Those of you with young offspring will be well aware that packing up for a little venture away is broadly equivalent to the logistical palaver that Noah faced when he was herding a variety of beasts on to the bloomin’ Ark.
“We took our 16-month-old on a family trip to Center Parcs and three cars were jam-packed,” gasped Pamela Asher of a holiday with daughter, Kirsty, which just about included everything as well as the kitchen sink and its internal plumbing. “I was thinking ‘how will we do this on Ryanair flying to a golf tournament?’.”
Asher is getting ready to return to the Ladies European Tour (LET) having stepped away for the best part of two years to start a family. The 30-year-old had originally planned to start up again in May when the circuit gets going on European soil but the widespread march of the coronavirus has left things up in the air. Whenever she does resume hostilities, though, Asher will embrace the challenge with a very different outlook since becoming a mother.
“It’s like going back to the start again,” said the former Curtis Cup player and past British Women’s Amateur Strokeplay champion. “I have a fresh head, golf feels more fun and I’m putting less pressure on myself. You go back and focus on Kirsty instead of dwelling on the six footer that lipped out or something.
"I think my swing has improved since Kirsty came along too. I’ve got a better rhythm and I think that’s because the stresses and anxieties that would creep in before are not there now. I feel like I’m playing for fun and for her. It’s the way golf is supposed to be.
"Kirsty seems to be quite a good coach and has taken to the role quite quickly,” added Asher with a chuckle.
Asher, who has been a full-time member of the LET since 2013, made a tentative return to the competitive cut-and-thrust in last year’s Ladies Scottish Open and comfortably made the cut in a world-class field. She’s not played a tour event since, due to her parental duties, but she’s relishing the opportunities that a galvanised LET schedule will present in 2020 after the circuit’s well-documented and worrying spell in the doldrums.
“It’s a quite a good time to come back,” she said of a circuit which now boasts record prize money of £16m after a merger with the LPGA Tour. “The tour has a better team in place now to get the ball rolling in terms of getting events. The proof is there to see. Hopefully they can push forward and make it a tour that you have the chance to actually make a living on.
“I’ll always love the competition. I’ve still got that competitive edge and I don’t think that will ever disappear. I’m just at a different stage of life but I’m not going back on tour just to make up the numbers.”
While the support of her family will help the transition from mum to tour golfer - “what would we do without grandparents?” – the backing of long-term sponsors, Aberdeen Standard Investments, has given her added security and confidence. “They have backed me all the way, even when I was so unwell during pregnancy and during my time off when I had Kirsty,” she added. “For a woman in the sporting world to get that kind of support really is quite something.”
As for those mothering duties? "She (her daighter) will do something different everyday," Asher said. "When you think you have mastered them they'll come back and bite you on the backside. It's a bit like golf."
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