FACT: JULY AND THE JOYS OF GOLF

Golf has never seemed more exciting or demanding than it has of late.  Take the last month with two of the four majors of the year squish-squashed into July to allow us the freedom of being able to watch the return of golf to the Olympic 2016 platform after a 112 year absence.  August would have been promising for golf but for two “slight” problems: the world top ranking golfers took a raincheck from Olympic golf, eschewing the Zika virus and the security issues that required you to name your next of kin and your dentist as a matter of course before you even departed for Rio; and that old chestnut which has blighted sports from Armstrong on his bike to the scandals at Sochi is now threatening to turn the summer Olympics into a withered winter of discontent as the international federation and Bach fail to tackle the debacle of those athletes who use performance enhancing drugs.  Much though golf may need all the help it can get to promote it on the world stage, the question has to be asked: does golf really need to be associated with an event that is replete with cheating participants?  Keep golf clean and away from Rio.  Simple fact.

But now, let’s backtrack to the beginning of July when Royal Troon was the talk of the town and our thanks must go to Phil and Henrik for the most amazing show of golf since the 1977 Open on the Ailsa Course at Turnberry, Scotland when vintage Watson won by one stroke over veteran Nicklaus in what came to be known as the “Duel in the Sun”.  Before he and Stenson even got to battling positions on the two last days of Troon, Mickelson had us hanging off the edge of our seats as he sought to end the first day on an insurmountable high by making an all-time record course score which would have seen him as the first golfer to make a sixty-two.  Instead, he had to settle for becoming the 28^th player to score 63 in a major and the ninth to do so at The Open.  Amazingly, as that ball - heading for centre stage in the eighteenth hole - lipped out, we all felt the wow-factor sting of a historical moment lost in the “forever” abyss.  Curse on that hole - simple fact yes.

Day three and four of The Open saw the men separate themselves from the boys.  On any other day, Phil Mickelson’s final score of -17 would have seen him a winner of any major but he reckoned without the steel of Stenson.  For those of you who reckon that Troon was too easy, get a grip.  Why, oh why, would the score of the next eleven places added together not exceed the combined score of Stenson and Mickelson’s gladiatorial efforts?  We witnessed history as Sweden’s Henrik Stenson shot a 63 for a four-day total of twenty under par and set the bar for the lowest seventy-two score in The Open history.  Accurate off the tees, faultless on the fairways, precise with his putter, Stenson swung the back nine in a truly astonishing display of links golf.  Even with Phil on form and thrilling to watch, he could not outplay his rival.  The “Amazing Jewel in the Sun” was undoubtedly Stenson.  Cometh the hour, cometh the Iceman – a simply indisputable fact.

The end of July promised us the PGA Championship at Baltusrol, New Jersey.  And it delivered – but mostly rain.  Sheets of it.  Stair rod rain.  Cats and dogs rain, rivalling anything Ireland can produce.  I was washed out waiting by the telly for play to resume.  And when it did, I should have seen Jason Day grip his 2-iron for the second time on the 18^th, having used it off the tee, and close the second shot of 258 yards to within fourteen feet of the pin.  He putted for an eagle but, despite the Day magic that followed in the fabled footsteps of John Daly and Jack Nicklaus, he lost to Jimmy Walker.  I should have seen it as it happened but all I have had is the opportunity to watch the re-runs because I was in fields afar celebrating my daughter’s thirtieth birthday.  No contest.  Simple family fact.

But the real joy of July came in the rotund shape of the aptly named Beef.  That’s beef with a capital B.  A rumbustiously rollicking lad, a fillet of fun, who endeared himself to a army of golf fans with his straight-down-the-line answer as to how he would celebrate his Spanish Open win.  His response skirted nothing and included getting hammered, seeing his mum and brother, and spending time with his North Middlesex GC friends.  Unlikely candidate and not your usual PR-guided profiler, this warm-hearted golfer seems to unite two nations divided by a common language and, miracle though it is, he is universally understood by dwellers east and west of the Atlantic waters. 

So what makes him the great unifier?

Butch Harmon nailed it when he said, “He’s a breath of fresh air”.  He’s Joe Ordinary, the friendly boy from next door who loves his mum and family.  He delights in spectator encouragement from outside the ropes and warmly responds.  He gives hope to every high handicapper that, somehow, the dream is possible and they can emulate this local lad.  He sports a beard that looks like it houses a nest of stray house martins and one of his favourite rappers is twin beardie Scroobious Pip.  Psst, Andrew, who’s Scroobious?  Simple musical fact: rap and me don’t mix, man.

Recently, PETA UK wanted him to rebrand as Tofu.  Give an A* for effort to “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals UK” but this man is as staunch as the rump of a British bulldog and he’s not for turning.  He has a wedge branded with nine types of beef.  For the butchers and discerning eaters among us, that’s T-bone, ribeye, brisket, sirloin, tri-tip, flank, filet mignon, porterhouse and skirt.

In a real twist of irony, Beef’s nickname has nothing to do with beef.  As a twelve-year-old, his hair was thicker and curlier and it stuck out like an Afro, thanks, in part, to his quarter Jamaican heritage.  Out on the course, an older player had a “Andrew, wot’s up with your hair?" moment and called him Beefhead.  The name stuck and has been with him ever since.  Prophetic in the round simple fact, I think.

And then there’s the chest bump sequence.  At last year’s BMW PGA Championship, he made a hole in one to win a car and he celebrated in Beef style with a fantastic airborne chest-on-chest connection with a mate who was following him. 

He loves his sleep.  Ten hours are requisite to keep him vibrant and he once declined a round of golf with Rickie Fowler because the start time was way too early – 08.30 for those who are interested in this timely fact.  The diehards of golf will be tut-tutting all along the fairways by now.  Tradition dictates you must be on the first tee by cockerel call - otherwise, you can’t be serious.  He’s not, of course: a Christmas tree still lurks at the back of the sofa, home fridge is full of chocolate and beer, he is a comfort eater by his own admission, plays burgers off his practice tees, eats a Caesar salad twice a year as a cap-tip to a healthy diet and rates John Daly as his hero.  Indisputably simple facts.

Summer is his five-year-old niece and she is his number one fan.  She followed him round Troon and proffered hole-by-hole support for her “Uncle Beef”.  He has his heart stolen by her and wallowed in relaxing evenings far from fairway play by indulging in games of “Top Trumps” with her.  Top family fact that.

But make no mistake: this young man is serious about golf. His late father introduced him to the beautiful game at an early age.  He is a joy to watch plugging away on the course and my simple prediction says he will never become a simulacrum of his homely self as fame and fortune grow.  He has already amassed a massive cult following that is undoubtedly deserved and, although he looks like he should be working at the local Tesco, he makes golf appealing.  I suspect his homespun mannerisms will do more for the exposition of golf on the world stage than any inclusion in an Olympic format.  He is a prime cut of Beef.  Fact, pure and simple.

SO BE IT: POLITICS, SPORTS, MADNESS, MAYHEM AND NO GOLF

Oh my, what a rollercoaster few weeks I’ve witnessed.  Unprecedented.  Unchartered.  That’ll be us here in the newly formed island of Brexitland, formerly known as Great Britain.  We’ve long lost the Great and it now looks like we’re losing Britain.  Gone off the EU map.  Discarded by Obama as the “special” friend of America.  And soon to be dis-United as Scotland remains set to stay in the other Union under Angela and Juncker. 

I have long been an admirer of that First Flower Of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, and her cool, considered statesmanship but even she has gone ditzy with alternating rounds of chagrin and exuberance at the prospect of ditching the United Kingdom and anchoring her Celtic mast to the EU ship. We remain 48 lost sheep led astray by a cavorting and leaderless 52 Brexiteers. So be it. 

But it didn’t stop there.  In a Machiavellian-like plot played out in the absence of David of Pigsgate fame, Gove stabbed Boris in the back, got nowhere with his own Prime Minister campaign, and left the country hanging on the edge, waiting for its second female first minister.  Act three is kicking its heels in a hot “Riverdance” roulette as Andrea Leadsom and The Times newspaper slog it out in what is anything close to the dignified “clean campaign pledge” requested by Theresa May. 

Act two of the same play was largely carried out behind respectable closed doors: Sam Cam and Sarah Vine, wife to Michael Gove, went their separate ways, despite holidaying together, seeing in New Years as ‘besties’, and Vine being godparent to the Cameron’s youngest daughter.  These long-term friendships that have been smashed to pieces in our British Isles Best Political Debacle Ever Contest have created a power vacuum in the Camerons’s vaunted inner circle and a hole in Fran and George Osborne’s famous supper club - for they are now without a single star attraction to perform an “intellectual party piece” thereat. So be it again.

But the UK couldn’t stop there.  We were now living it large in politico soapland and wanted more. With the Tory politicians gone psycho, Labour decided to kick off too, and Jezza hung on by his fingernails against an ousting coup from within his own party – simply because he was feverishly awaiting the Chilcot report so he could point a wobbly, ageing finger at Tony Blair and accuse him of war crimes while suitably forgetting how to sign his own surname correctly.  So be it some more.

The only thing remotely European on our Brexit map over the prevailing days was the shenanigans of Welsh Wales who produced a football side that kept our hopes alive in the Euro 2016 contest, a side who showed us what unity and cohesion should look like when egos and self promotion were put aside and every man sought to play for the greater good of the collective.  Boris (Wooster) Johnson, Michael (Mac the Knife) Gove, Theresa (Macavity) May, David (Pigsgate) Cameron, Andrea (Mother of a reputedly False CV) Leadsom, Jeremy Corybn (the politician formerly known as Corbyn) and Nigel (Forever having a pint) Farage: you could learn a lesson or two from watching a re-run of those Wales games.  It’s called “team work” as opposed to shouts of “me, me, me”.  Team work – yeah, that could work as a whole new, as yet undiscovered, mantra for politicians. So be some more of it.

And Wales were more than inclusive in allowing us all a little chink of hope.  They allowed us all to be Welsh.  Even their late great poet, Nigel Jenkins, had the foresight to make us all welcome in the event we would like to be Welsh. 

The National Anthem of Wales is fraught with an assault course full of consonants, vowels, diphthongs and the small matter of the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative, not to mention several voiceless sonorants.  That amounts to the same difficulties experienced when trying to reconcile the Brexiteers with the Bremainers.  Never between the twain shall there be understanding or meeting.  So, if you’re English suddenly trying to be Welsh in a short time frame, the answer is “No chance”.

Cue the Welsh anthem:

“Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi,

Gwlad beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri,

Ei gwrol ryfelwyr, gwladgarwyr tra mad,

Gwlad, gwlad, pleidiol wyfi’m gwlad,

Tra môr yn fur

I’r bur hoff bau,

O bydded i’r hen iaith barhau.”

A bit hairy, you might say.  But then we found Nigel and there was a choir of light between the rest of the UK and Wales:

“My hen laid a haddock on top of a tree,

Glad barks and centurions throw dogs in the sea,

My guru asked Elvis and brandished Dan’s flan,

Don’s muddy bog’s blocked up with sand.

Dad, Dad! Why don’t you oil Aunty Glad?

When oars appear, on beer bottle pies.”

Wales, I salute you.  Felly mae.

I haven’t even started on Wimbledon.  I was in tennis mode for all of two weeks, grand slamming my way through those matches almost to the point of exhaustion and we were all rewarded with the one and only Scottish Andy Murray taking the title.  Of course, if Angela Leadsom is to be believed in her “Mums know best” address to the nation, then the real winner of Wimbledon is mum Judy Murray.  Follow her @LeadsomTips - curated by @Jason_Spacey and described by The Guardian as “a parody too beautiful for these brutal times”.  Oh my!

You, my observant readers, will have noticed something by now: no golf blog.

Too busy with top totty politics and other sports.  Yup, I am saving it all for Troon, Scotland and The Open this week.

To the Lowlands... agus mar sin bitheadh.

THE BATTLE OF OAKMONT: THE US OPEN AND DUSTIN JOHNSON

Oakmont: that’s where I am off to next in my golf ramblings.  If you are not familiar with that name and what’s happening on the surface of this little slice of the planet, stop reading now.  You are not in love with the game of golf.  Be gone…pretty please because I was brought up to be polite.

My heart wants Rory to win.  He’s from my home turf and knows his shamrocks from his clovers.  He’s at home on the forty shades of greens (Thank you, Johnny Cash, for this earworm song that has haunted my young life and still drives me nuts) but, somehow, his putting is reminiscent of the erratic weather-scape of the Emerald Isle– sashaying swings from sunshine to belligerent rains in any hour of any day.  If you believe in prayer, it’s time to send one up to St Jude who is the dual patron of hopeless cases and – wait for it – golfers.  Give it a go but be warned: Rory did not perform well in his most recent outing at – wait for it again – St Jude Classic!

I’m rather warming to the Dustinator, aka Dustin Johnson.  He’s looking smoother these days in his approach to his game.  Nobody ever doubted his ability to drive but his putting has been way too short for his level of game and enough to drive a golf fan to distraction.  So I got just a little excited when I saw him “up there” in the lead crowd and I was gracious enough to recall how great he was at Chambers Bay US Open last year when he nearly won.  That’s when I remembered my late dad’s words “Nearly never did it” and I was back in the bunker of lost hope.  St Jude isn’t to be found there either.  Please give it your best putt this time round, DJ, and here’s a positive thought to carry you through - St Jude’s attribute is a club.  I don’t know if that’s a driver, iron or putter but I want you to play and pray “St Jude for the putt”.

Justin Rose: who could forget that stunning little four-iron number on the difficult 18^th at Merion to set up a par four and his tear-filled eyes when he looked to the skies to salute his late father, Ken, in the final round of the 2013 US Open after tapping in his final putt?  While Rory has my heart, Justin has my head.  Commonsense says this great player is deserving of the win and he represents for me everything that symbolises my adopted home in this England’s green and verdant land.  Now, Justin, get this: here’s a little song to carry in your heart.  I’m sure you know the lyrics and the tune.

“So let it out and let it swing, hey Jude, begin

You’re waiting for someone to perform with

And don’t you know that it’s just you, hey Jude, you’ll do

The movement you need is in your shoulders”

The avid Beatles’ fan will have noticed my minor poetic licence adjustments to this song.  Go Justin.

Enough of previews and analysis for now.  Everyone’s at it and it’s largely smoke and mirrors, and if St Jude already knows what the future few days hold in terms of a winner, he is keeping schtum on this.  I just wouldn’t like to be in St Jude’s sandals if all of the above-named decide to pray to him at once.  That would put St Jude in hopeless-case hell should he have to decide between them - and here’s the rub: would he pray to himself?

As I watched Oakmont, I was reminded of Ireland.  Not that the scenery is close on Ireland’s rock and emerald landscape but the weather caught my attention.  It was raining in buckets, or stair rods or cats and dogs, and the whole shebang on the first day of the US Open was not so much a tournament as a tournamental washout.  I was glad I wasn’t there.  My pride and joy of straightened hair takes me hours to prepare and, one drop of rain later, it’s way past knotted-frizz tumbleweed look.  Rory has my sympathy.  Very shortly, he will be right up to his neck in wrinkled curls no matter how short his back and sides were when he first teed off.

The sun came out to play on the second day and so did the players.  That’s when I really saw the course in the raw.  The greens had dried to rolling-on-glass consistency and those tight narrow fairways looked like they positively flowed.  Here at Oakmont, the look is hostile.  Those bunkers and the neatly lined-up Church Pews look like they were designed for trench warfare and that’s exactly what you’re engaged in should you happen to waft your ball into these sand traps. Oakmont is surprisingly devoid of water hazards, has no forced carries, is high on naturally sloping fairways that end in devilish greens, and replete with bunkers. I love the rotund potbellied ones; they look like giant pudding basins and they’re possessed of the sort of roundness that makes you want to go “Boo!” as you pop your head out on an unsuspecting passing golfer in the style of “Kilroy was here”.  Don’t do it please.  The Church Pews are something else – a cantankerous cathedral of alternating sands and strips of rough.  This was a fiefdom – a Fownes fiefdom reflecting the steely mettle of its Pittsburgh-based founder.

The back end of day two ran into the front end of day three because of the deluge on day one.  It was an exciting day and DJ obviously followed my advice, Justin and Rory didn’t, and one whom I had never heard of before, young Andrew Landry, gave it his all.  In three days which saw the 624^th ranked player come into his own, Landry birdied Oakmont’s short par-4 seventeenth on Sunday morning – darkness having stopped Day 3’s continuing catch-up play - and then made a sublimely long and curling putt for birdie on the eighteenth.  With that final birdie, he knocked Dustin out of the final pairing with Shane Lowry who had kept Ireland’s hope alive when Rory failed to make the cut.  I am sure the big man from Offaly has a hold of the inside track to St Jude should he need to dial it up: that –and a great short game – makes him an inspirational player.

In the UK, we all got a touch on “excited” when Westwood winged his way into contention but our hopes waned with the dying of the light on Day 3 which saw his unrelenting hand back of all his hard earned points.  And the slow bleed of those points reached haemorrhage proportions during Day 4.  Westwood started the final round five shots off the lead but dropped eight shots on his front nine and crashed out of contention.  Goodbye, Lee.  Time to join Justin.

And so began the final round with several golfing warriors in the mix for their first maiden major.  No wonder Jude and his club were keeping a low profile.  The saint had a peep into the future and took a quick and quiet swing out of the picture.  The beginning was ruled by a sustained Lowry lead and I was cheering my countryman on but, all the while, Dustin Johnson was making a fighting return and was faring well until the fifth.  That’s when he took a few practice putts close to the ball but had not officially addressed it.  The ball moved, Dustin declared it, Lee Westwood, as his paired partner for the round, verified that DJ had not touched the ball, and the official checked and declared, “Play the ball as it lies”.  Dustin did but was informed later, on the twelfth, that he might, or might not, be penalised a one shot.  All the while, play continued and nobody knew what his lead was.  This is top totty controversy and affected everyone’s play.  Sorry, Shane, but at this point I switched allegiance and rooted for The Dustinator as he swallowed his bitter medicine, set his house in order, re-grouped and took the trophy home.  Oh yes, the USGA penalised him a point but Dustin delivered by a wide enough margin to take the cup anyway.

Right now, the USGA have not given full disclosure on their ruling.  Perhaps they are off in the Church Pews praying to St Jude because, to amateur and pros alike, and to quote another Johnson – Boris to be exact – their ruling seemed close to an attempt on their part to make cucumbers out of moonbeams.

Next stop: The Open at Troon.

THE GOLDEN RATIO OF GOLF

There is a golden ratio to be found everywhere you look and it seems this ratio has been littered across the field of life from time immemorial.  Epic epochs of the golden number have spiralled by and, if you’re a smart looker, you will have found those very patterns under your noses in the flowers you smell, in the faces you see, in nature’s formations.  Spirals, rectangles, circles all punting their pi and Phi in relentless, irrational fractions that would cause the average Joe Bloggs, Fred Nurk, Juan Pérez or Bill Clinton to have a meltdown.  Your average international meltdown would probably do so in Fibonacci numbered sequences – apart from Clinton who uses cigars.

And with that opening paragraph, I will have separated the sheep from the mathematicians, the woolly jumpers from the physicists.  The latter will be right up there with their chatter, knowing exactly how to interpret my opening salvo.  The former will be a-galloping off in various directions much in the manner of batty, bleating sheep without an iota of an idea what I am scribbling about.  But, Woolly Wobblers all, stop a minute: it’s not as difficult as it might seem - think Da Vinci, think Vitruvian Man  - the man that doesn’t know whether he’s the square on the hypotenuse or a hamster on a wheel and you’re there.

That’s it explained in a nutshell - the golden ratio or, as every Mario Rossi from Italia knows it “Le Proporzioni del corpo umano secondo Vitruvio.  I do love a bit of Da Vinch from time to time – keeps things in proportion.

But why, in heaven’s name, would I want to lead you up the neophytes’ path when this should be all about the game we love – golf?

It all began with a brilliant book I am reading on the life and times of the greatest ever golfer, Bobby Jones.  “The Grand Slam” is not new, having been published in 2004, but it is new to me and I have finally found the time to read what was a very thoughtful Christmas present.  I’m lovin’ it. 

Mark Frost: I know you don’t need my little opinion to tell you what a great writer you are - but I will anyway.  I love your book on RTJ2 – for the lost sheep, that’ll be Robert Tyre Jones (Junior).  This is the only time I have seen the word “tyre” spelt correctly by an American but, that little Anglican jibe aside, you make him come alive.  He walks out of those pages as the poorly little boy, the growing youth, the man taking on the role of adulthood and making his way in life.  We see him through his lows and highs; we are drawn into them and the rawness of his emotions; we are spellbound at his endurance and solidity in the face of triumph and adversity.  It is not only the story of how a beautiful swing, coupled with an innate nature to read the terrain and play the ball as it lies, that led him to become the first person to win a Grand Slam but we see the march of his quiet determination, his quintessentially un-American trait of self-effacement, his passion to play no matter what the physical and mental cost and we cannot but fall in love and embrace the man in every moment of his life and career.  You handle it beautifully, you narrate with strength and gentleness, and you blend in the supporting characters to make it enthralling and a wonderful page-turner that follows the footprints of his journey.  It has a storyteller’s charm and exhibits an abiding admiration for its subject.  I learnt a lot.

Page-turner though it was, Mark Frost stopped me dead on a page a fair way through the book that mentioned the magic number.  1.62 - hold on to that little detail, all you neophytes. It defines the perfect face, the body beautiful, the whorl of bloom in a sunflower head, the shape of hurricanes, elephant tusks and even galaxies.  The universe itself might even dance to that golden ratio.

But why might Frost mention this number?  It seems it is all down to the size and weight of the ball.  On weight, the governing bodies on either side of the Atlantic agreed the weight of a standard golf ball – 1.62 ounces.  All would have been in golden-ratio-nirvana in the world of golf if only the Royal and Ancient and the United Stated Golf Association could have agreed the diameter.  They could not.

This side of the big water that separates The British Isles from America is where golf was invented – Scotland to be precise, in case any Picts, Highlanders, Gaelic Scots or Celts feel sidelined by the mere mention of the “B” word.  You’d think, then, that the Royal and Ancient governing body would have the last word on what size your balls should be.  Not so.  To golfers playing under R&A rules, it was simply the “small ball” but, in The States, it was known as the “British ball” or the “British Open ball” and deemed illegal under the rules of the USGA.  The small balls of Britain had the perfect diameter of 1.62 and worked more efficiently with its greater go-low capacity to carry in windy conditions.  American golfers were bigger balled with a diameter of 1.68 and won the day with their slogan of “bigger is better”.  In the early 1930s, the USGA ruled against our smaller balls and struck a blow for their greater girth.  The R&A eventually succumbed to this ruling and the death knell was sounded for the 1.62 diameter.

Next time you and your ball are out on the course and your shot goes awry, you might do well to remember that you could have been playing in the perfect ratio of 1:1.62, weight and diameter.  But have no worries – it is not your golf that’s adrift.  You are no longer playing in the golden ratio and we have a scapegoat to blame.  Hurrah for America.

THAT (DAM) MASTERS

Anyone who’s anybody has written something about somebody when it comes to The Masters - The Masters 2016, that is.  The one that took place seventh to tenth of April and is now packed up, all clean and shiny in its Augusta foil wrap, and stowed away till next year.  It’s done and dusted for most - but not so me.  I’m a “nobody” who has nothing much to say about anybody, and I’m a bit slow off the mark when it comes to in-your-face cutting edge commentary but that never stopped me and I find I do have some things to say about some bodies, no matter how late it is.

There’s a defining moment in every event – the one that sears itself into the memory bank, like a hot knife through butter, to render it the key to unlocking all the other memories associated with that event.  We’re talking memory map here and in the future, when The Masters 2016 has disappeared into the haze of history, I could not help but wonder what key figure or feature would outshine all others and give this year’s Augusta its pivotal moment of indelibility eons down the line.

Straight off the first tee, Ernie Els was in contention for that “Defining Augusta Moment” (DAM) title.  Bang went his putter on the first green.  Six feet from the hole, six times it pendulum-ed – or rather it yipping-well didn’t – and before you could shout “Hammer House of Horrors”, his yip-blip, heebie-jeebies, snakes-in-his-head moment had gone viral.  In a few deeply embarrassing swings of a putter, Ernie had morphed from The Big Easy to The Big Difficulty and earned himself an ignoble first place in The Masters’ records by carding a nine on a par-4.  Oh my, he makes my game look professional!

Not satisfied with his first day’s performance, second day out on the same hole, the endearingly lovely Mr Els had another pop at destroying the record books at Augusta and attempted to capture that DAM title again: he eventually finished the hole for a double bogey six – three less than the day before - but only after he had brained an unsuspecting spectator with a wayward second shot that ended up way left of the green.  The magic in those moments was not the extraordinarily high score but the grit of a man whose love for the game and the venue kept him from belly crawling back to the clubhouse in a red embarrassed blush who stayed and played the entire round in the presence of Jason Day, knowing his every moved was being televised.  I died a thousand deaths for him.

Next, Rickie Fowler gave it his best shot.  Rickie may hit the greens in regulation with regularity but nobody could accuse him of regularity when it comes to the regulation dress code.  Like his golf, this dude has gone a fair way to spicing up the somewhat stodgy, stale image of golf’s dress code but, while he looked hot to trot out there on the august Augusta course, his game was cool – that’s “cool” in the Oxford dictionary meaning of the word and before the Urban dictionary had a shot at redefining it.  Having carded 80 and 73 in his outings, the nearest Rickie came to reaching that DAM moment was the speed with which he exited at the cut.  Rickie, get the heat on in your game to make it through all four rounds.  You are so much DAM fun to watch.

Ripping it off the tee box next came the triumvirate charge of Ireland’s Lowry, America’ Love III and South Africa’s Oosthuizen with a clutch of aces on the 16^th in the final round - and all within a two hour space.  Lowry showed the way with a perfectly pitched shot, followed by the Love attempt.  By that time, the commentators were yawning and explaining to anyone who’d listen that it was way too DAM easy to hole-out here until Louis threw a curved ball into the equation by copping an “assist” on the green from the already well-placed ball of his playing partner, JB Holmes, and made it look, for a tottering moment at least, that he had abandoned his game of golf and was engaged in France’s ancient game of pétanque as he cannoned his ball into JB’s and took the deflection off it to sink his hole-in-one.  That silenced the pundits’ yawns and lit up our screens.  Alleluia to those DAM aces, Hat Trick Boys.  Just keep them coming.

The Jordan of Israel has a record of biblical proportions.  The Jordan of golf has an equally biblical record.  And it seemed a fittingly biblical place that golfer Jordan’s game began to unravel at the aptly named Amen Corner.  So be it.  That young man, seemingly possessed of the patience of Job, had played a pretty faultless game till then but, critically, dropped a point at hole ten; he dropped a point at the next hole too.  However, these bumps in the landscape of Jordan’s game merely serve to re-focus him in a bounce-back run that will always keep him in contention.  That’s the nature of his play.  That’s what we all expected.  That’s what should have happened – and it so easily could - but nobody reckoned with Augusta’s most iconic hole deciding to re-assert its trickery and pound out a new chapter in tournament history by scuppering Speith’s chance at a consecutive green jacket.  Twice in Rae’s Creek went his ball while taking a divot the size of Mount Ararat on his second “water” shot.  The 80^th edition of the Masters could well be remember for that episode and, while Jordan re-wrote the record books for the second year running, it was not the sort of record he wanted to write this time out.  Not by a long, card-shattering DAM shot!  I usually shout advice at the telly but I was beyond silence at this point.

And then came Danny Willett and his grinder’s grit.  Flashing Sheffield steel and a white head-to-toe outfit, he plugged away.  Son of a preacher man, Danny’s a Christian with a baby fresh out of the oven called Zachariah (meaning: Yahweh has remembered) who happened to be playing the final round in Augusta on his wife’s birthday and baby Zach’s original due date.  Oh Danny Boy, who says there wasn’t biblical forces at play here too?  Providence provided, it would seem.  Whether or not there was divine intervention working in his favour, Danny Willett had the chutzpah to confirm himself the implausible champion of The Masters 2016.  He already had a Masters-green shirt underneath that white outfit and all he needed was that Masters-green jacket to complete his bedazzling look.  He DAM well succeeded and I am left in awe.

But the other hero of the hour never left England and provided us with rich tweets that defined every passing DAM shot that Danny executed on the home run.  As we watched those closing holes, hanging on the edge of our seats, willing Willett to the win as he made three birdies on his final six holes, his brilliant brother PJ ribbed and ripped us with his hilariously insightful comments.

“Speith is lining up his putt.  If I’m quick, I can get a beer, go to the toilet, and paint the spare room before he hits it.”

“Speith, you’ve won one before.  Wind your neck in.”

“Green makes you look fat.  Refuse the jacket.”

“If the boy does what he should, I will be able to say “I’ve shared a bath with a Masters’ winner”.  Brilliant.”

“Three putt this and you might as well stay in America.”

And we laughed and cried our way through those riotously pride, love and rivalry-filled comments as Danny stormed it through those Defining Augusta Moments to the coveted green jacket.

And that DAM win is best expressed by PJ’s summation on Danny 

“Speechless.  I once punched that kid in the head for hurting my pet rat.  Now look.”

Willett & Bro: I can’t wait for the next outing of you winsome, wise, and wonderful wags.  Roll on the US Open but I shudder to think what PJ will make of the Ryder Cup.  After all, he won Twitter #TheMasters but he could break America with his #RyderCup comments.

Bring it on.

A NOT-SO-SERIOUS LOOK AT THE WGC DELL MATCHPLAY TOURNAMENT

I love golf and if love were enough to make all things succeed, I would be a top-notch golfer.  Unfortunately for me, Murphy’s Law has a way of entangling itself in the execution of my golf and love has not yet found a way of straightening out those Murphy kinks.  That aside, my next love is watching golf and you would think I would be as happy as a hippo in a wallow of mud when sitting snugly in front of the telly with a good tournament to watch – especially as it is only a trivial few days to the first major of the year.

And I should have been a happy hippo but I wasn’t.

On the run-up to The Masters, watching the who-is-hot and who-is-not professionals perform is not merely exciting, it is also informing.  And so it came to pass that I found myself on annual leave from the day job and with all the time in the world to follow the machinations of the WGC Dell Matchplay.  Little did I know I was walking into a storm of distraction and my armchair golf would be far from relaxing and insightful.

It all started when some bigwig golf pundit took exception to a scribed comment in a European Tour piece to the general effect that Austin Country Club looked very much like Dornoch.  That’ll be Royal Dornoch in the north-east of Scotland whose trees, bridges and lakes were “favourably compared’ to those at Austin CC.  In fact, it made his non-existent hairline curl and caused him to explode his apoplectic fit onto the Twitter medium.  A happy bunny he was not.  My mate, Will Shakespeare, pitched the shot perfectly when he said, “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit” and John Huggan was right on target to prove Will’s point.  To add fuel to fire, insult to injury, Paul McGinley, the voice of reason, proffered the observation that maybe Austin was more like Valderrama.  The apoplexy went into full stroke orbit and I got distracted big-time and although the much-respected Mr Huggan did not bring down t’internet in the manner of Kim Kardashian, he certainly exposed two very big boobs.

For the record, I’m with you all the way on this, Mr Huggan, sir.

The thirteenth hole at Austin CC is a great risk-reward short par-4 and that’s where I caught up with my next distraction when I finally extrapolated myself from the Twitter maelstrom.  There was Phil Mickelson standing close to the water’s edge and just off the green.  I have long gotten over Phil’s from-under-his-cap maverick hair frolic and am able to look at his golf fair and square – and it’s only fair to say he is back on magical form.  There he was, in the throes of annihilating young British Masters' champion Matt Fitzpatrick.  It was a bit like looking at a modern day version of David and Goliath, except this time the fairytale ending did not allow the little guy to win.  In fact, Fitzpatrick’s sole win, coming in the preliminary round robin, came to being solely because Berger had to concede because of a wrist injury.  But here was Phil, putting from the edge of the green and 5-up, when I re-joined the telly-viewing brigade.  I never saw him finish that hole, having become wildly distracted by his general attire, which can only be described as square-rigged and beak-bowed.  It really wouldn’t have mattered if the gusting wind had carried him into the close-by River Colorado that snakes its way through Lake Austin and hugs the outline of the golf course - he would have sailed quietly away, secure in the knowledge that the over-the-top yardage of his flapping trousers and collared top would have mightily aided the Pilgrim Fathers in their Mayflower mainsails and halved their Atlantic crossing time.  Those trousers and top should have been classified as a hazard and penalised accordingly.  Poor Matt.  I’m sure he couldn’t hear himself think with all that a-gusting and a-flapping from Phil but those golfing answers were certainly not blowing in the wind for him.  Despite the loose clothing, there was nothing loose about Mickelson’s play and he ended his winning game at 5 & 4.

From there on in and to quote Gwennie P by way of best expressing what I did next, I made a “conscious uncoupling” so that I could get on with watching golf pure and simple.  All was well for a while and a season until Group 5’s third round where I happen-chanced on Rickie Fowler, world golf ranking number 5, but hot-to-trot number one in the world golf fashion stakes.  Rickie is cutting edge and his golf ain’t bad either.  I was supposed to be marvelling at his 198yd tee shot on the par-3 seventh hole, which he nearly aced - but finished for a birdie putt - but, while the world and his wife were open-mouthed at his spectacular shot, my chin was hanging low because I had espied his outfit.

Oh! Rickie! Man!

You have aced it in your latest outing: cleated high-tops combined with six-pocketed jogger style silhouette “bicycle clip” pants.  You have single-handedly caused a furore amongst the male golfers, especially those over and above the years of middle-aged spread, and you have pushed the limits when it comes to performance and style.  While you may have blinded some with your daring-dazzle fashion and set the traditionalists in a turn of twizzles, you have put the fun back into golf and made its stale image young.  I just wish I could be your style director but I confess you’re doing a good job without me.  Carry on campin’ it up, Ricks.

There are reputedly five “little known” F-facts touted around the net about young Fowler.  He’s Fiercely competitive, loves his Family, is a bible boy and has a Faith that is important to him, was Fantastic at motocross and gave it up after a triple Fracture ended that career.  But less known, and of equal importance, is the Foley fact.

Seeing your latest outfit outing, I remain convinced that your style hero must be Jimmy Foley.  That’ll be my dad, a prototype, and despite the fact that he was a self-taught, skilled engineer who could repair anything from a ship to an aeroplane, he never owned a car his entire life and pedalled himself everywhere.  However, it has to be said that once my dad removed his bicycle clips, his trousers looked like Phil’s.  In fact, they would power Lefty’s into a pale comparison.  While Lefty could potentially have aided and abetted the Mayflower with his sailcloth trousers, my father’s pants would have safely floated the entire Spanish Armada on a round-the-world-in-eighty-days trip.  Sorry, dad, you know I loved you but I was always happiest when you kept your cycle clips on.

Enough distraction!  I am now back following Matchplay again and seriously watching the beautiful game but before I leave, I need to put this out there:

Would Phil benefit from taking a leaf out of Rickie’s book and emulating his “cycle clips” look?

Would Fitzpatrick have been better able to concentrate on his game, freed from the flapping of Phil’s pants, and perchance win?

Should Rickie move to Orange County, given his "You've been Tangoed" look?

Does anybody think that Oosthuizen’s toothy smile is reminiscent of Jürgen Klopp’s and do they swop dental tips?

Answers on a postcard, please.  No controversial remarks either.  It takes diddly-squat nothing to distract my featherbrain.

MEET MY GRANDSON, THE GOLF PUNDIT

MEET MY GRANDSON, THE GOLF PUNDIT

I am seriously thinking of getting divorced.  Not from the usual miscreant you might suspect in these cases but from my grandson.  That’ll be the grandson in whom I am well pleased and my just reward for not killing his mother while she was growing up.  He’s growing up fast and has arrived at that peculiar age of cute-on-smart that is pertinent to children of a certain age.  I’m not sure he understands the wealth of his wise owl statements but they sound great and cannot be defeated by any adult logic I know of.

Take, for instance, his recent foray with the man in the red suit and white fuzz.  We made a special trip to his local town to post his Christmas list to the only resident I know is daft enough to live Up The Pole all year round and still manages a hefty “Ho, ho, ho”.  He duly posted his handwritten letter in the North Pole pillar-box and walked deliberately away from the child-mobbed Father Christmas sitting beside the mail spot.  Curious, I asked him why – to which he replied: “He’s only pretend.  Only the real one works on Christmas Eve”.  And then, to slam the truth slap-bang home he adds: “Those pretend ones should be locked up in Colchester Police Station”.  I’m still flabbergasted and I can’t compute the requisite answer to that one - or even begin to refute it.  He’s four.

Back to the impending divorce.  It all began innocently enough - with his imaginative announcement that there was a dragon in my back garden.  I roll with these iconoclastic statements.  They are commonplace to this young boy with an imagination as active as a box of frogs on speed.  And I’m glad I do: we’ve had the best of discussions about the meaning of life, the moon, how your legs get all used up when you run, and the role of the back seat driver.  On this latter matter, he has no end of advice to offer.  He might be only four but he has the hallmark of achieving doctorate status on this particular subject by the time he is six.  I see fireworks ahead should he visit these observations on any future life partner.  Steer clear!

Divorce, then, from angel grandson seems a bit drastic and would never have been on the cards if it wasn’t for the fact that he strayed confidently onto a subject he’d kept well clear of for all of his little life to date.  That subject was golf.

Let’s be clear about something here: golf is a crazy game.  It is possibly – barring any claims to the contrary from secretive Inner Mongolia – the only game on the planet that does not elicit an adrenaline response.  That is not to say the game can be played while semi-comatose but it is a game where the trajectory of the ball is away from the player and therefore evokes no fight or flight response.  The only time this neurotransmitter needs to kick into protective response mode is when some “Where’s Wally” golfer fails to shout “Fore” as he hits a long but wayward shot.  And into this crazy game I found myself projected.  I went voluntarily so I have nobody else to blame.  It is also one of the rare pursuits in my life that I take somewhat seriously – mainly because I’m useless at it and my spirit of competition is forever thwarted.  I struggle to make the time for it and practice sessions and lessons are as rare as hens’ teeth.  Add to that the conflagrations and hostilities of a British winter and my delicate skin…the shades and nuances of a rule book that was designed by a masochist and by-passes my brain… and a dress code that any decent dinosaur would not be seen dead in… well, it all adds up to make me a pretty sensitive soul should anybody venture an opinion that is not heaping praises on my devotion, dedication and wherewithal in the face of an intransigent game.

And that’s where grandson came unstuck.  Faced with his imaginary backyard dragon, I proffered, by way of a nanna-in-shining-armour defence, my trusty steed golf bag replete with clubs.  These were my weapons of mass destruction.  I promised grandson a glorious victory over this dissident dragon in the shape of my swing on those clubs.  That’s when he guffawed.  Not in a four year old gaggle of giggles but a raucous snort in the satirical manner of Vintage Golfer (“From Pants Golfer To Vintage Golfer: a tribute” http://foleysmith555.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/from-pants-golfer-to-vintage-golfer.html) when he first saw my swing.

Gorgeous grandson was not happy with just a gregarious guffaw.  He then launched into demonstration mode.  Swagger pants, barely out of trainer pants, pulled off a swing that was a composite of shot putter Geoff Capes on a shockingly bad swing atop a fanciful fouette from a pirouetting Darcey Bussell overlaid by a kangaroo hop.  This, it seems, was his reproduction of my swing.  He had seen it once only when I took him for a golf lesson.

That caught everyone’s attention.  Oh yes, did I mention it was Christmas and friends and family were assembled.  He was playing to the gallery and when that gallery demanded an “Encore”, he was milking it.  What was most galling was his ability to reproduce this awful example of a swing with an exacting consistently that persistently evades me. 

I felt the increasing blood rush to my cheeks and the need to defend my honour.  I have borne the cost of this expensive game, I have tried to keep out of every golfers way by taking to the fairways when there is least demand lest I upset the longstanding members who “own” the course by some unknown divine right, I continue to run the gauntlet of a love-hate relationship with this beautifully beguiling and engaging game while embarrassing the life out of myself as I shank and whiff my merry way through any permutation of holes, I have had to divest myself of all self-respect in an effort to overcome the urge to run like a hart to the hills and take up bowling instead, and all the while knowing that competent golfers everywhere have little or no patience with beginners but have plenty to say on the pace of play.  I was definitely feeling the grandson burn.

And as I opened my mouth to vent my feelings and defend my honour, my grey cells did a complete U-turn.  It was the word “absurd” that neon flashed across my brain and aligned itself with the words of Tertullian, an early Christian theologian, writing in the second century who said: Credo quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd).  And who can deny my swing is absurd – not I.  But look at Bubba Watson, KJ Choi, Tommy Gainey, Jim Furyk, Eamonn Darcy, JM Singh or Doug Sanders: these Sultans of Swing keep themselves out of dire straits with their absurd executions.  That swing thing might not look pretty in their professional hands but it sure gets them playing down the whimsicals of Whistling Straits and suchlike.  There was yet hope on the horizon of my golfing world and I silenced my lips and clothed them instead in an absurd smile. 

Back to gregarious grandson and his crowd-pleasing antics.  How can I contemplate a divorce move when he has the most winsome of ways about him?  How can I resist a little boy who clasps my face gently in his cupped hands and looks me in the eyes and says, “I love you, Nanna”?  What of a whacky, wayward swing, grumpy old guys and gals in absurdly out-of-fashion clothes with a penchant for “bigging” themselves up out on the course because that’s the only place they can experience speed, or impatient players – born with a club in their hand - who have long forgotten how difficult it is for a latecomer to the game to play, when I have at my disposal the essence of life itself: a little boy who knows what love is? Methinks, if golf is meant to truly represent life, then it has a lot to learn.

And should you want to know what my swing looks like, look no further than fellow Irishman, Eamonn Darcy, in the video clip above.  He and I could be golf swing twins.