Ford leaves Cruyff in a spin

It’s been another eventful month for PGA.info columnist Matt Ford, who maintained his bright start to the Challenge Tour season in Spain. His time on the continent was made even more memorable after spending a large part of it with one of the legends of world football. Closer to home, there’s been more rubbing shoulders with celebrities plus an interesting fundraising challenge at his annual golf day.

I’ve just returned from competing at the Challenge de Catalunya (above), where I was obviously happy to finish in the top five. Anything in the top 10 is a pretty good week.

The first two rounds I played some good stuff but was a little inconsistent at times. But the final round, the tournament was reduced to three rounds due to high winds, I shot four-under-par, the joint best round of the day. As it’s been six weeks since I played in Kenya it was good to maintain my form and get some money on the board early doors.

The last round was interesting as Dutch football legend Johan Cryuff was caddying for my playing partner Maarten Lefeber (both above). It was a case of forget the golfers as Johan was definitely the main attraction in the group and especially after the round when lots of people were asking for their photo with him and none of us. Johan was in the group as he has been friends with Maarten for a long time. Johann also lives in the Barcelona area, which was close to where the tournament was, and so agreed to caddy that week.

It doesn’t happen every week so it was a bit special. There was some banter at the beginning as Johan turned up late at the first tee and we told Martin he should sack his caddy! There were some friendly chats as we went round the course and what impressed me was how intelligent he was as well his ability to switch from one language to another. One minute he was talking to Maarten in Dutch, me in English and then Spanish with our other playing partner and all fluently.  He was a nice guy to have in the group.  However, going down the home stretch he asked me my score, and that is something that doesn’t normally happen during a round unless you’re telling a scorer. I decided to dodge the question with a Cryuff turn and just tell him I wasn’t sure.

Sticking with celebrities, I went to Wentworth on my return from Spain for a practice round with my dad, to celebrate his 60^th birthday, and my brother. There were quite a few ‘names’ there that day including Ant & Dec (above at The Masters), Sir Bruce Forsyth and Vernon Kay all playing in a fourball. I wanted to go over and ask them for a photo – not of them but of us at Wentworth.

I recently held my annual golf day at The London Club, which I do every year to raise some funds and to thank my sponsors for their support and maybe attract one or two others.

It attracted 47 people and raised somewhere in the region of £2,000 to support me on Tour while I also raised £270 for Cancer Research via a beat the pro challenge.

It’s a great challenge where they take me on at a par three and whatever club they use then I have to! At one point in the day I had to use a left-handed ladies driver over the water and let’s just say that I was not that successful on that occasion. I did hit the green with seven and five woods from 170-yards. If every member of the group hit the green then they got a prize and a few of those were handed out. I thoroughly enjoyed the day and look forward to next year's.

I am now going to be competing four weeks on the spin. This week I am off to Madeira for a co-sanctioned event with the European Tour. I come back from there and am instantly off to Turkey to play on the Challenge Tour before competing in the BMW PGA Championship for the first time since 2005. It’s then off to Prague before a much needed week off.

Follow Matt on twitter @mattfordpga and see his website for more career details.