Why it's difficult to switch off when golf gets in your blood - Martin Dempster

Designed by Martin Ebert, the new short hole on the back nine at Royal Liverpool will play as the 17th in the 2023 Open Championship at the Merseyside venue.

As regular readers of this column will have realised, your correspondent has been enjoying the longest break I can recall. But, while the aim after a hectic spell was to try and switch off from golf for a bit, I am discovering more and more over the years I am finding that nearly impossible.

Week one, for instance, was mainly made up of playing a bit myself, something that can be difficult, and sometimes impossible, for a golf correspondent during the summer months when the tournament season is in full swing.

As a proud member of the Association of Golf Writers and its current chairman, it was an absolute treat to play in events at both Delamere Forest in Cheshire and Royal Liverpool on successive days, meeting up with a lot of people there for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

An added bonus from the latter game was getting a first glimpse of the new short hole that has been created at Hoylake ahead of the 2023 Open Championship at the Merseyside venue by the renowned course architect, Martin Ebert.

Forgive Us Our Press Passes is the history of the Association of Golf Writers

While I have to say that I actually liked what was there before, switching the direction it plays has definitely made it a more dramatic-looking hole, which will play as the 17th for that Claret Jug joust.

Expect it to produce drama because, while it only measures 140 yards, it’s similar in some respect to the Postage Stamp at Royal Troon and, over my two days of golfing, my only blob in Stableford events came there.

Dave Cannon, the brilliant golf photographer, had confidently predicted some carnage there before we went out and he was smiling like a Cheshire cat as he heard tales afterwards about various people coming to grief.

We had played both those events with a heavy heart due to the fact one of our dearest AGW colleagues, Renton Laidlaw, had been taken into hospital in Dundee and, not long after arriving home, I received a phone call to say that he’d died. It was too late to relay the news that night but after tossing and turning, I knew my break had to be interrupted for a day or two.

As an Edinburgh man, Laidlaw deserved a proper tribute and it was satisfying to be told that some of the heartfelt words I penned had the desired effect, especially with his sister Jennifer, as she was happy to relay in a subsequent telephone conversation.

The great man, incidentally, will be laid to rest at a private ceremony this week, with the hope of a memorial service being held next year, something that should definitely happen but only when the time is right for those still grieving his loss.

Back in break mode, it was a pleasure to play the PGA Centenary Course at Gleneagles as a guest of the PGA in Scotland manager, David Longmuir, learning that day about plans for the Perth & Kinross Golf Union and Perth & Kinross Ladies Golf Association to become a unified body.

By sheer coincidence, a few days later on a visit to Crail for my first hit on the historic Balcomie Links, I was informed that something similar could be a foot in Fife, so watch this space for those exciting and, in my opinion, sensible developments.

I honestly don’t know how it has taken me so long to get round to stepping foot on to the Balcomie Links, having played the neighbouring Craighead Links on a few occasions, including an AGW event at which flying golf trolleys was a possibility in a howling gale.

Due to rain on this occasion, I’ve still not played the final six holes, but I now know why people rave about Balcomie Links, which is fun - even a bit quirky - but a good test at the same time, and that’s what a course should be all about. Hence why I love another Fife course, Aberdour, being my home club.

In one of my holiday hits there, I failed to break 90 in a midweek medal, having started with a solid 7 after taking three pathetic attempts to get out of a bunker and simply not having the mental fortitude to recover from a shattering early setback.

Enough is enough. Having had a chance to mull things over during a week chilling out in the sun in Lanzarote to end my break, I’ve decided that it’s time to try and iron out the many faults that are clearly in my swing. So be warned an unsuspecting PGA pro in Scotland that you are soon going to be tasked with a job that will really test your patience!

It’s normally David Baldacci, Harlan Coben or Dick Francis that I choose for reading material on a sunbed, but, on this occasion, I raided my own golf library at home, with only of my selections being Forgive Us Our Press Passes, which is the history of the Association of Golf Writers.

Especially as the chairman, I actually feel embarrassed about not having read it from cover to cover long before now because it was fabulous to learn about the likes of Frank Moran, one of my predecessors as golf correspondent of this fine newspaper, as well as being reminded about my own memories of Ian MacNiven, Alister Nicol, Raymond Jacobs, Jock MacVicar and, of course, Renton Laidlaw from various references about him.

Every one mentioned in that outstanding book shared a love and passion for golf and I will always feel lucky and privileged to be given the chance to show I feel exactly the same way through this column in particular.

It’s great to be back at the coalface.

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