January 24, 2022. I am on the 15th hole of the Holey Moley Golf Club, Melbourne, in a perilous position. In a group of six players, I am in last place, two shots behind my nearest rival as I desperately try to avoid the forfeit that comes with finishing bottom of the leaderboard.
Standing beside me is fifth-placed Andy Murray, eyeing up the best plan of attack for navigating the traps on this hole that turns left and then right. Just to be clear, this is a crazy golf bar that describes its course as the “craziest round you’ve ever played”. Considering I am essentially going head-to-head down the stretch with one of tennis’s fiercest competitors, I wholeheartedly agree.
I have ended up in this surreal situation through a group of mutual friends. Murray joined us for dinner earlier in the evening, having decided to remain in Melbourne for a few extra days of practice after his second-round defeat at the Australian Open. The decision was made after dessert to extend the night out by playing 18 holes of crazy golf.
An agreement is made at the 1st hole that there will be a forfeit for the participant who finishes last. One song at the karaoke bar next door is deemed a suitable punishment, adding an extra edge to the contest. After 14 holes it becomes clear that the vocal entertainment will be provided by either me or Murray.
The 15th does not require the putter. You place both hands on a wooden board and try to slowly manoeuvre the ball round and down past the three-shot holes at the top into the one-shot hole at the bottom. As if I was not already under enough pressure, Murray proceeds to record only one shot on his scorecard, meaning I must do the same to remain within touch.
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I have heard countless stories as to how competitive Murray is at anything he plays — whether it be tennis, trivia or tiddlywinks — but his reaction still takes me aback. After the ball drops he turns around and intensely roars “Come on!” in my face, as if he had just hit an ace past Roger Federer to win Olympic gold.
Murray has drawn me into a battle on his terms as I am now fired up and overly desperate to get the better of him. Somehow I steer the ball into the one-shot hole before getting completely carried away with a fist pump and a roar back in his direction.
Following comfortable pars on the 16th, the 17th hole is pivotal. The 18th is too easy for a closing hole, meaning I must cut the deficit here to stand a chance of avoiding the embarrassment of a karaoke appearance. The tee shot requires a pacey putt around a U-bend to put the ball below an uphill ramp into a toilet.
Suddenly there is a chink of hope. Murray’s putt has become stuck on the bend and, after some trouble getting the ball out, he eventually rolls it up and in for a five. If I can score a two, I have almost certainly avoided the karaoke.
My first putt is perfect and I have a simple straight five-footer up the ramp to move one ahead of Murray with one to play. Little do I know, however, that I have fallen into a Murray trap close to the finish line. With my adrenaline racing, I hit the putt with so much force that it bounces out of the pan and lands down the side. A seven condemns me to sing all five minutes and 55 seconds of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody (not by my choice).
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Much like his rollercoaster career, there have been ups and downs for the small group of tennis correspondents who covered Murray’s journey at close quarters. No doubt it has been a privilege to watch one of Britain’s greatest sportspeople in action around the world, and the relationship has mostly been cordial thanks to Murray’s understanding of how our industry operates. Inevitably, however, there have been some rocky moments.
Murray’s hip issue was a particularly difficult saga to cover. Understandably as a professional athlete, he did not initially wish to disclose the full nature of the problem and the fact it was career-threatening. Bear in mind that he was still ranked No 1 in the world when the pain became unbearable.
Selfishly, this was unhelpful for a journalist given that many readers were eager for the latest update on Murray’s physical status. When he withdrew from the 2018 Brisbane International and departed without holding a press conference, many of the articles written for the following day had a truthful but negative tone that, through his choice to leave, did not include his side of the story.
Murray was so furious with some of the criticism that he asked his agent to set up a conference call with reporters who had travelled to Australia. For 40 minutes a frank, off-the-record exchange of views took place before he then helpfully provided 15 minutes of quotes on the record. Remarkably, he spoke to us from his hospital bed only hours after undergoing the first of two hip operations.
With this in mind, I will never forget the sight of an upset Murray sitting down in a backstage room at Melbourne Park moments after the infamous press conference at which we thought his career was over. As a television screen above his head flashed up the breaking news of Andy Murray’s retirement, you could almost see the weight being lifted off his shoulders as he cathartically opened up on the full extent of his physical problems.
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Thankfully, Murray was able to delay his retirement for another five years thanks to a miraculous metal implant and his painstaking dedication to rehabilitation and training. It is no secret that he was one of the hardest workers on the tour, but even I was taken aback in December 2022 by a unique insight into the exact nature of what he puts into his tennis behind the scenes.
Travelling back from the Battle of the Brits event in Aberdeen, Murray kindly gave me a lift in his taxi home from London City airport to Surrey because of a strike that had crippled the train network. Minutes into the journey, I feel a tad awkward and intrusive when he tells me that he has a conference call scheduled with his coaching team to discuss his recent training block.
Despite feeling like I should put my fingers in my ears, the discussions were fascinating. Analysis was being minutely pored over in an attempt to find a solution for the persistent cramp that had dogged him during long matches in the second half of 2022. A month later, this was at the forefront of my mind in Melbourne when I watched him come back from two sets down to beat Thanasi Kokkinakis in a five-hour-and-45-minute battle that finished at 4.05am.
This is the attitude that Murray has maintained even as retirement beckons. As the finish line approaches, there has been no sign of any slacking or winding down.
“I’m f***ing doing rehab 24-7,” Murray told me during a group interview on Thursday as he tried to salvage his hopes of a final Wimbledon appearance. That is why he was able to make a miraculous recovery to play the doubles alongside his brother, Jamie, 12 days after undergoing surgery on a spinal cyst.
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It will be a bitter pill to swallow for Murray that his Wimbledon career did not finish on his own terms after the withdrawal of Emma Raducanu from the mixed doubles, but this should not take away from the mere triumph of even stepping on the court for one last match at SW19. Competitive, determined and resilient to the end, these are the traits that define his extraordinary career.
