“For Ringo”

Who can ever forget the Miracle in Medinah? 

My abiding memory is the putt Martin Kaymer holed at the last, as the European team go into raptures of celebration and disbelief.  One special image stays with me.  Justin Rose smiling as he looks up to the heavens and points, whilst clutching the silhouette of Seve on his sleeve.  

Alongside that picture, I can hear Olly’s breaking voice, spoken through his own tears:

‘This one’s For Him.’

***

Cornwall is a Nation; the Cornish are its proud People; and Truro’s towering Gothic-revival monolith, is the Cornish People’s Cathedral.

On Thursday July 18, 2024 on the first day of The Open Championship at Troon, the Cornish gathered to celebrate the life of one of its favourite sons.

In the Land of the Giants, Andrew John Ring stood taller than most. He was my best friend, without compare, and by the look of the 600 or so others that congregated outside and inside Truro Cathedral that day, he was the best friend of hundreds more.

We sang ‘The White Rose’ and ‘Cornwall My Home’.  We raised a glass beneath the Flag of St Piran in the sunshine thereafter. ‘For Ringo’ was the toast.  

Across the lands, absent Cornish friends including European Challenge Tour winner Rhys Enoch in South Africa celebrated too. PGA Tour winner Harry Hall in America would follow proceedings.

Closer to home, also unable to attend that day, the Cornwall Senior golf team wore black ribbons as they won through to the County Finals.

Wind the clock forward three months, and that Cornwall Senior Golf team would capture the National Title for the first time in the County’s history, in a dramatic finale that no one could have predicted, had they not known the power of the spirits working that day.

For Cornwall to triumph on that final day, they needed a win over Durham and the other two County teams to tie. 

Incredibly, the final match of Cornwall’s contest was won with the final putt, by the last man, on the last green.  

Then the wait. Not long though, for the resulting 4.5: 4.5 tie between the other two Counties, capitulated by an improbable missed putt, sealed Cornwall’s moment to celebrate and disbelieve. 

If only the players for the other competing counties had known that the whole sequence of events were predetermined — ‘For Ringo’.

There could be no better epitaph. 

Let it be a prelude to many more celebrations of Cornish national triumph and let no-one doubt the power of the spirit of a great man looking down.  

‘This one’s For Him’

***

Postscript

On Monday May 5 2025, the Truro Golf Club marked their respect for Andrew Ring by officially dedicating their newly refurbished facility in his honour.