Scottish golfer feeling flushed as her 'all singing, all dancing toilet' finally arrives
Gemma Dryburgh delighted to receive her prize at last for LPGA win 27 months ago
It’s probably the most-publicised toilet in golf and, close to 27 months after she won it as part of her prize for landing a maiden LPGA victory in the TOTO Japan Classic, Gemma Dryburgh is feeling flushed again from finally taken ownership of her “all-signing, all-dancing” loo.
“It’s here,” she declared gleefully due to the toilet having been a topic of conversation in every chat she’s had with The Scotsman and most other media outlets, too, since she won it, though, in fairness to TOTO, one of the top toilet brands, the delay in her actually getting it was partly of her own doing.
“I put it on hold, to be fair, because I was in a very small apartment before,” added New Orleans-based Dryburgh in delivering her latest update. “But now I’ve moved into a house, so I got it delivered and that is very exciting.”
Has it been worth the wait? “Oh, yes,” she reported. “It’s not installed yet. It’s in the corner and I am going to use it as a bit of a shrine. But we plugged it in and it was even opening when you walked past it, so we had to unplug the most-talked about toilet in golf for now (laughing).”
The Aberdonian is hoping her game will be plugged in for the 2025 season, which, for her anyway, gets underway in this week’s Founders Cup presented by U.S. Virgin Islands at Bradenton in Florida. “I had a nice off season but feel ready to get going again,” she reported.
On the back of her title triumph in Japan, Dryburgh went on to make a Solheim Cup debut for Europe at Finca Cortesin in Spain in 2023 before missing out on last year’s clash between the US and Europe in Virginia.
“Yeah, it wasn’t obviously my best year,” she admitted, though, at the same time finishing 79th in the LPGA’s Race to CME Globe standings and narrowly missing out on making it to the season-ending Tour Championship was certainly nothing to feel overly disappointed about.
“It’s kind of funny because my expectations have obviously gone up from the previous two years, so I kind of have to keep it all in perspective,” she added. “The previous year before that, I was having to go back to Q School and that obviously wasn’t even a worry last year. Yeah, it wasn’t as consistent as I would have liked, but I think there were a lot of positives there and I think I learned a lot from the year.”
As she did from watching a recent interview on TV with Viktor Hovland during the Hero Dubai Desert Classic as the Norwegian talked about the struggles he’s encountering at the moment after making some changes in his swing. “Shit happens,” he admitted in an honest assessment of where he has found himself.
“That interview was really interesting,” admitted Dryburgh. “In fact, I think you might have been asking the questions (laughing). I’ve not had the same downward spiral as he’s had, but I thought he offered a really good perspective. “He kind of had that perspective of the game being cyclical and I did have a point last year where I was thinking that I had gone through a slight coaching change by starting to work over here with Kevin Collins, a coach at the IMG Academy, and, though I didn’t necessarily regret it, it left me thinking if it had been the right thing to do.
“At the time, you always think the decisions you make are right as you go with your best instinct, so you can’t always regret what you do. I’m still working with Kevin, but I’ve just restructured it a bit. I am working with my long-time coach, Lawrence Farmer, and Kevin over here as well. Lawrence doesn’t really travel any more, so it’s nice to have someone over here to keep an eye on me as well. We are working better together collaboratively now, so it is good.”
The 31-year-old is excited to be heading into her first event of the season with a new set of irons, though her testing period was interrupted by New Orleans being hit with its highest snowfall in decades, with people even skiing down Bourbon Street and snowball flights taking place in the French Quarter.
“It is very unusual,” said Dryburgh. “That amount of snow - we got nine-and-a-half inches and even I hadn’t seen that much since I was a kid - hasn’t happened in New Orleans in one hundred years and I think the last time we had any snow was 2009.
“It was a shock to the system and I don’t think anyone here had proper clothes for it, to be honest. I was wearing my waterproof trousers, golf mittens and other stuff like that.
“Yeah, my golf course was closed for a week, though a few others managed to open a bit earlier than that, so I was able to get back to the testing that has been my focus the last week or so. I think it will be a nice change. Just a bit of improvement in the ball flight and, yeah, my caddie is very excited about that.”
One of Dryburgh’s big goals for 2025 is to be part of history by playing in the first AIG Women’s Open at Royal Porthcawl. The prize pot for the event increased considerably in the time Martin Slumbers served as The R&A’s CEO and Dryburgh is hoping that his successor, Mark Darbon, has a similar view about the importance of trying to keep growing the women’s game.
“Martin was a great ambassador for the women’s game and it’s been amazing to see the growth of the AIG Women’s Open,” said the Scottish No 1. “It just feels like a big event and it deserves to be. It was amazing to see the crowds we got at Walton Heath a couple of years ago, as was the case at St Andrews last year.
“It’s been great to see the way the event has been elevated and we’ve got him to thank for that. He’s been heavily involved with the LET as well on its board. Yeah, he’s been a great advocate for the women’s game and we definitely need people like him.”
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