Els and the Shark soar above terrorised stratosphere

Caddie's Role: It's always a relief to land after a long haul across the Atlantic. I walked a crooked mile through Chicago's O'Hare airport trying to get my limbs to work in sync again.

Just as I got into full stride I turned the corner at immigration to discover a long, snaking queue of subcontinental Indian people looking as I was feeling, agitated.

My flight had been delayed in departing and I was now left with under an hour to clear immigration, pick up my bag, recheck it, board the sky train to terminal one, go through the security rigamarole and try to find my gate for the connecting flight to Denver.

The Air India flight is not the one you want to arrive behind; the immigration process seems, naturally enough, to be a daunting task for many of the visiting members of that nation. I remember the first time I arrived in America; it was not the most pleasant experience for a novice. These passengers looked as I recall feeling back then, stunned.

Always a little deferential to US immigration officers, this time I was left in a very rare situation. My guy (a Mexican American who had not lost his accent - I had to ask him to repeat his questions to the point of embarrassment for both of us) wanted to know what I was doing and I told him. He was in the mood for a chat.

'Oh no, not now. I have to leg it to have half a chance of catching my connecting flight, but the talkative one has the power,' I thought to myself. 'I had better sound interested.'

"You see a two-under-par on a hole is not that normal but it can happen, it is called an eagle. Yes I do know Tiger Woods, he is an absolute gentleman.

"Yes we are in his company a lot, he is really quite normal."

Shock and amazement engulfed the portly officer's face. I heard the bang of the passport stamp echo around the booth and I tried not to snatch my documents back off him as I panicked about my onward flight.

I am sure I grabbed my passport rather abruptly, but my interrogator did not seem to notice as he mused about his new understanding of the game of golf and how he felt closer to Tiger Woods by branding the passport of someone who had been in his company.

My personal airport training stood to me in the end. After scurrying through the sprawling O'Hare at caddie quickstep pace, I begged the check-in person at gate C23 to unclose the flight and let me on board. With a raised eyebrow she snatched my boarding pass out of my quivering hand. I took my seat (or part of it as my very large neighbour had fallen asleep and spilled over on to my part) and the door was slammed shut.

The captain announced his regret that they were bound for Denver, Colorado, with 50 spare seats as many international passengers had not made their connections. If I'd had more space and energy I would have explained about Air India and the rest of the saga. My neighbour did not seem to be the chatty type anyway.

My ordeal fell rather short on the inconvenience scale as the word spread that terror went beyond the borders of the United States of Amazement. The news of the thwarted efforts of terrorists to destroy aircraft flying to the US from Britain was met with some concern in Colorado as US international competitors contemplated the rigours of flying back home.

Not all international competitors fly commercially. One such player is the 51-year-old golfing legend Greg Norman, or simply "the Shark" as he was uniquely known back in his "number one golfer in the world" days. He was the world's best for 331 weeks. He plays a limited number of events on the Champions Tour now and accepts just the one invitation on the PGA Tour, to the International.

He was like a politician strutting along the range on Thursday morning last as he greeted all us players and caddies who were around in his golden era. He seemed a little surprised some of us were still there.

He is as fit a 51-year-old as you are likely to come across outside of a California gym. His hair is longer than it ever has been, if a little less shockingly blond, age having given it a dusty hue. He wears some deeper lines on his face but his eyes are as piercing as when he was at his predatory best over a decade ago.

His athletic frame would look impressive on a 31-year-old man. If you could picture Crocodile Dundee with a more impressive pair of shoulders, that's how the old Shark looked prancing about the range at Castle Pines in full handshaking mode.

The rest of us contemplated a life of international travel with even more delays than we had got used to post-9/11. There was talk of driving to Chicago on Thursday morning to avoid the inevitable security headache at Denver airport. It was going to be a 15-hour drive. By Sunday most of the terra firma intentions of earlier in the week had yielded to the quicker air option; security couldn't be that bad.

Meanwhile, I was rescued from the airport security nightmare by Ernie Els. He kindly offered me a lift on his jet to Chicago. There was no long line of weary Indians ahead of me, no security scans and no large neighbour spilling over the seat next to me on Els Air.

Sometimes as a caddie you get to move in the rarified air of an unterrorised stratosphere.

Email: cbyrne1240@aol.com