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LPGA Commissioner Mike Wahn spoke this week about the ISPS Handa Open which will be played in Melbourne 7-10 February. This is the first year it will be on the LPGA schedule and is co- sanctioned event with the European Tour and the ALPG Womens Tour and the PGA of Australia. Men and women compete together on the same courses – there are two at the 13th Beach Club. Top female players competing are Ladies British Open champion Georgia Hall, World No 6 Minjee Lee, Pernilla Lindberg, Melissa Reid and Joanna Klatten. As well as a large field of top Australian players including former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy players from the European Tour already committed are Andrew ‘Beed’ Johnstonr, Paul Dunne, Nicholas Colsaerts, Victor Dubisson, Aaron Rai, Richard McEvoy, David Lipsky and Thomas Aiken.

“It’s time” says Mike Whan who disclosed in an interview this week that he and PGA Commisioner Jay Monahan have had an ongoing dialogue about mixed tournaments. He said that they had originally discussed a joint Tournament of Champions, but the new LPGA version held this week at Diamond Resorts is with a sponsor who wants to make the event a celebration and set the tone for the LPGA’s year ahead. It’s an important event for the LPGA which he plans a long future for. He felt that the PGA Tour’s Tournament of Champions was held too early. He said that prize money parity would only happen when TV audiences went up significantly – the mens tour currently have five times the audience. However they are now experimenting with four new events with different formats including a better ball team format with 64 teams. He said he went to the PGA Tour and asked them to share the process they used to set up the Zurich Classic. The sponsors for this new event, Dow, are very positive that fans will want to watch.

He said that the back to back mens and womens US Opens at Pinehurst was a good idea because there was a lot of interraction between the male and female pros exchanging coaching ideas. The IPSA Handa Vic Open has free admission for seniors and young people under 18 and just $10 a day for other spectators.

How different is this all from the made for television Men vs Women series which was filmed at Woburn in 1980 with Lee Trevino and Greg Norman vs Nancy Lopez and Sally Little, how patronising that was. I shudder at the memory. We’ve come a long way.

After a three year consultation process, described as “longer than Brexit”, the Golfing Union of Ireland and the Irish Ladies Golf Union separately voted on Saturday to establish a new national body – Golf Ireland – which will go live in January 2021.

The last two national golfing bodies in the world to govern by gender, the vote was 100% from the ladies and 94% from the men. It isn’t a merger, it’s the establishment of a new body representing 180,000 golfers. The Golfing Union of Ireland is the oldest national golf union in the world, established in 1891, with the ILGU established two years later, they had their 125th anniversary last year.

A joint statement from the chairmen of the two bodies said:

JOINT STATEMENT BY THE CHAIRPERSONS OF THE ILGU AND GUI BOARDS

“We are delighted with the outcome of the votes at our respective meetings, and thank everyone who has given this proposal their support.

“Bringing two strong organisations, the ILGU and GUI together to create a stronger, more influential organisation, Golf Ireland, will not only enhance golf in Ireland but will enhance Irish golf worldwide. The result today indicates that members of both Unions are in support of creating a new organisation which will be built around promoting core principles of equality, diversity, inclusion and excellence.

“The result today is a validation of the work put in by everyone involved. The input which has been received from our member clubs, our staff and volunteers, and everyone else who has in some way contributed to the final proposal should be recognised. The result of their efforts will be a new dynamic organisation, charged with the promotion of the game of golf, with a commitment to excellence and inclusivity.”

Clodagh Hopkins, Chairman of the Board of the Irish Ladies Golf Union

Iognáid Ó Muircheartaigh, Chairman of the Board of the Golfing Union of Ireland

After the 1942 Masters competition ceased for the duration of the war and Augusta National was turned over for raising cattle. They wandered the fairways and destroyed the azalea and camelia bushes. Bobby Jones enlisted and became a captain  in the Army Air Service. In 1944 he came to Europe and took an active part in the D-Daylandings in Normandy. He was by then Lieutenant Colonel and went out with the invasion force.

Other golfers who actively served were Ben Hogan, who was a Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps, Sam Snead in the navy and Lloyd Mangrum, who had a course record in the 1940 Masters. He won two purple hearts for active combat in the war. Byron Nelson, who was exempt on health grounds, took part with Patty Berg and Babe Zaharias in Bob Hope and Bing Crosby’s 6 week tour of the United States raising money for the war effort.

Over here Sir Henry Cotton was an officer in the Royal Air Force, and spent time off duty performing exhibition matches to raise funds for the British Red Cross.

Burhill Golf Club was requisitioned by the Ministry of Aircraft and a member of my family worked alongside scientist Barnes Wallis who was developing the “bouncing bomb” there. Up at Turnberry, the fairways bunkers and greens had been flattened to turn into RAF Turnberry. The hotel became a naval hospital. the coastline around the course was used by pilots to try out the low flying bombing technique. The Torpedo Training Unit were based around what is now the fifth hole. If you visit Trump Turnberry, look out for the memorial by the 12th green.

In the end it was a birdie putt, set up by a beautiful 3-wood approach, that sealed a one shot victory for Shane Lowry at the Abu Dhabi Championship, but not before a roller coaster round where he just had to keep going.

Starting the round with a one stroke lead, Lowry fell back so that at one point he was four shots back with seven to play. He came up against a brilliant front nine from South African Richard Sterne who birdied four of the first five holes.

However, Lowry was to rally brilliantly on the back nine as his opponent faltered with the finishing line in sight.

Lowry whittled the lead down gradually with birdies on 12 and 13. The pressure now ratcheted up on his opponent and this told on the 14th hole when Sterne missed a short putt for par, reducing his lead to a single stroke.

The pair were level after the 16th with Sterne paying the penalty for a poor third shot from the greenside bunker which left him on the fringe of the green. Lowry, for his part, showcased his growing confidence and mental strength with an excellent two-putt from 60 feet. And on 18 he lagged an eagle putt and made birdie to win by one shot.

He said “I didn’t think I had it in me, how hard I fought”.

It is Lowry’s fourth win and his first since winning the WGC- Bridgestone Invitational in America in 2015. He had dropped to 74th in the world but is now within the top fifty, with hopefully an invitation to compete at Augusta. His goal though is to make his friend Padraig Harrington’s Ryder Cup team in 2020. He wins over a million Euros and got to wear a nice dress to have his picture taken in.

The European Tour’s Content Committee (see the Sixth Member of the Content Committee below) seem to have settled on Monty’s Pythons.

It’s not a bad idea to get Colin Montgomerie as David Attenborough out on the courses of the world observing the wildlife. Here’s the most famous snake in golf which Lee Trevino pulled out of his bag and showed to Jack Nicklaus before theor playoff for the 1971 US Open. Loving the marshals with the black armbands behind them who don’t even crack a smile.

Oliver Hardy was a keen golfer in life, Stan Laurel preferred fishing