Rhona Howie certainly knows how to keep a secret.
I was speaking to her at a garden party at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday and she didn’t mention a word about her new job!
So it came as just a big a shock to me as everybody else that she is the new Bowls Scotland high performance manager.
It will be intriguing to see how it pans out for her.
The most high profile example of somebody trying to transfer skills from one sport to another I can think of would be Sir Clive Woodward when he went from the RFU to Southampton Football Club.
You wouldn’t call that a success, but it does happen more than you might think.
My own sport has had performance directors who have had backgrounds in canoeing and water polo.
Administrating and planning in one sport can be transferred to another.
It isn’t as if Rhona will be coaching, because even though people call curling ‘bowls on ice’ there is no real correlation between them. (I’ve tried bowls a couple of times and I was useless I couldn’t even get the weight on the right side!)
I would say that one of Rhona’s biggest strengths is that she’s a very good organiser.
That will stand her in good stead.
And dealing with the pressure of going for gold in one sport can definitely relate to another.
She’ll have a good breadth of knowledge across sports because she did a lot of work with UK Sport in her time as our head coach for women’s curling.
And the fact that she has been to several Olympic Games will help as well.
Unlike sports like football or rugby, when you’re involved in an Olympic sport you brush shoulders with athletes, coaches and administrators from other sports at a multi-event Games. I’m sure Rhona will be able to tap into those experiences.
It’s a brave call by Scottish Bowls and a brave call by Rhona.
Bowls in Scotland is on a high after all the medals we won at the Commonwealth Games so there will be real pressure to succeed.
My first reaction was scepticism, but the more I think about it, the more I actually believe it could work.
* There will be a decision made by the International Olympic Committee next month that will have big ramifications for curling.
I understand that they are to vote on whether to make mixed doubles an Olympic event in 2018.
I must admit, I don’t think it’s a good idea.
There’s one man and one woman on each team and it’s a totally different game.
There’s no history of competition at the top level, no tour and I don’t think it’s better for TV.
There are less tactics involved and the nations who are doing well like Hungary and Spain – aren’t the ones who win the medals in regular curling.
I’ve played it with my dad, but I didn’t really enjoy it as much.
I certainly couldn’t see me being able to do both at an Olympics.
Anything that grows curling would be a good thing, so maybe it would be an idea to try it as a demonstration sport. But my own personal opinion is that it shouldn’t be a full-fledged Olympic event.
* The garden party at the palace was a great day.
I didn’t get to meet Her Majesty but there were 5,000 people there so I shouldn’t complain!
Our mums all loved it, and we did the whole London thing properly with cream tea at the Ritz.
It’s dad’s turn for a treat next week, when he’s caddying for me at the BMW PGA pro-am. Mind you, that will be more like hard work.
I’ve still not heard who my playing partner is, but Rory’s been snapped up already unfortunately!
I’m doing a Q&A with Alan Shearer and Darren Clarke on one of the days as well, and I’m just hoping that by the time I get on the golf course I’ve had the chance to get to the driving range because the clubs still haven’t been touched!