As the good old hunchback of Notre Dame used to bawl, “the bells, the bells.” Or was it the sports editor roaring his desperate plea for a soothing nip of a well-kent whisky brand after enduring the Tuesday column again?
It’s your correspondent’s closing composition of 2024 and for a 14th year in a row – yes, this startling longevity continues to defy all logic, trends and writs – it’s time to hand out the annual awards for the quirks, curiosities and peculiarities of the golfing season.
The Carbuncle Award
Ever since primitive man clobbered a sabre-toothed tiger with a crude club and got to parade his bounty on an open-top woolly mammoth, trophies, keepsakes and laurels have been dished out as a reward for bold, athletic endeavours.
In the world of golf, the opulent spoils of war come in many elegant shapes and sizes. A Claret Jug here, a silver salver there, a sceptre, orb or rosebowl everywhere? And then you have an axe.
When Denmark’s Frederik Kjettrup won the CRMC Championship on The PGA Tour Americas this season, he became the proud owner of a lumberjack’s hatchet (pictured).
Kjettrup has since joined LIV Golf. Given the on-going discussions about brokering a peace deal in the divided upper echelons of the men’s game, many people have suggested it’s time to, well, bury the hatchet.
“Aye, and preferably in your bloody back after reading this,” snorted the sports editor as he gulped down another large whisky.
The Take a Deep Breath Award
Long before big bucks, backers, sponsors and presenting partners came on the scene, the names of championships and tournaments were magnificently simple.
The Open or The Masters, for instance, glide off your tongue with the nonchalant ease of a birling Granny Sooker.
Some of the modern-day monstrosities, of course, can be as awkward as a conversation between the girl who sells seashells on the seashore and Susie in the shoeshine shop who sits and shines and shines and sits.
Back in 2011, the standard for this particular award was set by the LPGA Tour’s quite flabbergasting, ‘Lorena Ochoa Invitational presented by Banamex and Jalisco It Happens Within You’.
Here in 2024, the landslide winner comes from the Professional Golf Tour of India. Can we have a round of applause please for, ‘KGiSL Empathy-based Outcomes presents The Coimbatore Open 2024 powered by Prima Donna’. You can breathe out now.
The Mutiny on The Buses Award
The opening morning at a major team tussle tends to generate the kind of thundering stampede you’d see in an Attenborough documentary about migrating wildebeest as spectators storm through the entry gates and rush to the first tee with the same hysterical urgency you get with a full bladder.
The opening exchanges of the Solheim Cup in Virginia should’ve been played out amid a cacophony of crowds and colour. Unfortunately, vast legions of paying punters spent hours waiting in queues at the park and ride and the empty seats in the stands spoke volumes for the general chaos.
It was the biggest bus caper since Stan Butler, Jack Harper and Inspector Blakey were in their bawdy pomp. Younger readers may have to Google that particular cultural reference.
The great park and ride rammy forced the LPGA Tour high heid yins into a grovelling mea culpa as they tried to salvage some of their reputation from the debris.
According to brassed off eyewitnesses in the static, snaking lines, even the portaloos were locked. An award-winning s***show, then.
The Frost & Nixon Interview of the Year Award
The mixed zone interview area at a golf event can be the site of many deep, scholarly, chin-stroking conversations. “What kind of f***in’ question is that?” is the regular retort this correspondent tends to attract in these erudite, expansive exchanges.
At the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage, former Open champion Brian Harman, who closed his first round with a sloppy double-bogey, delivered one of the more concise reflections of the season.
His interview lasted 45 seconds and featured just 43 mumbled words. “What kind of f***in’ answer is that?” grumbled the golf writers.
The Golf Writers’ Award for Futility
As somebody once observed, “golf can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle”. It sounds a bit like the fluctuating fortunes of the Tuesday column?
This fascinating and flummoxing game never ceases to tease and torment. At the Association of Golf Writers’ end-of-season stableford showpiece at Hoylake – and I use the term ‘showpiece’ extremely loosely – the maddening qualities of this infuriatingly fickle pursuit were chaotically illustrated by a retired scribbler of noble standing.
A colleague partnering said player documented the brief debacle in a text message to me later. “Duffed his tee-shot on the first, his second went OB and he walked to the next tee. He duffed his tee-shot there about 30 yards and the next flew into the high grass. At that point he said, ‘nah, that’s it, I’m done’.”
It was a frenzy of utter futility. And the "nah, that’s it, I’m done" declaration of resignation was a golfing lament we can all empathise with. But we always come back for more, don’t we?
A very happy new year to you all.
