EVENTS at Royal Birkdale have left me feeling very old. That's partly because I am very old and partly because I seem to have spent most of the past week being told how ancient Greg Norman is at the age of 53.
The man couldn't move without someone expressing shock and surprise that he was able to do whatever he was doing at all at his age. It was as if anybody who manages to make it to 53 is due to fall apart. During his latter years, the late George Burns
remarked that if he'd known he was to last as long as he had he'd have taken better care of himself, but then he was about 90 when he said it and he had another active decade to go.
I can't remember with any great clarity how I felt when I was 53, but it had to be a good deal better than I feel now. I didn't go tearing up the town or anything like that, but my back hadn't given out and I hadn't yet found it necessary to walk like Groucho Marx for the first couple of hours of each day. Attempting to win the Open was no longer on my agenda, but then it never had been and so I spent little time brooding about it.
It is to be hoped that Norman was able to blank out all the hushed comments directed his way by the various commentators, for had he heard them all, it would have done nothing for his morale. The barrage went on from start to finish, even though after three rounds the Australian had done more than enough to prove that, come what may, he was a force to be reckoned with in the championship and he'd done it in a howling gale.
The line about "rolling back the years", came out early and often and was soon joined by "defying logic and Father Time". An exquisite bunker shot from an awkward stance during the second round prompted an astonished gasp of "what a shot", which was accurate and fully justified, but it came with the inevitable qualification – "for a man whose hips are creaking".
Norman, who was referred to as "the veteran" and "the old fella", was described as looking "a bit older, greyer about the gills". Had this been going over on radio, the listeners might have got the impression that a cadaver had somehow made a remarkable recovery and was now stalking the links. That image would hardly have matched the reality – the trim, finely honed athlete who was providing such entertainment with such dashing style.
There are times in sport on the telly, when a little hush would be welcome. It is, after all, about seeing things and talking for talking's sake isn't really required. Live action is what telly does best and the amount of time devoted to interviews which contribute little to the gaiety of nations often seems a trifle disproportionate. One golfer was asked how he felt on rising early for the first round to find the weather a touch on the wild side.
Not surprisingly, he'd been somewhat less than delighted. I can't recall what his actual answer was, but it didn't come as any sort of bombshell.
Camilo Villegas, the highly-charged 26-year-old from Colombia, seems content to let his clubs do the talking. He certainly didn't hang about when approached to say a few words before his third round. The commentator asked him how he proposed to set about the round – would he, for instance, be keeping the ball low? "You got it," replied Camilo. He then smiled at the interviewer, said: "There you go," and went off at speed.
A spot of consternation broke out on Saturday when golf balls began to move about on some of the greens, which would no doubt bring a few wry smiles to the lips of members of clubs with courses which hug the coast and are more or less constantly windswept. Anyone looking for golf balls on the move would be well advised to head for Gullane Hill where the sight of shivering golf balls being addressed by shivering golfers is a fairly common one. There was a memorable day on No 1 course, when the second green became so polished and slippery that if an approach shot into the wind wasn't sent well past the pin, the ball tended to roll back off the green and down the fairway, passing on its way the golfer who had hit it.
There are good days. During an Open at Muirfield many years ago, I was heading for the Gullane clubhouse, when I chanced upon an old worthy standing outside taking the air. Actually, he was smoking a cigarette, but this man never took his air neat. It was a glorious, still, day of sunshine and birdsong. The worthy, however, wasn't happy. I asked him what was amiss, and, with a nod of his head in the direction of Muirfield, he said (expletives deleted): "When we have a medal competition, you can hardly stand. These people come and they get this." How ironic, I thought, that in the midst of such beauty, there should be such bitterness.
The full article contains 883 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
