Some years ago, this newspaper invited me to report on the Irish Open Golf Contest in Portmarnock. It is true that I did not and do not know the difference between open golf and closed golf, but my reports were such a stunning success that I was never asked to cover golf again, no doubt for fear of showing Dermot Gilleece up. I was more than happy to let the lesser man keep his job. Generous to a fault. That's the sort of fellow I am.
However, the odd flame of interest flickered somewhere deep in the old subconscious, and when a certain friend suggested we pop into the European Championship outside Naas last weekend, I agreed. It has been far too long since I saw a master of stroke play laying his caddy in the rough. Some normally hidden Scottish gene within ordered me: "Hoots man whae hae, ye muckleheaded rullion ye, will ye nae gae till yon gowff joust, och aye the noo."
Floral welcome
It was rather touching to find that they'd gone to the trouble of arranging a large welcoming floral "K" at the entrance to this event; and I had only decided at the last minute to attend. I don't personally know how the proprietor of the hotel concerned, a Mediterranean gentleman called M. Smugfeet, I believe, not merely managed to discover I would be attending but got his gardeners out in extra-short order to say hello in flowers. I was thinking of thanking him in person, something on the lines of, "Bonjour M. Slugwit, comment allezvous, bien j'espere, oh sacre bleu, votre postilion a ete frappe par lightning, zut alors. Dommage, M. Surfeit."
The problem is, does M. Surfnet speak the polished metropolitan French that I rather pride myself on, or would his French be of the highly accented southern variety? Maybe he is of Algerian origin: many people in that part of the world are, you know, and my Arabic is rather poor. "Ou est le Casbah, Achmed?" is about the limit of it.
The point is, I would absolutely hate it if poor Mohammed El Smayedd and I found ourselves standing together, him bobbing up and down and mumbling in peasant Arabic what a great honour, signal distinction, proudest day in his life, that I should have deigned to visit his little golf driving range, etc., and me replying in my lordly French, Think nothing of it old fellow, glad to help Johnny Foreigner trying to make a go of it, be a good fellow and give these shoes a shine for me, that's the ticket.
I was weighing up the pros and the cons of this matter when the friend who had brought me cried: "Oh look! There's Monty!"
Monty? What, Monty of El Alamein playing golf in the County Kildare? By jove, so it's true! Golf must be really good for you! And I thought the lad had pegged out years ago. I scanned the crowd looking for a little fellow in a beret but by then he'd vanished. No matter. Having Monty on the golf court put all thought of having a word with Mohammed L. Smegma completely out of my head.
Indoors variety
Never mind second World War British field marshals: many other types have shown an adeptness for golf, though I was surprised to hear that Westwood was leading the field (which is golf for being in front). Vivienne had always struck me as being the indoors variety. There you are. Another surprise. The last time I saw her, she was wearing a transparent polythene sheet and nothing else. A game girl; and now a force on the golf-pitch.
If you want to know who's playing in a chukka of golf, you check the bored leader and he'll tell you. My eye fell on the name Johannson. What, Ingmar, the heavyweight champion from my childhood, now spending his twilight years playing golf at Mohammed El Smear-test's B & B in Kildare? Wonders will never cease. And look at the other participants. See, there's Darren Clarke, the British actor from Dalziel and Pascoe, and Philip Walton, taking time off from the old music business, and Bjorn, settling for golf now that his tennis days are over.
Alas, no sign of Arnold Nicklaus or Sebe Palmer or Jack Player; nor even of that sensational new American, Lion Forests. Frankly, I was relieved. What would they have thought if they'd seen that overnight vandals had removed great swathes of turf beside the lawns containing the holes, exposing bare sand. Quite shocking, and, I'm sure, fearfully difficult to get a ball out of it once it's landed there. Some people have no consideration.
Hail and shine
It wasn't just the vandals; it was the weathers too. As we golfing types say, there were Sam Torrance of rain (my, how we always laugh at that one) followed by hail, followed by sunshine followed by cold winds followed by drought followed by the mistral followed by a monsoon, while small sad Spaniards wandered around in baffled circles trying to get their clothing right.
Ah. It seems we have no further space to continue this riveting insight into the European Golfing Championship in quite the professional detail I'd like. No matter. Mohammed El Johnson Mooney & O'Brien has invited me to cover the Ryder Cup in 2005 (and why not: if British dress designers and field marshals and Swedish boxers can play golf, why not jockeys?). Excellent. Until then, pip pip.