MAUREEN MADILL COLUMN: BRILLIANCE AT BIRKDALE

Royal Birkdale will host The 154th Open Champhionship, the final Major of the year on the men’s schedule. (Photo: R&A)

GUEST COLUMN: BY MAUREEN MADILL

It’s only Sunday and, uncharacteristically, I’m already pondering my blog topic for the Friday that this missive will be posted.  I have a busy week coming up, you see, and a wee trip to Norn Iron to fit in, so time for blogging will be very short indeed.

I can hardly believe that next week will be the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.  I have to admit that having the men’s four majors crammed into a 12-week period doesn’t sit well with me. In a mere nine days that’ll be the meat of the season over for me as far as men’s golf is concerned – and nine months to wait until we once again get a peek behind the scenes at arguably the most exclusive club in the world, Augusta National, when they host the 2027 Masters.

And don’t get me started on the women’s majors!  There are five of them in total.  The last scheduled tournament on the LPGA tour was the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, the third of the five. This week is the Amundi Evian Championship and in a couple of weeks  the AIG Women’s Open is at Lytham.  That’s three majors in a run of four tournaments – it’s just bonkers.  Scheduling gone awry in my opinion.

But back to Birkdale – always one of my favourite courses to play and commentate on.  There have been so many marvellous Open Championship moments there from Justin Rose’s scintillating fourth place finish in 1998, marking his swansong in the amateur game, to Jordan Spieth’s electrifying finish in 2017 of birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie, par which completely demoralised the hapless Matt Kuchar.

Pádraig Harrington will be returning to Birkdale with his fourth senior Major win under his belt. Last week he won the US Senior Open for the third time, at Scioto Country Club. 

However, my all-time favourite, unsurprisingly, was the 2008 edition when Harrington retained the Claret Jug that he had swiped out from under the nose of Sergio Garcia the previous year at Carnoustie.  The genial Irishman arrived at the Lancashire venue nursing a wrist injury and his practice rounds consisted of walking round armed only with a notebook, a putter and a few golf balls.  I was allocated his group on the Thursday morning when he was off really early and we all arrived at the course not knowing if he was going to be able to tee it up.

Believe me when I tell you there were gale force winds blowing and it was hard enough navigating the links with a microphone never mind a set of clubs.  I think that played into Harrington’s hands as the entire field struggled, with knock-down, wind-cheating half-shots being the order of the day, thus giving the defending champion an extra day of not too much pressure being put on his balky wrist.  His opening round of four over par, 74, did not leave him too far adrift thanks to the conditions and no one could touch him over the ensuing 54 holes.  The standout shot, of course, was the five-wood into that horror of a 17th green that set up an eagle and, ultimately, a four-shot victory.

Royal Birkdale always provided a great test for the best women players as well and it was there that a Swedish superstar laid down a marker that led to an outstanding career which included five LPGA wins, sixteen Ladies’ European tour victories and eight Solheim Cup team appearances.

I’m talking about Sophie Gustafson’s win in 2000.  I played in that championship and remember Sophie being aghast at the thought of the prizegiving and having to deliver a winner’s speech.  She suffered from a chronic stammer and the thought of speaking in public at that time paralysed her with, not just fear, but abject terror.  She enlisted the help of her pal, the talented Italian professional Federica Dassu, to deliver her words for her, which greatly surprised the waiting galleries as Sophie’s speech difficulties weren’t widely known at that time in the UK.

Over the unfolding of her marvellous career Sophie ceased shying away from public speaking, even doing a long one-on-one television interview to show fellow sufferers what was possible.  Talk about the mantra of “face your fears and do it anyway.”  Sophie walked the walk – and more importantly, in this case, she talked the talk. 

Some 14 years later the diminutive Mo Martin of the United States won her only Major with one of the most spectacular of shots.  At the closing hole she hit the pin with her three wood second shot from some 240 yards away setting up a winning eagle.

 “I could hear it hit the pin from the fairway,” she said. “That was a pretty fun feeling. I think I still need to be pinched.”

I remember the shot for two reasons.  Obviously, it was because it was a brilliant golf shot under the circumstances but there was another reason as well.  I was in the commentary box when that shot was on its way and we were viewing it from a camera from behind the green.  I could see the lone figure of a photographer fifty yards or so directly behind Mo with his lens trained on her as she took her shot.

It was the one and only Dave Cannon – one of the most famous golf photographers in the world.  Think of the iconic picture of Seve celebrating his 1984 Open win at St Andrews – that was Dave, always going the extra yard to get that one picture, that one winning moment that no one else would think of.  He was the only one of the snappers to capture this 2014 championship-winning shot and swing – the others were following Suzann Pettersen and Shanshan Feng who ultimately finished an hour later in joint second place, one shot behind. 

Later on, I asked Dave why he was where he was. He replied that after all the years of traipsing round at championships he had developed a very acute radar of where he felt he needed to be at pivotal moments.  Sometimes, he said, it didn’t pay off but more often than not it did.

How cool it was to watch simultaneously two people at the top of their games in two different professions.

I wonder what Royal Birkdale has in store for us this year.