knows?  It all amounted to the same thing: I was summonsed to play golf so that VG could give me and my wonderful game the once over. 

I could have told him in no uncertain terms how his protégé was doing.  If words were money, I’m not short of a bob or two and I was up for giving him a detailed account.  But he was having none of my wordsmith ploys and it was all down to demonstration.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man or, in this case, woman.  Preparation was high on my agenda and I planned my game with meticulous diligence.  Now, this is where any half decent golfer would have taken themselves off to the driving range in a fit of swings, chips, runs and flop shots.  Not so me!  I’m not halfway to half decent yet so I bent myself to careful research.  I am fully au fait with the effects of stress on the cardiovascular system.  Tacotsubo is my middle name  (No, it is not a type of Japanese wrestling.  Get with it!). The resultant shock-horror of exposure to my style of game could stop even the most stalwart heart and I, on a day off work, did not want the inconvenience of a resuscitation – even if it was on my mate VG.  A day off is a day off.  I was of the opinion that VG had probably never seen the likes of my game before so I needed to know if his cardiac status was sufficient unto the day.  I sent him a cardiac rehab manual and fitness programme, the full treatment regimen for acute coronary syndrome, and appointments for a Holter tape and echocardiogram.  I’m Irish; I needed to be sure, to be sure.  Ma’am, if you’re still following this blog, I am willing to move from honorary to substantive just so as I can wear my dame-hood in public.  You’ll know exactly what I mean by this remark, Madge (that’s short for Your Majesty and not you, Madonna).

The day arrived.  It was high summer.  Except today it wasn’t.  The only day in the entire summer when it rained, and rain it did.  Cats and dogs variety.  Drowned rat look.  Day for ducks.  “Where’s your rain gear?” says VG.  It was a good question and I didn’t have a good answer.  Grubbing round in the darker recesses of my golf bag, I found my beloved Galvin Green who keeps me warm and dry on every occasion.  (It’s a jacket, you grubby minded readers)  

But I was without trousers.  VG disappeared and returned with waterproof trousers. There was no earthly need to trot out that time worn phrase “Does my bum look big in this?”.  The pair of rainproof trousers VG had loaned me were so big that he and I could have practised ballroom dancing in them on the scale of BBC’s “Strictly” and still have had room left over for the remaining part of the trousers to house a wedding marquee.  They were grand trousers but not in the flattering sense.  Wallace and Gromit might have a good line on them as "the wrong trousers" but as they were the only trousers likely to keep me dry in what can only be described as a deluge, I had no intention of complaining about their lack of fashion appeal. And VG’s wet face didn’t look like you could lodge an appeal against their distinct lack of fashion value.  He’s a man of practical pants and there’s no arguing with that line of approach.

Faces: I love a good face-to-face.  I’ve had a lifetime of studying them.  It began with the Sisters of Perpetual Habits who instilled in me qualities that were never set out on education curricula anywhere.  You can always tell the façade from the visage when you study a face.  Vintage Golfer wasn’t looking his cheerful, pragmatic self this morning – more fearsome than fair-some.  In fact, he looked like he had spent the night studying the cardiac rehab manual, failed the fitness programme, recorded syncopal episodes on his Holter monitor, spontaneously passed out, and had a poor prognosis on his echocardiogram.  That or he was coping with the after effects of a salamander of Rioja but, as he always claims he never suffers with a hangover, how could that possibly be the cause?  My heart sank. 

I am by now half dressed like a fisherman on a deep-sea trawler and sporting a wet look I didn’t rate.  Suddenly, I get pounced on again and he’s looking irate.

“That glove,” he says, “You can’t possibly play decent golf with that.”

Inference is never wasted on me and my glove was certainly looking jaded.  My immediate and optimistic conclusion was: swap the glove and my golf will be decent.  Sigh, perhaps this is the time to give up on optimism or dial it down a bit.  I need to tell his nibs it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference but he has strong opinions and studying his wet face, I knew this was not the time to air my views.  I had a rare moment of silence and held my tongue.

By now, I am all of a dither but fate had one more trick to play.  Heading out to the first tee, his long-term golfing buddy whispers in my ear “Good luck.  You’ll need it.  He likes to win.  He takes no prisoners”.  That’s one of those hole-in-the-head remarks you never need but always get so, with the final nail in my coffin, I now knew that there really was no hope.  That’s a tough call when you are an optimist.  And so, with these conflicting thoughts, I find myself standing on the first tee in a downpour. 

Oh happy days!  “You swing your best when you have the fewest things to think about”.  I salute the late great august master Bobby Jones for this wisdom.  Thank you, Bobby, but before I take leave of you, there is one burning question I need to ask.  Where did you get a middle name like that?  I mean come on, mate, “Tyre”: what’s this about?  I’d have no truck with nomenclature of this ply if I were rolling in your tracks.  Ma’am, if you’ve stuck with me this far, could you find a posthumous award for Bobby?  He deserves a medal.

I’m on the first tee and my brain is squishing squillions of thoughts about, so much so that I swung my worst swing ever and landed the ball all of two feet to the left of the box.  Yup, Sir Robert Tyre Jones, you holed-it-in-one on that prophetic pin if you were thinking of the likes of me when you made that erudite comment. The only positive outcome from this debacle is that VG suddenly finds his missing laugh.  And he used it heartily, wallowing in a protracted guffaw.  I would delete him from my Christmas card list forever but, alack, I don’t send any.  I’m currently working on a suitable punishment.  And so we set off.

There is a perennial list of strong-lettered words embedded in my brain.  They were hammered in there when I was the young side of little and they were words I was not allowed to use - ever.  Of course little me made a mistake and accidentally trotted out one of those words in adult company.  It was a first but, happily, not a last as I’ve practised some of those forbidden fruits a few times since - whenever there was a deserving cause.  It was also the first time I experienced time-travel.  After innocently quoting from the list, I was promptly knocked into the middle of next week. And now VG was doing the honours of floating a word for possible inclusion on that list but, now that I’m all grown up, I’m in charge and I decide when a word qualifies or not.  His did, emphatically. He used the “S” word when describing my swing.  You see, my swing comes with the cardinal sin of “sway” attached: read “anathema” to low handicappers.  In the great high church of golf, I’m not fit to add the coals to the thurible, much less swing it.

And so we wended our way round a wet and windy field.

Back at the clubhouse, Vintage Golfer consumed about five gallons of orange juice laced with lemonade.  It seems good golfers dehydrate as a result of their focus and concentration.  As I don’t suffer with that problem yet, I was replete on a mug of Rosy Lee.  

Now it’s time to play my Get-Out-Of-Jail card: Vintage Golfer, you taught me a few things about golf that day and I’m grateful – why, you even got me started in this crazy game - but here’s something I need to teach you.  Visualisation.  Even eejit golfer me knows visualisation has a bang-on hot role in golf.  In my head, I have a picture of my driver.  And you’re wearing it.  I am not making public which part of your anatomy it’s ensconced in but, if you ever wish to find out, just run that word “sway” past me and my swing one more time.  Apart from that, I give you free licence to say what you want about me.

Now, Ma’am, I need to have a word with you too: you can send Philip out with me for a round of golf.  He’s in safe hands.  I do a mean line in resuscitation and, if it doesn’t work, you can at least be assured he will die laughing.  I guarantee that.

And while you’re at it, Ma’am, could you please ask Princess Anne to rescind that silly remark about her preference to walking the dogs rather than playing golf?  It’s not looking good on her now that she’s in the newly formed female inner sanctum of St Andrews. 

Sigh, bang goes my dame-hood!

ON BUGS, RESUSCITATION, VINNIE JONES, AND THE MANY LAYERS OF GOLF…

I have a beautiful grandson – gorgeous, gregarious and engaging.  He is full of wonder, vim and vigour and he is at that age where he soaks up knowledge in the sponge-like manner that only the very young can effortlessly achieve and then regurgitates it, as adult wisdom, full of ingenuous humour.  He cracks me up endlessly.  I get to be three all over again when I’m in his presence.  He is also generous and shares everything, which is how I came to acquire a certain infection.  I came to babysit recently and his opening salvo ran like this: “I’m a poorly boy, Nanna, and poorly little boys need their hugs and kisses”.  In a flash, fourteen years of hand-hygiene-to-the-fore went out the window, I reneged on all the research-based evidence that was ingrained in me, infection control was blown out of the water, any erudite conversations with a consultant microbiologist or two were filed under “Highly Unnecessary” and I engaged in close encounters of the hugging kind.  Scooping poorly boy in my arms and smothering him with kisses, I loved him at the point of his need – and paid the price.  He generously shared his infection with me.  Those of you of a delicate disposition should look away now and switch off your brain’s visual display.  Let us dwell not too long on the permutations of the Norovirus bug but, ahem, clutching the toilet pan in the wee small hours like it’s your new best friend is nobody’s finest hour.  And it wasn’t mine.  Le Bug met Le Bog several times that night.  Now I was poorly.

It’s winter here in the UK.  That means two things: it’s cold; warming layers are the only fashion statement.  Switch your brain’s visual display back on, recall Sir Rannulph Fiennes fine comment “ There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”, think golf course, think Michelin Man (America - the look is poppin’ fresh Pillsbury Doughboy) and you have us down to a tee.  You cannot see gender easily (or so I thought): we are all homogenously onion shaped from the neck down.  Sounds sensible but I have a few things to say about layers.  Stick with me here, reader, it’s worth it…

A week later and somewhat recovered, there I was standing on the tee box, strutting my layers and yielding my body into the power force that constitutes a perfect drive when, all of a sudden, the resultant four pound weight loss from the trajectory of Le Bug through my system manifested itself. I could scarce believe my rods and cones but my eyes were not deceiving me.  Suddenly, I was wearing that low-slung-crotch look beloved of “saggers” and hip-hop youf culture everywhere.  I don’t rate the look and I can only describe the event as a bum rap or, to be spot-on pedantically precise, more like a bum unwrap.  Intent as I was at modelling the Rory McIlroy bombing-it-for-an-eagle-on-a-par-five swing, I had swivelled fast and furious.  All was well with my body but not with my now loose trousers.  They took on a life of their own and headed south, along with two other layers, till I was inadvertently showing what is graphically described as builder’s bum.  Since I am a fully paid up member of the gym bunny brigade, perhaps I exaggerate the yardage of my lower cleavage.  Maybe barefaced cheek might be a more suitable euphemism.  Whatever phrase you use, there was a lot of unwanted flesh hanging out.  A thoroughly frozen asset, I might add, that left me somewhat embarrassed.

Oh yes!  I am hot on layers.  Comes with the work territory.  It wasn’t in the Job Description when I signed up to my current post in the cardiac world but I quickly learnt it was an everyday part of wintertime clinics.  Roger Neighbour wrote a seminal book on how to conduct a medical consultation.  I plough my way fervently through that inner consultation model with each consultation and every patient.  It works brilliantly.  The appliance of science and I’m lovin’ it, Rodge, except for one thing: nowhere in that sterling textbook of yours does it tell me how to find my patient under the Layers ‘R’ Us ensembles that appear in my clinics in the guise of patients.  It’s obvious women score high in the layer department: there the vagaries of a bra, then the thermal camisole, over layered petticoat, blouse (with tiny buttons), skirt, waist high tights, cardigan, and overcoat.  But I have to hand it to the men.  Yet again, they’ve managed to outrank and outsmart the ladies on layers.  More importantly, it’s the manner in which they apply them that’s the problem.  Take your average man: thermal vest (occasionally string…OMG! what’s that about), shirt (with even tinier buttons), pullover (the tighter the better), fleece gilet, lined jacket, underpants, long johns that extend from ankles to armpits with gripping elasticated waistband tight enough to stop the circulation, woollen socks to the knees, and surmounted by an overcoat.  Every item on the top half is tucked deeply into the folds and layers of the bottom half and then he adds the final piece de resistance: belt and braces.  It’s total lockdown.  Carnage.  It would be easier to pull a successful heist on Fort Knox or vanquish the vaults of the Bank of England than unsheathe a man ensconced in these items of body armour.  I don’t think the Crown Jewels have such tight security.  And I lose fifty percent of clinic time just digging out my male patients from the bowels of their clothing.  Now if Lady Misfortune were to smile on such a person and decide to send an unsolicited gift in the shape of a cardiac arrest or myocardial infarct, there would be little hope of exposing that chest wall to the timely necessity of a zap or two from a defibrillator.   In essence, it’s a pretty dead end look in every sense of the word.

Keep these clinical findings in your brain’s visual display and let me lead you back nicely to where I was standing on the tee box with my trousers way below the axis of decency…well, let’s not replay that scene.  I looked round surreptitiously to see who had seen my denouement.  And all I could see were layers.  Rammed down in your pants layers.  Belted layers.  Braced to the hilt layers.  And suddenly those onion-shaped Michelin Doughboys had gender.  Man-shaped gender.  I forgot my predicament as the rush of cold air from my derrière esposé hit my brain and, in an instant, I realised what a great disservice the Royal And Ancient do to their male members.  Oh yes, we ladies thought we had it bad with the lads-only rule at Muifield and Troon - and let’s also include here the miscreants from the other side of The Pond: guilty as charged Lochinvar, the shameful Black Sheep Golf Club, the boo-hiss Bob-O-Link, Butler National and Burning Tree Golf Clubs, and the dated attitudes of Old Elm Club and The National Golf Club of Canada – but those faux pas pale into insignificance by comparison with the men’s dress code so gloriously upheld by most golf clubs and at the behest of the R&A.  For once, something in the golfing world swings in our favour.  We ladies don’t have to tuck anything in.

My light bulb moment of inspiration would have me say this:  Boys of a certain age or if you have acquired a cardiac history at any age, ditch the belts, braces and tucked-in-the-waistband look.  Pay no regard to the Royal and Ancient rules and regs.  Defibrillators weren’t on the scene when they wrote those rules.  Forget your local golf course dress enforcement policy.  There’s a tight working window when your body pulls off a cardiac event.  If anyone has to spend thirty minutes seeking your sternum, you’ll have hit the great exit ramp of life at high speed and those bolted down layers will merely be accelerating your exit.  And for what and whom?  Just let it all hang out.

Vinnie Jones is worth a look-see.  Watch and learn from the hard man.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-health/nation-of-lifesavers/hands-only-cpr/behind-the-scenes-with-vinnie

And if you don’t believe in the golf course scenario, listen to Alan’s story.

http://youtu.be/M2STeerbaWA

Victor: I’ve made it easy for you to follow my scribble this time round.  I put the French words in italics

THE FUTURE OF GOLF: a (serious) reflection

There is a rash of suggestions out there that bears witness to the impending demise in golf.  And indeed there is a downturn in the numbers of new participants being recruited to the game in the current times.  The past few years have seen the number of young players in Britain halved while the USA, the new and untraditional “home” of golf, has seen half a million regular players desert the game.  Fingers point continuously at slow play being the culprit.  The argument goes that if we somehow jump on the bandwagon of speeding things up, then all will be hunky-dory in the land of fairways and greens.  Instead of the normal eighteen holes taking over six hours to play, it will be done and dusted in half the time, and the young, the old, the great and even the not-so-keen will flock onto the tee boxes in their millions.

The debate was further fuelled by Rory McIlory’s comment in recent weeks, when asked by the BBC about the fall-off in players, and his response gave wings to this notion of slow play being the slayer of golf.  McIlroy was quick to point out that slow play needed to be eliminated at grassroots only, while players of his calibre should not be required, or penalised, for such play.  

In my humble opinion and as a newcomer and beginner in this great game, the argument does not hold up on many fronts.  Little does McIlroy seem to recognise that slow play, with its painstaking pre-shot routines, focused study of greens and the steady reconnoitring of terrain for course management, comes as a top down model.  Slow play is beamed out to every home on the planet through the media of TV.  We are all familiar with the edited cut, the pan of the camera from the popular player to the more obscure one when the popular player is in contemplative mode.  Anyone who has walked a tournament in full swing will know that it is precisely the interaction of variable speed and pause that causes the contrast, and therefore the drama of golf.  It is a head game that relies on the minute counterbalancing of concentration, nerve and conscious self doubt that renders a shot effective or a fail.  Slow play is therefore an integral part of the game and is necessary at amateur and professional levels in equal proportions.

Most sports are built on acceleration of thought, grasp of opportunity, speed and competitiveness but golf stands alone in that it is a game of focus, played one shot at a time, and is executed in such a manner as to render it almost pedantic as it is played primarily against the course itself and ultimately against the player and their capacity to control their clubs and ball.  It is also unique in that it is perhaps the only sport in which the ball is played away from the player.  Ball sports played against an opponent will trigger the natural fight or flight response which engenders, anatomically and physiologically, an adrenaline surge – and hence the capacity for rapid response – while golf requires the opposite: the calming of the monkey brain.  Its very nature is based on a downturn in response, a calming manner and a slower style of play.  These responses will vary from player to player.

Reducing game time by nearly half will not necessarily make a round of golf any more attractive to those in demanding and time-consuming jobs.  It is far easier to indulge in many more activities for relatively short periods of time on a daily basis – like tennis, football, running or cycling – and see greater results than the time required to grow a game of golf.  Golf is by its nature slow but that very essence is what makes it attractive, and to seek to speed it up – the latest fad being in football golf or increasing the hole size to pizza-sized holes – seems to rob the game of its greatest assets: being outdoors for long periods of time, employing the mind to work out the changing facets required in course management, the balancing of club against terrain and each other, the maintenance and endurance of mind and body in all elements, remaining calm and relaxed under pressure to produce and perform consistently, and the social triumph of a day well spent.  In our time-strapped society bent on instant gratification and rewards, the long traditions of golf hold small attraction to a younger audience.  Speeding up slow play will not solve these problems or increase its appeal.  There is so much more that needs to be addressed – like outdated dress codes, a myriad of stupid, anarchic rules, a misogynist outlook from a male-dominated sport, and the poor image perpetually propounded by the Royal & Ancient.

While sauce for the goose should equal sauce for the gander at all levels of play, it is naïve for anybody to believe that eliminating slow play has any solid evidence of increased recruitment of numbers or, indeed, that it is the only cause of the game’s loss of appeal.  I’ve read a million reasons why the game of golf is dying – and it is; I could add a million more of my own – and I might; but they are all down to personal opinions.  Not one of them is research-based and that’s because nil-to-very-little research has been done.  Without research, and the subsequent formulation of a concrete approach from that research, the best response we can hope for is hotch-potch solutions in isolated pockets of the world.  Am I the only idiot on the block who’s figured out that if golf dies, a whole lot of jobs might go?  It’s an industry, right?  I cannot fathom why independent studies, much less meta-analysis, have not been carried out.  I work in a world whose very existence depends on these sorts of reports and analyses.  There are many stakeholders and businesses with overt and vested interests in the business side of golf that could easily head up research, postulate solutions, pilot the ideas, and carry best solutions into reality.  But it’s not happening.  It’s looking like everyone is out to prove Charles Darwins’ theory all over again – survival of the fittest.

Here are a few articles to whet your appetite on the state of play today:

http://www.golfshake.com/news/view/8397/The_future_of_the_game_Junior_Golf.html

http://www.golfshake.com/news/view/6332/Friendly_flexible_and_family_orientated_courses_could_double_number_of_golfers.html

http://www.golfshake.com/news/view/8019/Its_a_magnificent_game.html

http://www.golfshake.com/news/view/8018/Golf_is_in_decline_but_can_we_fix_it.html

http://foleysmith555.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/on-origins-of-mamil.html

ON THE ORIGINS OF MAMIL

Crank up the volume.  Shout it from the rooftops.  Let it be known far and wide.  I’m in love.  His name is Vassos and he’s Greek.  He could be a Greek god but I have no idea.  He might even be dressed in an eclectic fusion of classic-on-contemporary, flamboyant-on-elegant metrosexual man-gear or a simple brown paper bag but I wouldn’t know.  You see, I’ve never met him.  But love him I do.  Vassos hangs out on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show and delivers daily potent pint-sized pieces that keep me bang up to date with the shenanigans of the sporting world.  I listen to him most mornings but the other morning, he grabbed me by the ears and I haven’t been the same since.  Perhaps I never will.

Every so often he comes up with a gem of an idea, a germ of a theory that takes my breath away and the other day was no exception.  Not only do I play golf, I digest vast tracts of theory, articles, forums, videos, vlogs, blogs and reviews like they’re going out of fashion.  I have enough golfing information-flow in my head to sink the Titanic all over again.

I’ve read a million reasons why the game of golf is dying – and it is; I could add a million more of my own – and I might; but they are all down to personal opinions.  Not one of them is research-based and that’s because nil-to-very-little research has been done.  Without research, and the subsequent formulation of a concrete approach from that research, the best response we can hope for is hotch-potch solutions in isolated pockets of the world.  Am I the only idiot on the block who’s figured out that if golf dies, a whole lot of jobs might go?  It’s an industry, right?  I cannot fathom why independent studies, much less meta analysis, have not been carried out.  There are many stakeholders and companies with overt and vested interests in the business side of golf that could easily head up research, postulate solutions, pilot the ideas, and carry best solutions into reality.  But it’s not happening.  It’s looking like everyone is out to prove Charles Darwins’ theory all over again – survival of the fittest.  Bring it on.

Now back to Vassos and time to get on with my hot topic.

Vassos found a man to blame for the decline in golf.  He pedalled out Bradley Wiggins (Yes, Sir) and then added the rider MAMIL (for the phonologists among us, sounds like mammal).  While I was doing my best impression of an Incredible Me Minion “WHaaat?” while on the traffic crawl to work, his dulcet tones continued to explain that Middle Aged Man in Lycra (Yes, MAMIL) has abandoned the weekend five hour golf outing for a much quicker two hour fix of serotonin and nor-adrenaline – with a massive cardiovascular workout thrown in for free.  Back home, smug and satisfied, he’s now ready to spend the day with family.  And this all started around the time Wiggo was making his Lycra-clad wheeling form famous.  It seems middle-aged golfing man is easily influenced, abandoning the fairways for the lure of polyester, spandex, and a saddle.  Who’d have thought?  And nobody has come close since to putting the brakes on this Diaspora.

But I have news for you, Vassos.  There’s one that got left behind. How should I best describe him?  More V-Tub than V-Dub.  On his own.  Practising his driving skills and approaches.  Not bothering to putt on the temporary greens.  Out on the course on a Sunday morning.  Not an inch of spandex.  Or a yard of lycra.

Like the polite golfers we are, we wave him through and he plonks his ball to the left but level with mine, just off the green.  Note the fact that he’s arrived in this lie after two shots on a par 5 while I’ve arrived there by way of a million laughs, a game of hide and seek in the gorse bushes, and by some anarchic miracle that results in me landing at this spot with the same ball in my possession that I started off the tee box with.  I’m feeling proud.  It’s a Titleist Pro V1. 

He passes by.  We exchange polite, meaningless words and he heads for his ball, except – wait a minute - he scoops up mine.  I was still reminiscing on the V-Dub moment and was deep in Francophile mode so I had to use all my reserves not to shout “Faux play”.  The phonologists among you will have spotted immediately why this would not be appropriate.  Me, I’m saying nothing more. 

But I couldn’t let him run away with the Lamborghini Veneno of golf balls and all the blood, sweat and tears I had endured to shift that little white ball up the course to that particular lie.  Once I got over the shock of non-MAMIL skirting away with my property, I yelled in my best Cockney parlance “Oi you, I think you’ll find that mine”. He dropped it pronto and took off like a scalded cat.

Well, Vassos, he’s one I haven’t seen for a while and I am rather hoping he has pursued your theory and has become new MAMIL man.  Should he ever steal my ball again, I shall be deploying a not-so-nice French technical invention.  It’s called the guillotine.  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/4VvrY7VNZ1WGL9KG2NFwR2L/vassos-alexander

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vassos-Alexander/136678419766384?fref=ts

https://twitter.com/VassosA

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00p2d9w

https://www.facebook.com/ChrisEvansBreakfastShow?fref=ts

https://twitter.com/achrisevans   

http://www.titleist.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Titleist-National-Fitting-Centre/1659600134639 64?fref=ts

https://twitter.com/Titleist

http://www.lamborghini.com/en/masterpieces/veneno/overview/

https://www.facebook.com/Lamborghini?fref=ts

https://twitter.com/search?q=lamborghini&src=tyah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Wiggins

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bradley-Wiggins/109655292394188?fref=ts

https://twitter.com/search?q=bradley%20wiggins&src=tyah