Saturday profile: 'My job is to tell you the difference between a great shot and a great result'

Peter Alliss is for many of us 'the voice of golf' and his honest commentary has won him a legion of admirers over the 47-year course of his time behind the microphone. His style has, of course, not always been popular with players, in particular Nick Dougherty who labelled recent Alliss comments as "sad" and "disgusting"

ONCE endorsed as the game's greatest ever commentator by Golf Digest, the American magazine, there's steel as well as velvet in Peter Alliss' delivery. The voice of golf on the BBC for almost half a century, the eight time Ryder Cup player has pretty much seen it all at the Open championship since he made his debut in the event as a teenage prodigy in 1947.

Honoured for his distinguished service to the game this week at the annual dinner of the Association of Golf Writers, Alliss was a breathtakingly pure striker of the ball whose professional career was cut short by putting woes. Always an engaging raconteur, Alliss first caught the ear of a BBC producer who overheard the golfer's captivating voice in conversation during a flight home from a tournament in Europe.

Son of Percy, a five time Ryder Cup player, Alliss was invited to try his hand as a commentator at Birkdale in the oldest major some 47 years ago when Arnold Palmer won. He feels enduring affection for the place and might even have won here himself in 1954.

"I remember having a chance of winning at Birkdale," he recalled. "I finished four shots behind Peter Thomson. I'd played in my first Open in 1947, missed three years because of national service, then started again in 1951. I was ninth behind Ben Hogan at Carnoustie, then eighth at Birkdale. People said at the time 'Oh, you'll win an Open'. But I never did. It's all bollocks, really. If you look at the list of players who have won majors, particularly Americans, there are loads of them you would struggle to say were great players. People say (Colin] Montgomerie isn't a great player because he hasn't won one. I don't agree with that. It's like saying Stirling Moss wasn't a great motor racing driver because he didn't win the world motor racing championship."

At 77, during a break in the BBC's coverage of this stormy championship, Alliss is every bit as entertaining and insightful as he is on air. The man who once described himself as 'an old player, lover of the game and weaver of stories' is in typically wry mood and impressively generous with his free time.

Golf is a sport which carries its history around like a trusted hickory putter. Even so, few observers can call on anything like Alliss' longevity. Given his wealth of experience at the Open, how does he rate the contemporary standard of play?

"It's different now," he replied. "Of course, it's very easy to say things are either so much better now or worse. I try and equate it with other things – motor racing or film making or athletics. Jesse Owens was once the fastest thing on two legs and now your granny could run as fast. Perhaps we shouldn't try and compare, because everything is so different – the equipment, the courses and so on. It's only in fairly recent times they've put rakes in the bunkers. Once, you scraped the sand over with your foot.

"The conditioning of the links has added something to the championship, but also taken something away. The players today require everything to be nearly perfect. If they land a ball in the bunker and it's plugged, they want to know why. Whereas Peter (Thomson], who could be very whimsical, would say, 'They're called hazards, and you're supposed to stay out of them. If you go in one, it's supposed to cost you, unless you play a very good recovery shot."

Allis didn't replace Henry Longhurst as the BBC's main golf commentator until 1978. But he was behind the microphone on a part-time basis when Palmer won in 1961. He also played that summer and racked up another ninth place finish.

"Birkdale is one of my favourites (on the rota]," he said. "It's flat and not that hard work for the players or caddies. It's also a reasonable walk for the spectators and a good viewing course. Because of its position in the country, it's an easy place to get to and the crowds are big. If they come on the railway, people don't even need a car.

"There is an underground water system which has ensured that seven or eight holes, no matter how dry the summer, the fairways are green. Birkdale has never really been a hard, bouncy, fiery course, like Hoylake. That was a good exercise (to go back] there, though I'm not sure we saw it at its best. It would have been nice to have a little bit of green. But then you marvel at the way Tiger Woods appraised the situation. There's no rule which says you have to use driver off the tee.

"In a way, it has detracted (from the event] not having Tiger there. He's the best player in the world by some distance. It's a bit like going to a concert to listen to the world's best musicians and the virtuoso violinist isn't there."

In the absence of Woods, who is recuperating from knee surgery, Alliss would like nothing better than to see a Brit get his hands on the Claret Jug this weekend. "We haven't had a British winner since Paul Lawrie," he reflected. "That was fascinating and exciting but what happened (at Carnoustie in 1999) shouldn't have happened. No detriment to Lawrie, he went round in 67 and played the last two holes of the play-off in 3, 3. That was fantastic. But it was all a bit tacky.

"So, yes, I feel we could do with a home winner. There's a lot of them, at the minute, around 20. The lad who won (the European Open] two weeks ago, Ross Fisher, and Oliver Fisher are decent players .On top of them, you've got the like of Justin Rose and Paul Casey. You're hoping one of them will come through. But I keep banging on about the inconsistency of our players.

"It's quite extraordinary. The one fellow of ours who has been consistent this year is Lee Westwood. The others play and win and then they take time off. When I was winning, I couldn't wait to get out the following week. I'm not sure it's about the money. Between 1954 and 1969, I won 20 times, which is a helluva ratio, when you look at things today. They were proper tournaments and included five national open championships. Sadly, though, not this one.

"The biggest cheque I ever won was for £1,100. But a Rolls Royce cost £3,100 then. I won three opens in a row (in 1958] – Italy, Spain and Portugal – and if that happened today you'd put away a million quid. It's a terrible thing to say, maybe, but I can think of players who I played with that never got a cap in the Ryder Cup, if they were here playing today at the same standard, they'd be earning £1.5m each year. The ones who were a little bit better would be on £2m and the Neil Coles, the Bernard Hunts, the Eric Browns and the John Pantons would be making £4m.

"The other interesting aspect is how hardly any of them were ever injured. Today's players are in the gymnasium working out and I'm not so sure you need that kind of fitness for golf. These days you worry if they'll do themselves in lifting weights. Golfers have always needed good feet, stout legs and skill. I'm not so sure about upper body. There's a different philosophy, really, now."

Alliss doesn't shy away from expressing blunt opinions. When the standard of play in the BMW PGA (an event he won three times) at Wentworth wasn't all that notable earlier this year, Alliss said so. His comments particularly upset Nick Dougherty, who described the criticism as "sad" and "disgusting". The veteran broadcaster has been around the block often enough, of course, not to be troubled by the arrows of outraged golfers. "The modern players have never played golf on courses which haven't been watered," he mused. "They don't have that experience. Tom Watson used to go to places like the west coast of Ireland and Dornoch before an Open to learn how to hit 3 irons from 80 yards. I suppose you could liken it to putting Lewis Hamilton in a little motor car and asking him to drive it to Brighton. Unless someone told him, he wouldn't know how to drive it.

"Everyone is very sensitive and not many of my fellow commentators will criticise anything. Johnny Miller does in America and he's very unpopular (with the players] because of that. Lee Trevino gave it up because he didn't want to criticise and Dave Marr, whom we loved to work with, used to spend a lot of time in the locker room. I don't want to go in. I want to be me and give a relevant opinion. If you go in (with the players] and are all cosy, cosy, there may be (a temptation] to butter them up. I hope I'm honest and if someone plays well, maybe someone I don't like, then I say so."

There's far more to Alliss, of course, than mere outspokenness. By turns he can be wistful, observant and laugh-out-loud funny. Little wonder this doyen of the microphone bristles at the absurd notion almost anyone who knows golf could do his job. "It's not easy, in fact, it's difficult," he retorted. "Your main responsibility is not to the players, but the viewers. My job is to tell you the difference between a great shot and a great result – two entirely different things."

Needless to say, when it comes to educating and entertaining a TV audience on the ancient game, nobody does it better than Peter Alliss.

[e-mail]