I was reading something about a nationwide survey of British adults which revealed that we waste one hour and 37 minutes each day on fruitless activity. It surely doesn’t take you that long to read the Tuesday column does it?
Footering, plootering, fiddling and faffing is just part and parcel of our everyday existence. Prior to poring over these back page haverings, for instance, you’ve possibly spent the last 10 minutes looking for your spectacles.
You’ll have stood at the bottom of the stairs and shouted ‘have you seen my specs, dear?’ and been greeted with a familiar, sighing response suggesting you should ‘look on top of the bloomin’ bureau?’ before shuffling to said bureau, finding those glasses and hollering ‘got them’ with the same kind of startled jubilation of someone checking off a series of winning lottery numbers. Right. Now you’ve got your specs, let’s get back to the column …
BRYSON FINDS HIS BAND OF BROTHERS
A few years ago, this scribe interviewed Joe Miller, a former World Long Driving champion, during a demonstration of his carnival of eye-popping clatterings. If he wasn’t thundering balls well over 400 yards, he was thumping dimpled spheres through exploding watermelons and splintering planks of wood in a show of shuddering force you used to see on an Attenborough documentary about rutting Bison. “I’ve broken my hands, I get tendon inflammation, I broke my foot,” recalled Miller of the lengths he would go to in the pursuit of, well, length.
We can only wonder what Bryson DeChambeau’s body will be like in a few years time as he continues to put it through the wringer. It’ll probably creak and groan like an abandoned galleon in a tempest. But, my goodness, he seems to be enjoying the rigours of it all. Fresh from helping the US romp to Ryder Cup glory, DeChambeau made his debut in the World Long Driving Championship in Nevada last week. His presence brought unprecedented focus and coverage to the event as he reached the last-eight from an initial field of 128. He had the time of his life.
“It’s totally different from the environment on tour,” said DeChambeau, who reached a ball speed of 218mph during this high-energy, high-tempo extravaganza. “I appreciate and respect that environment, but the long drive environment is tailored more to what I like to do because you can say things and do things that are a little different.”
DeChambeau has said things and done things among his regular peers that have gone down like a sack of spanners. Last week, he looked like a man totally at ease among kindred spirits who seemed to embrace him with open arms. In this merry band of big-hitting brothers, there was no battle for acceptance, just mutual appreciation. That’s not always the case as far as DeChambeau is concerned. He’ll no doubt continue to polarise opinion but he’s an intrepid entertainer, he registers with a different golf audience and he gets people talking. And that’s not a bad thing.
STARK WARNING AS SWEDISH ROOKIE SHINES
There are lots of things you can do to aid the process of hitting a small ball with a stick. The great Sam Snead, for instance, would often hum The Blue Danube tune to maintain a delightfully smooth and rhythmic swing.
This correspondent, meanwhile, often draws inspiration from Winston Churchill’s musing that “success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm” as I eagerly knife an approach into the face of the bunker.
On the Ladies European Tour (LET), the name on everybody’s lips is the up-and-coming Swede, Maja Stark, who continued her thrilling start to life in the professional game by winning her second LET title in just three events at the Estrella Damm Ladies Open on Sunday.
The 21-year-old is not lacking in confidence at the moment but, should things waver, she has her own way of keeping the morale up. “I always watched Tiger Woods winning everything when I was growing up,” reflected Stark. “So when I’m struggling with my confidence, I tell myself, ‘I am Tiger’ when I hit the shot.”
Most of us mere mortals, meanwhile, will probably just keep on telling ourselves “I am an idiot” after another calamitous union betwixt club and ba’.
After a spell in the doldrums, the revitalised LET is seeing some real talent emerging again. But don’t forget the seasoned campaigners. Glasgow’s Kylie Henry, a double tour winner in 2014, is still just 35 but probably feels like a veteran around some of these new faces. A second and a third in her last two starts, though, continues to raise hopes of bridging that seven-year title gap.
DEL REY’S RECORD RAISES THE BAR
Some of us would be happy with 58 to the turn. Zipping through 18-holes in 58 blows? Well, that’s just silly. Alejandro Del Rey’s 14-under 58 during round two of the Swiss Challenge was the lowest round ever to par on a professional tour.
A day before this historic moment, Del Rey double-bogeyed the 18th in a hum-drum two-over 74. It’s a daft old game.
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