ANIMAL CRACKERS GOLF

ANIMAL CRACKERS GOLF

Golf got off to a flying start at the Olympics.

But long before these 120 golfers rocked up to play golf as an Olympic sport - after an absence of 112 years - there were other players moving in on the space.

The building of the Rio golf course has been, at times, sunk in a quagmire of court cases, environmentalists’ protests, and public mistrust.  It has been a virtual minefield that has courted controversy at every turn and, for a while, it looked like there would be no course and no medal contest.  However, those altercations and back steps went way over the heads of these key players who blatantly ignored the ignominy and zeal of all parties with equal proportions of disdain and disregard.

And who could blame them?  Here was a bunch of guys and girls who knew first hand the meaning of survival of the fittest.  Competition was wired in their DNA and they were designed to adapt.  So, when the IOC, Rio organisers and the architect Gil Hanse designed a golf course that looked like paradise, these punters displayed a very human characteristic, modelled on that old template of frontier pioneers, that manifested itself in the form of land grab.  Lock, stock and no smoking barrels, they seized the opportunity to claim the land.  Such was their sphere of influence that the designers had to restructure holes 13,14 and 15 to conform to the standards set for these invaders.  It was an amazing takeover and one that was purely indigenous in origin.

First on the tees then was the capybara – these are rodents and, as the parent of a son who owned two pet rats (named Verdi Gris and Rat-a-touille) and two guinea pigs (called Edward and Anthony), I am a fan but there’s no taming one of these shrews or easily bagging one to take home by way of a trophy.  The capybara is the largest rodent in the world and likes to live near water in socially gregarious groups numbering about twenty.  They grow to two feet in height and weigh in at an average of 100 pounds.  They will usually allow humans to pet and hand feed them but the latter is normally discouraged as their ticks can be vectors to Rocky Mountain Spotted fever.  And they gave Superintendant Neil Cleverly a massive headache.  Charged with making the golf course happen on the ground but with a less-than-ideal time frame of two growing seasons to do it, he used a strain of grass developed in Texas and known as zeon zoysia.  Right bang on song, midnight at the oasis saw the nightly appearance of the capybaras at the course’s water hazards where this special grass turned out to be a favourite overnight snack.  They appeared at various times during the tournaments too, especially during practice rounds, and the players stopped to photograph them. 

The parity of disdain continued with the infiltration of the burrowing owls.  Oh yes, you have guessed it perfectly right:  their prime role is to burrow – and they just happen to love open areas with low ground cover which is the exact design for the course at Marapendi.  They are also deviant from your stereotypical expectations of owls in that they are active by day.  Long-legged, yellow-eyed, sporting white eyebrows, and head-bobbers when distressed, they like to burrow or railroad themselves into someone else’s underground home.  And love the bunkers they did, digging deep to form their nests.  On the first day of the men’s tournament, a long-legged owl, looking for breakfast as players warmed up, got himself into a stare-off with the elite golfers but eventually retreated to his abode in the depths of the ninth bunker. 

The next set of invaders came in the shape of the gnarly, knobbly caiman – a small crocodile that doesn’t grow much beyond five feet.  But what they lack in size, former English golfer-turned-commentator, Sir Nick Faldo claims they make up in bite.  “You know the way in Florida the gators are always quite sleepy?” he said,  “Well, this one opened its jaws and snapped them shut angrily.  We moved on swiftly.”  Wiesberger joked there were extra hazards on the greens and I’m guessing, Bernd, you haven’t found suchlike hazards gracing your Austrian golf courses.  They were clearly territorial, too, in that they frequented holes 2, 3, 5, and 9 – odd numbers for oddball animals.  Well, Sir Nick, you need to know that alligator pupils are always 90˚ to the horizon except when flipped onto their backs.  This move discombobulates both their vision and balance and causes them to freeze, unable to see, and with no idea which way is up. 

The final animal to add to the invaders is that snake-in-the-grass, the boa constrictor.  Knocking your ball out of bounds or in the rough carried a hazard that is probably not covered in any rulebook.  Who would want to stand in the sights of a slithering boa constrictor and have a hearty discussion as to the possibilities of a snake being a movable or immovable object?  Who cares?  Professional or amateur: if you’re daft enough to be embroiled in the out-workings of full relief, then the consequences are yours by right of your stupidity.  I, for one, would be so quick off the escape block that there is the possibility that I might smash the legendary Mo Farah’s records.  And right on cue, on the second day of the women’s tournament, volunteers captured a large snake near the eighteenth green – that’s the place where the largest viewing gallery hangs out.  Oh my!

But here’s the thing… the top five golf players in the world declined to turn up at the Rio games, with the exception of Henrik Stenson from Sweden, and represent their countries because of an animal.  It wasn’t any of the miscreants above - who had slid quietly into residence by the back door of the Reserva di Marapendi - but the culprit for Rory, Jason, Jordan, Dustin, and a subsequent whole-flock more of no-shows, had flown in by the front door in the shape of the Zika-virus-carrying Aedes mosquito.  Thanks to Rory, this virus has now gone viral to infinity-and-beyond and he has done more for raising awareness of this health issue than the World Health Organization. 

As excuses go, however, it was lame…

…and Pádraig Harrington summed it up neatly when asked if those who were not competing misread the situation.

“I think completely, yeah,” he said.  “I would have to say there was a lot of sheep in this decision.  They kept just following each other out the door.”  Well done, Pádraig, that’s the correct animal to nail their mass defection with.

Pádraig Harrington grew up in Ireland so he should know a thing or two about sheep.  He might not be of sheep farming stock, given his origins in Rathfarnham on Dublin City’s Southside, but his knowledge of that animal probably springs from that famous theory of Six Degrees of Separation.  Frigyes Karinthy first proposed it in 1929 in a short story called “Chains” and it theorizes that anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries.  If you live in Ireland, you don’t need a short story, written by a Hungarian, to tell you this.  Sometimes, we can’t breathe for interconnectedness and I’m sure Pádraig knows someone who knows someone, in two degrees of separation and over a pint of Guinness, who has told him how sheep behave.  Sheep will follow the leader sheep even if it’s heading off a cliff or to the slaughterhouse.

Which is why he had plenty to witter on about when leader sheep Rory McIlroy decided he no longer wished to represent Ireland in Rio.  Rory was having none of it and he cited various reasons, chief among them being the desire to avoid a close, blood-sucking encounter with a mosquito carrying the Zika virus.  The rest of the players jumped on this excuse bandwagon.

But here’s a thing.  While Brazil undoubtedly registers “High” on the advisory health sites, Florida is also documented on the same sites as a “Moderate”.  Appearing in the Olympics required only a seven-day stay in Rio but a high number of professional golfers base themselves in the US and, in particular, in Florida where the exposure risk is moderate but for much longer periods of time.  Would I be wrong to propose that the greatest reason so many golfers withdrew was not the flimsy fears of a disease-bearing mosquito but more to do with that potential infection of which golfers live in particular life-smothering dread: the absence of a large monetary prize at the end of seventy-two holes?

I have an animal to describe that sort of behaviour: chicken.

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RIO! A NEW DEPARTURE FOR GOLF

I like getting something off my chest and when I do, I like it to be early doors.  Don’t want anyone labouring under any illusions as to what I want to say, so here it is: my take is that golf doesn’t need showcasing in the Olympics.  It’s become a dirty business.  Not golf.  The Olympics.  The IOC has derogated from its responsibility in dealing with performance enhancing drug users in many of the participating sports and has done so at the expense of good, clean athletes and viewers alike.  I have become so cynical that I found myself watching the “horse dancing” and wondered if the mounts themselves were “on” something.  How bad is that?

I suspect it’s all about fat-cats in fat positions on fat salaries and fat track promotion of their own fat lifestyles at the expense of honouring naturally gifted, clean athletes.  After the last samba of Rio has stuttered to a halt, the drumbeat of “Carnaval” has been silenced, as sure as the leanness of Lent follows hot on the heels of the traditional Fat King (King Momo) and the Carnival of Rio, there will be a backlash of malcontent that will turn the rollicking riot of Rio into rot.  Not merely for the participants of the Games but also the inhabitants of the shantytown favelas: the unpicking of the event is yet to happen.  Already, the promised fat purses to aid the favelas have never materialised and the city’s coffers are reputedly empty.  Fat chance of justice then – but the jury is yet to convene.

Against this background, golf has dropped itself back into contention after a 112-year absence and onto a course that was designed by Gil Hanse, ably assisted by LPGA Hall of Famer Amy Alcott.  Pocket-sized description says it’s wide off the tee, imaginative, fun and a smattering reminiscent of Castle Stuart in Bonnieland.  (That means Scotland for those not familiar with the local lingo.)  The Castle Stuart comparison is simple: it was also designed by Hanse.  There is no rough.  There is no need.  Stray balls will be punished by out-of-bounds in underbrush policed by snakes.  After the last light has been switched out on the Rio Olympics, this Reserva de Marapendi course will revert to public use and is thus designed to accommodate the dabbling hacker or professional golfer alike by keeping them engaged and hopeful with wide fairways, multiple approach shots-to-green options, and short-grass recovery shots.  Seventy-nine bunkers - featuring local and indigenous sands – rumpled and dimpled fairways, brush and bush in the absence of trees, dunes and the omnipresent afternoon Atlantic winds form the defences of this course: 7128 yards for the men and 6245 yards for the women at par 71. That’s the play so far.

And the natives love it, moving in with alacrity to possess the space.  As the course is situated way out west of the pulsating heart of Rio, it is not your usual city slicker type who has taken up residence.  These residents would be more at home sharing a screen with naturalist Sir David Frederick Attenborough.  Yup, I’m talking wild and wonderful in the shape of capybaras, three-toed sloths, burrowing owls, boa constrictors and caimans.  And the soccer mad country of Brazil does not really understand golf: witness a spectator who briefly picked up Justin Rose’s ball on the final day of play after an errant tee shot.  Happily, she dropped it again and Rose was given a free drop.  When it comes to majors, golf is used to being the biggest show on the advertising planet but now it is one of 39 sports or disciplines.  The first two days’ attendance appeared to be thin on the ground but Saturday and Sunday attracted a capacity crowd and, for that reduced compliment of followers who made it to the first couple of days, there was the added reward of getting up close and personal with the participants.  Nobody was complaining.

Sixty players took to the course to play four rounds over four days. The player with the lowest score at the end of seventy-two holes would win.  It was never a team event.  Each competitor was representing his country – although clearly American Matt Kuchar arrived in Rio under the illusion he was a member of Team US Golf and only found out he was playing on his own at a press conference before the tournament.  But Kuchar came up smelling of roses: he was the only medal winner of the four-man entry from the US, walking away with bronze.  Kuch, you’re a man after my own haphazard disposition.  Neat work.

Saturday saw the separation of the leading men and then the final day went down to the final hole.  Mr Iceman met Mr Nice Man and the gambit for gold got under way.  Mr Nice Man - Justin Rose - played wonderfully throughout.  A staunch supporter of golf’s inclusion in the Olympics, he played for his country with his soul.  It mattered.  It mattered from the second you saw the selfie with Andy Murray at the opening ceremony.  It mattered when he turned up at various venues, posted more selfies, and supported Team GB, all the while building lifetime memories.  It mattered when he claimed the first hole-in-one on the first day of the tournament.  And it mattered as he stood on the eighteenth hole, putter in hand, to tap in that decisive birdie from three feet to finish on a composite score of 268 and 16 under for the gold.  The future’s bright, the future’s Rosey.

But it was no walkover.  Mr Iceman, in the form of Henrik Stenson, was firing on all four cylinders.  Hot off the high of his phenomenal win at The Open, Stenson had the passion to represent his country and was well supported by Swedish athletes from other disciplines turning up to cheer him on in his quest for gold.  Gold was almost his on the final green but he missed his chance to hole out from twenty feet.  He also missed the return putt for par and his was the silver.  Despite my reservations about golf in the Olympics, I was with the action all the way.  It was brilliant.

Of course, I have a stake in Roses’s win.  Sports psychologists will always tell their sporting charges that they must think and speak the language of positive prose.  With that in mind, I tweeted Justin.  There’s not huge scope in 140 permitted characters to ramp it up in the stakes of powerful positivity but I gave it my best shot and Justin Rose responded.  He followed my every tweeted instruction: “Simply brilliant.  Well done”, “Go for gold.  Got my fingers crossed”, “My grandson is following your journey tru 18 today and repeated after your every shot ‘Justin Rose is playing for MY country’ - he’s five”.  And Justin acknowledged those tweets – by giving his all on the course and by responding on Twitter.  Totally rad.

It’s time to get back in my armchair and re-visit that course.  The ladies are just teeing it up and I have another set of contenders to watch as these players begin their hunt for gold, silver and bronze…

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.