Being the cultured fellow that I am – and by cultured, I mean listening to Radio 4 while clipping my toenails into a half-slurped mug of tea – I tuned in to a documentary over the weekend about the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas.
Before finding his true literary voice, of course, Thomas was a serial plagiarist in his youth and had the work of others published under his own name.
“I so badly wanted to see my name in print yet everything I’d written embarrassed me,” reflected Thomas.
Funnily enough, your correspondent has similar feelings of melancholy about the Tuesday column. You knew that cornball observation was coming, didn’t you?
Flinging that half-hearted gag in there reminds me of the sage advice that another wonderful wordsmith from Wales, the late, great golf writer Peter Corrigan, gave to an aspiring journalist about composing the perfect piece.
“Get your joke in the intro and run like f*** for the end,” he said. On that note, we’d better get running.
Peter, of course, was around in a glorious age of golf reporting. We can only wonder what he’d make of affairs these days.
Last week, for instance, the big bosses at Sports Illustrated, that decorated powerhouse of an American publication which is renowned for its coverage of the Royal & Ancient game, announced that it was ditching a host of long-serving and highly respected golf correspondents.
They’re not the first to do so and they certainly won’t be the last in a rapidly changing industry that continues to grapple with a mighty shift in reading habits.
In troubled times, at least this scribe can take comfort from the fact that I have a loyal hardcore of dedicated followers who remain entranced by my emotive prose, vivid imagery and... Oi, can you pay attention, please?
Anyway, this game will always give those of us clinging to the wreckage something to write about. Nelly Korda’s thrilling win in the US Women’s Open at storied Riviera on Sunday night was a tremendous advert for the female game.
Charley Hull’s weekend charge, meanwhile, came with a rousing rallying cry which may not have had the same soaring, erudite elegance of Churchill but still lifted the morale.
Hull was seven shots off the lead after 36-holes but covered her closing two rounds in a brilliant 10-under to finish in a share of second, just a stroke behind the jubilant Korda.
And what uplifting words sparked this fightback? “I just thought, ‘f*** it’,” Hull said as she threw off the shackles.
Most of us mere mortals, of course, will mutter that same phrase to ourselves at the medal but that’s always in sighing resignation rather than spirited defiance.
Hull has now finished second in five major championships down the seasons. At just 30 there is plenty of time for her to make a breakthrough but the one thing those golfing gods don’t dish out is guarantees.
Our own Colin Montgomerie won just about everything under the sun, but he too had five second places finishes in the majors and never got over the line. It’s a fickle old business.
The US Women’s Open was a true showpiece occasion, and it certainly made up for the disappointingly low-key start to the season in April when Korda won the opening women’s major of the new campaign at the Chevron Championship.
With sparse crowds and a general lack of oomph, that event in Houston felt so downbeat, it made Requiem in D Minor sound like the theme tune from the Benny Hill Show.
Riviera, though, served up a cracker with Hull and Korda, two of the most recognisable faces in the women’s game, going toe-to-toe. Golf, as a whole, benefits from that kind of captivating rivalry.
Back-to-back major wins, meanwhile, for Korda helps to heighten exposure, something the women’s game desperately craves.
Eager observers are already giddy at the prospect of the world No 1 making it three-in-row at the Women’s PGA Championship later this month while talk of a grand slam – there are five majors in the women’s game remember – grows in volume.
Yes, we probably all need to calm down on that front, but potentially historic storylines are certainly no bad thing, and the LPGA Tour needs to capitalise on this interest and intrigue.
Riviera, as always, provided a classic US Open examination. Bringing such events to these historic venues helps elevate the occasion too.
In recent years, both the USGA and the R&A have championed the female cause by taking the US Women’s Open and the AIG Women’s Open respectively to some of the game’s most iconic courses on both sides of the pond.
Whether it’s Riviera, Pebble Beach or Pinehurst in the US or the Old Course, Royal Troon, Muirfield and Royal Lytham over here, it’s a very welcome trend.
Imagine this trend eventually leading to a women’s professional event at Augusta National?
In a stroke, a Women’s Masters would become the biggest tournament in women’s golf; an aspirational event for both established and emerging golfers and one that could redefine Augusta’s legacy.
Fred Ridley, the Augusta National chairman, has often claimed that there are “some fundamental difficulties” about staging a Women’s Masters.
But Ridley’s club, which does host a female amateur championship, has the infrastructure and financial clout to overcome just about anything.
There will be a way to host a women’s professional event at Augusta. But there needs to be a will too.
