Hilary Gavin

A bee sting on the first tee still haunts me 45 years on…

By HILARY GAVIN

I SUPPOSE you could say there was a buzz in the air when I addressed the ball on the first tee of the British Girls’ Championship at Edgbaston Golf Club in 1979.

My late father Gordon Gavin had dropped me off minutes earlier in the club’s car park to compete in the prestigious event and the Press were hovering close-by.

But I was suffering because no sooner had I stepped out of our family car to unload my clubs than a bumblebee had quite literally made a beeline for me.

At any other time, I would have simply ignored the stripey insect buzzing about my head because bees and wasps didn’t usually bother me – but today was different.

Naturally, I was a bundle of nerves because I was about to play in Britain’s premier junior girls’ golf amateur competition and the pesky bee must have sensed it.

I was seventeen years old and I’d never been stung by a bee or wasp before in my short life, and I’ve haven’t been stung since, but I was wounded on that fateful day on one of my wrists – the worst possible place on the body for a golfer.

All these years later and I cannot remember whether the bee attacked my right or my left wrist but the sting hurt and I needed emergency first-aid attention.

Thankfully, my late father was a very practical man who knew he had to remove the stinger from beneath my skin and soothe my wound with bicarb.

Unfortunately, I suppose, the poor bumblebee must have met his/her own fate on that late summer’s day in August, 1979, as ultimately it left this mortal coil.

But I was very much still alive and my swollen wrist was throbbing as much as my racing heart when I shook hands with my match-play opponent Kay Miller.

My mind was still trying to make sense of the chaotic previous half an hour as I watched Kay Miller hit her drive straight down the middle of the fairway.

There was no way I could ignore the sports’ photographers as their cameras whirred when I took my stance for my first shot in the Open.

When I say “shot” – I should say “air shot” – or very nearly anyhow, because my ball dribbled inches off the tee. Mortified, I tried to ignore the Press men but I could see their eyes rolling and hear their stifled collective laughter.

How could I hit my second shot with them watching my every move?

Somehow, and I still don’t know how, I managed to compose myself by slowing down my heartbeat and collecting my thoughts for a minute or so to enable me to hit a fairway wood off the front of the first tee.

If I recall, my second shot wasn’t great but it was good enough to stop the Press chuckling about “useless lady golfers”. I was injured, after all!

To be honest, I’m not sure if Kay Miller or I won the first hole that day because I believe I made a heroic recovery once we were out of sight of the Press.

Forty-six years later and I remember my round at Edgbaston Golf Club with great fondness because it was a closely-fought match that went to the 19th hole. It was also a blustery day and a huge branch narrowly missed Kay Miller and myself as it fell from an old tree on to a tee after we’d just walked away.

Both of us weren’t the best players in the 1979 Girls’ Open – we were the same age of seventeen but I had a handicap of 15 while she played off 12.

We’d been drawn as high handicappers to play in the Championship’s first round whilst the truly talented junior golfers got a bye into the second the next day.

Saying that, I’ve no idea why my late pal Mary Gallagher was competing in the first-round match ahead of us at Edgbaston. She was a fellow Sussex Girls’ golfer who was a member at Cowdray Golf Club in Midhurst with two junior club mates.

Of course, Caroline Pierce and Katharine Harridge, who both played off four, were way out of my league as county golfers. Whilst, I gave up the game in my late teens and early twenties, Caroline Pierce went on to play on the PGA circuit in the States and Mary Gallagher crossed the Pond to study golf at university in St Louis.

Puzzlingly, I don’t know why the late Katharine Harridge decided her future lay in studying and teaching the perfect golf swing, and not competing, but she chose that route. I’ve also no idea why both she and Mary died young too.

A shopper broke this sad news to me when I was working at Waitrose in Chichester in 2015 after losing my livelihood as a journalist three years before.

As you can tell, I’m a sprightly 62-years young so both Mary and Katharine’s deaths are a mystery to me as I lost contact with them in the early Eighties.

Saying that, I still have fun memories of my time competing with the Sussex Girls in the late Seventies. My beloved late father was a Godsend, ferrying me to and fro golf courses in East and West Sussex. And my friend Mary Gallagher was always in the clubhouse later to cheer me up with her wicked sense of humour after I’d lost yet another match for our county.

At the time our coach Vivien Saunders, and others, would tell me that I had “a lovely swing” but I would invariably slice my shots as I swung “over the ball”.

Thankfully, Harry Pyett – the pro at Chichester Golf Club – has weaned me off “hitting out-to-in” with his invaluable lessons at the driving range and out on the golf course at Chichester.

In truth, I hadn’t appreciated how technology has advanced golf over the past forty years. There’s little doubt that hitting the ball with your driver, fairway woods and irons is so much easier nowadays than in the Seventies.

Over the years, I admit I have dabbled with playing golf now and again – but I’ve only really gone back to taking it seriously over the past three years or so.

Really, it’s a pity that I didn’t return to the ancient game sooner, but I can still hit the ball a decent way for a veteran lady golfer so that is a blessing.

As I told Harry Pyett, I want to continue to perfect my golf to the best of my ability over the coming years before my age really starts to hit me.

I know I’m in safe hands paying Harry for the odd lesson now and again, so I’ll see how I get on. You never know, I might even meet Caroline Pierce again on a golf course in future years or even our famous contemporary Laura Davies.

She’s still playing professionally at the age of 61 and – although she wasn’t at the Girls’ Open at Edgbaston in 1979 – I remember playing in a group of players behind hers in at least one competition back in the day.

At the time, we all knew Laura Davies was “the one” to watch so I kept my beady eyes on her on the fairway ahead of me from the tee.

No-one who loves the game can deny that Laura Davies has inspired women’s golf over decades now and I can honesty say that she was my role-model as a teenager on the day I played behind her copying her seemingly effortless swing.

I remember putting at least 20 yards on my drives back then – and, hopefully, I did the great Laura Davies proud by winning my match on that day.

As so many experts say, golf is the swing and the mind too! Cheers, Laura.

By Hilary Gavin, Freelance Journalist and Writer

Copyright Monday, February 24th, 2025