The Lound Ladies of South Fork. Image courtesy of the Hamptons International Film Festival

Congratulations to Padraig Harrington! Even more amazing than it's been 60 years since the last Irishman won the British Open (a fellow named Fred Daly) is that so very few Europeans have earned the claret jug in the last 20 years, considering how during that span the Euros have kicked American butt in the Ryder Cup. Tiger Woods is right in the middle of that – he has won the British Open three times but has been on only one winning Ryder Cup team in 10 years.

Loyal readers may recall that in my last column I wrote that I thought Sergio Garcia would finally break through at the British Open. I was wrong, but this time I certainly wasn't way off. He had it in his hands, and he let it slip away. It would have been nice for a Spanish player to win in the same week that Seve Ballesteros announced his retirement, but it was the luck of the Irish instead.

Poor Sergio now joins Phil Mickelson as a great player with a shattered psyche. He is nine years younger than Phil – and I don't know if that is good news or bad news for Sergio.

I felt bad for Canadian golf fans this past week. The Canadian Open is a great, historic tournament, the second oldest in North America to the U.S. Open. Because of the schedule this year, though, it seemed a bit overlooked in the aftermath of the British Open and in anticipation of a World Golf Championship event this week and the PGA Championship next week. A little extra spice to the PGA event is that it is Tiger's last chance to avoid a year without a victory in a major. In any case, congratulations to Jim Furyk for repeating as champion of the Canadian Open.

Let's get local . . . and loud. A story of female camaraderie hit the big screen last fall at the Hamptons International Film Festival. "The Loud Ladies of South Fork", the latest documentary directed by Joan Brooker-Marks and now available on DVD, showcases the everyday lives of an eclectic ensemble of East End women and the unlikely bond they formed that began at the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett over the game of golf and blossomed into a lasting friendship.

While this is her first film selected by HIFF, Brooker-Marks is no novice to documenting women's relationships. Her last film, We Got Us, was well received in the festival circuit, shown all over the country, and aired on PBS. Brooker-Marks earned a Master's in English and Education at Columbia University and has written for television shows including "McGyver," "Gimme a Break," and "Designing Women." She and her husband, Walter Marks, an author and Broadway composer, split their time living in East Hampton and Manhattan, where she teaches television writing and film at the School of Visual Arts.

While millions of women gather together socially all the time, what makes the women in Loud Ladies so unique is their diversity. Kim Kenny, Patty Hamilton, Suki Blutstein, JoAnne Virga, Libby Esposito, Terry Berger, Donna Collins, Carol Schnittlich and Lynne Kandell make up the nine women featured in Loud Ladies. They vary in age from 39 to 78. Born in Manhattan, Gramercy Park, the Bronx, the East End and New Jersey, these women are Jewish, Protestant and Catholic. They have different political views. They've worked in advertising, real estate, and are experienced business owners, postal employees, educators, and retirees.

In some way these women either never left, returned to, or found their way to the East Hampton area where they met or re-met each other through the South Fork Country Club. They would gather at the bar after a game of golf or after a day's work to share a few cocktails and a few laughs. The "Loud Ladies" got their name, rightfully so, when a member of the country club demanded to change his seat. "I'm certainly not going to sit next to those ladies," he quipped to the bartender, "they're too loud!" That man was Morry Blutstein, Suki's husband, and so the nickname stuck. "Here come those LL's," he would say.

The group has two sets of sisters: Patty and Kim at 10 years apart, and JoAnne and Libby. Ask the nine ladies in the group how long they've known each other and you'll probably get nine different answers. The most accurate answer is simply: long enough. Long enough, that is to form "the perfect chemistry." When JoAnne's husband, Angelo, died several years ago, although heartbroken, she felt she needed to move on in her life. Her sister, Libby, encouraged her to join the club. When she did, she discovered that both Patty and Kim lived right on her street, and a friendship immediately formed.

It was soon after that the LL's officially became a strong unit. They celebrated birthdays out together, and when that became too expensive, they took turns hosting gatherings in their homes. Soon enough they didn't have to wait for an event to bring them together, they had become part of each other's daily lives. The documentary is about the relationship between them and how important these relationships are, especially as women move into their middle ages. Many of these women lost their husbands or a parent and have gone through great adversities, and they've always stuck through. There is an unconditional acceptance and they have a great sense of humor about each other's flaws.

Some of the ladies have tried to insist that the first 'L' stands for "lovely' or jokingly at times "liquid." However, after spending nearly two years with this group of women, the length in which it took to film them, the director insisted on the name they were originally given. Some footage had to be re-shot with the help of the co-director, Michael Harry, due to poor lighting or because a sound wire that had been eaten by one of the ladies' dogs. However, the most difficult process in bringing the film together proved to be the editing, which took over a year. Over 70 hours of footage was shot and had to be squeezed into a time frame of 28 minutes.

Something that is important to mention is that these are real East Hampton women. Often the Hamptons are perceived as a playground for the rich. Yet there is another East Hampton and it's not what comes out in the gossip sheets in magazines. These women don't live in mansions with five other homes, they have a real commitment to the community. They have raised families and children here and have had to struggle to work for a living.

Hundreds upon hundreds of entries are submitted to the Hamptons International Film Festival every year, many of them high profile, but few get selected. "The Loud Ladies of South Fork" was also shown at the Palm Beach Film Festival and the Old Muddy Film Festival in Wisconsin, among other venues. Brooker-Marks is currently in pre-production of a documentary with co-director Michael Harry on the trafficking of women in the Ukraine.

My gratitude to Kelly Olsen, who has yet to play her first round of golf, for finding this story for me. For those South Fork ladies, stay loud and proud.