Jesters, bad shoes and a coming-of-age

Well that was exciting wasn't it. I'm supposed to write about the highlights and lowlights of my fantasy golf sojourn at the Ryder Cup. It would be churlish to say there were lowlights as we all dream about having some kind person pay for you to go and watch golf for a few days, but I will try. I expect I'll come up with something, knowing me.

There is one lowlight I can think of straight away. Keegan Bradley's golf shoes. Were they spats from Daddy Warbucks in Annie?, or were they something the local marching band threw out at the end of the year? Wherever they came from, it would be nice if they went back there.

Fancy dress Alternatively, he could give them to any of the passing parade of Ryder Cup jesters, a few of which I have illustrated here. I love a bit of gratuitous nonsense so the fancy dress assumed by every 10th spectator at the Ryder Cup is right up my street. More's the pity that they don't encourage further sartorial lunacy by having a worst dressed spectator competition. First prize: tickets to the next Ryder Cup to defend the title.

The course, to my surprise, was a highlight. From the spectators’ point of view, there could be none better. From my point of view, it isn’t traditional enough – too American, but then I am a curmudgeon.

I have played a few Jack Nicklaus golf courses and they are very fair. You can usually see all the trouble and if you avoid it you are rewarded. There is less chance of the fickle finger of outrageous fortune playing a hand – how is that for a mixed metaphor. That is why, when you have two dozen of the best players in the world knocking it around, you can get scores such as Rose and Stenson managed on Friday. It is not that it is a pitch and putt course, far from it, that some tour events are played on. It is that if they get it right, they can make it look easy.

The TV coverage was okay. I still pine a little for Ken Brown, Mark James, Wayne Grady and Peter Allis, but I can live with most of the Sky people, except Colin Montgomerie, of course. But why has Sky adopted the ghastly American affectation of calling Paul McGinley "Captain" McGinley. Was it a memo from Rupert or do they just like to slavishly mimic our American cousins?

The other lowlight isn't really a lowlight at all. It is the Ryder Cup itself. Butch Harmon said, in commentary, and I translate from American dialect, "Why can't we do this every week?".

I heard, in Gleneagles, low level moaning from journalists. Nothing strange there, then. But they were moaning that they had to hang around until Friday before the real work began.

One of the players said much the same. They had been champing at the bit since Tuesday, why wait until Friday before they play. There must be some way they can increase it to a four-day contest without losing the integrity of the event.

Scottish Foursomes (Greensomes if you are reading this outside Ireland) or maybe some sort of scramble, or two days of singles. I dunno, you think of something.

Bit parky The real highlight of the week was the weather. After the K Club and Celtic Manor, I had Wellington boots, umbrellas and rain gear on my packing list. Unfortunately Ryanair doesn’t allow you to take trunks on board, so I left it all at home. And I didn’t need it. It was a bit parky though. Maybe we could abandon the Fedex Cup and play this at the beginning of September, before the weather turns.

And then, of course, the real real real highlight of the week. The golf. I thought the wonders of Saturday wouldn't be bettered, and then the Sunday singles started. In fact, being a devout pessimist, when Jordan Speith got three up on Graham McDowell and the American I was watching with said, "I told you he was something special", I had a thought that Europe might lose the singles 12-0.

But then Rory did his thing and I felt a bit better and then Graham McDowell came back from the dead. No sooner had the French person I was watching with (he was sitting next to the American) said "fin des haricots" (it means the beans are over, it is all up), that McDowell went up a gear and Speith became frail. So that was actually going to be my declared highlight and then, and then, Jamie Donaldson marched down the 15 and hit his second shot dead to win the Ryder Cup and it couldn't have happened to a nicer fella. He's someone who strove to get in the team and, at a relatively old age, came of age.

Which leaves me with a personal lowlight. I was hoping, at this stage, to be lauding Victor Dubuisson and passing on, as a scoop, you heard it here first, that my French friend confided in me. He isn't really French at all, he comes from Andorra. He learnt his golf in Antibes, the South of France alright, but his family are some of those sin dependent people squashed betwixt France and Spain.

But he didn’t win the Ryder Cup, so I can’t tell you. It will have to wait until 2016 when I cover the next Ryder Cup. (Some hope – Ed.)