There hasn’t been a great deal to write home about lately from a golfing viewpoint so most of the interesting and upbeat events have been happening off the course.

Conor celebrated his seventh birthday in some style with 35 of his friends at the house enjoying all manner of entertainment.  Something of a quiet affair….. not.

Other celebrations included Ian Poulter’s wedding and Poults did the decent thing and dressed classically rather than the more flamboyant style he takes on to the world’s fairways.   A very good do indeed.

I’ve also been over to Ireland to help christen Castle Dargan in a father and son match with Rory McIlroy and his dad Gerry and my old man Godfrey.   They beat us, but only because we annihilated them in the bar the previous evening, retiring to our beds some three hours before we did.   Some people just don’t play fair.

We also went to Moyvalley, which is coming along nicely, for a Setanta golf tournament featuring Oceanico Developments.   Got to get a word in for my excellent sponsors when I can.

And then it was on to the Four Seasons for an Oceanico dinner in aid of the Irish Autistic Society.   I managed to help one very needy cause by bidding high enough to get one of Muhammad Ali’s boxing robes signed by The Greatest himself.  

That wonderful piece of memorabilia will be going on offer again next year when the Heather Clarke Memorial Pro-Am is played in aid of breast cancer charities and research . Dates and places have still to be arranged but I’ll be aiming to make it one of the biggest and best yet.

Watch this space for more news on that front in the coming months. 

Now I’m in St.Andrews for one of the best tournaments of the year – the dunhill links championship at The Old Course, Kingsbarns and Carnoustie.  I played a practice round on Tuesday with Lee Westwood and his fellow Worksopian Mark Foster and Westy spotted something in my swing which I can work on.

Hopefully some good will come from it because I need to turn my game around fairly soon so that I can at least get something back from all the hard work I’ve been putting in.

Talking about putting, one of the best in the business, my ISM colleague David Howell, recommended that I go see his guru Paul Hurrian recently and that’s exactly what I did.   It was a very interesting experience and while I’m not expecting miracles immediately, signs of an improvement will be more than welcome this week in Scotland.