golfweloveit

Rory McIlroy became engaged again recently when he proposed to Erica Stoll, a PGA of America employee on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Liking the redhead minder walking closely behind.

I was in a TV studio this week and the warm up man wanted to rehearse us in different types of applause. “Imagine you’re at a golf match and “Jack Nicholson” has hit a nice putt but left it short” there was a smattering of polite clapping. Someone had obviously told him in his earpiece to continue with this golfing analogy but he continued to struggle to remember the name of any pro golfer. Eventually he remembered Lee Trevino and he said “applaud Supermex like he’s holed out of a bunker” the audience clapped harder. Then after some thought he said “Now Terry Wogan has holed the biggest putt you’ve ever seen” and the audience clapped and cheered hard. Interesting that his frame of golfing reference wasnt Rory or Tiger or Seve or Faldo but memories from his teenage years of watching Pro-Celebrity golf on BBC2. Peter Alliss apparently made 140 of these programmes which had viewers of about 8 million people on a Sunday night, and it seeped into the consciousness of the general public. It was the best reach out to golf this country ever made. To match the sport with top level entertainment. And yet these programmes cant be found on DVD, there are no you tubes, just our memories of a hugely entertaining programme.

Japanese drinks giant, Asahi Group, which owns the Buckinghamshire golf club in southern England, is to invest £2 million in refurbishing the golf course.

Golf architects Thomson Perrett & Lobb will lead the renovation project, which will be implemented over the next two winters, and will include building an irrigation reservoir, installing a new Toro irrigation system and rebuilding the existing green to tee cart paths. Lake work and a rebuild of the course’s bunkering will complete the works, which should be done by March 2017.

“A key part of our brief was to reduce the size of the course’s bunkers,” says TPL principal Tim Lobb. “The bunkers are way too large, and many of them do not really influence play. We’ll reduce the bunkers from a total size of 14,000 sq m down to 6,000 sq m.”

“Building a large reservoir will help us to save money and improve our sustainability and means we won’t be reliant on using mains water,” said course manager Andy Ewence. “Installing a new irrigation system will help us to produce tournament standard conditions throughout the year, while our advanced new sprinkler system will also reduce wastage. We will be able to target only the greens, surrounds, approaches, fairways and tees where water is required.”

“We have been working with the Buckinghamshire to implement a strategic review of the bunker positioning and style among other planned upgrades,” said Lobb. “At the forefront of all our design proposals is to create a strategic, interesting and fair golfing challenge for club members, visitors and tournament golfers alike. We look forward to commencing work on site this winter.” Contractor Profusion Environmental is in charge of the construction work, with AT Bone handling infrastructure works.

The original course at the Buckinghamshire Golf Club was designed by John Jacobs and is set in 226 acres of magnificent English parkland near Denham and close to the M25. The club is the headquarters of the Ladies European Tour.

Rael Madrid star striker Gareth Bale has built a three hole golf course at his home in Glamorgan, Wales encorporating the best features of his favourite courses around the world.

I shall describe this as succinctly as possible. Because they spent two whole days discussing the subject. Two days? I would have put them on the clock.

There was a summit meeting at St Andrews last week called “Time For Golf”. Slow play was discussed from every possible angle. European Tour player Stephen Gallacher spoke the most sense. He saw slow play as a form of cheating. He said fines didnt work, penalty shots were the way forward. Royal and Ancient are bringing out a slow play manual.

Other notables said players take too long because they think too much and are overcoached.

I would also add that some caddies talk far too much and encourage their player to have a stewards enquiry over all the variables before playing the shot because they enjoy a good chat.

That’s it, in three paragraphs. Onto the next hole.

Following a meeting of Wentworth members on Friday a letter from Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond MP was made public. Mr Hammond is also the local MP for Runnymede and Weybridge which covers Wentworth. Referring to Wentworth’s new owners decision to greatly increase the membership fees and introduce a debenture system he calls this “very disappointing behaviour”. He says he will be seeking a meeting with representatives of Reignwood Group, the Chinese conglomerate who bought Wentworth Club for £135 million last year. He states that discussions will focus on any planning intentions for the  club and stress the need to engage and maintain good relations with the local community if they wish to seek planning permissions in the future.

Another thing which has angered current Wentworth members is the failure to lower the Chinese flag outside of the clubhouse to half mast in respect of the Paris terror attacks. The flag of St George has been lowered.

Mr Hammond’s diplomatic skills will be needed in any meetings with representatives from Reignwood, but also in conveying to the current membership the limits on what can be done. It is after all Reignwood’s private property to do with as they wish, although within its walls a whole community is about to be broken apart and a long history wiped away.

Matt Jones, who won the Houston Open on the PGA Tour this year, held off a charge from defending champion Jordan Spieth to win the Australian Open today. Taking a three shot lead into the final day Jones, 35, began a round of ups and downs beginning bogey, double bogey, pulling back two birdies on the front nine begore making a triple bogey on the ninth, Hr rallied on the back nine to finish -8, forcing Spieth to make an eagle putt to make a playoff, which Spieth missed to finish joint second with Adam Scott.

Round of the day came from Australian Rod Pampling who made a 60 foot eagle putt on 18 for a course record 61. He, Jones and Nick Cullen, who finished fifth, gain places in next year’s Open Championship at Royal Troon.