Ailsa Craig may well doff hat to Watson's heroic efforts

CADDIE'S ROLE:YOU DON'T need a meteorologist on the Ayrshire coast to tell you what weather to expect. Simply cast you eyes down the Firth of Clyde and consult Ailsa Craig, the granite island sticking out of the sea about 10 miles offshore that looks like a big muffin, writes COLIN BYRNE

According to the local caddies at Turnberry when Ailsa has got a cloud clinging to her it will rain. If the cloud surrounds her it’s not going to rain. As one old codger put it to me in his best west Scottish accent: “When she’s wearing her hot it’s gonna be wot but when she’s wearing her tie its gonna be dry.”

Maybe the rule doesn’t apply during a British Open Championship because we seemed to get away with very acceptable weather relative to how it can be in Scotland in July, regardless of what Ailsa Craig was wearing.

You just cannot get up early enough to beat the players’ traffic at a major championship. Last Monday at 6.10am, with crows still nonchalantly picking at roadside fodder and rabbits looking at you wondering why you were not still sleeping, I met my player, Camilo Villegas, hoping to be first on the course.We were there too late. Michael Campbell and TigerWoods had beaten us.

All of the early starters were not there on holiday; they play early to finish early, so we had a swift but informative practice round and a day’s work done well before midday. If you go out later than 9am it could take up to five and a half hours to play a practice round.

This is what happened the next day, so Camilo abandoned his clubs after seven holes and walked the rest of the way. It was a chance to stroll through numerous groups of players and caddies from the US Tour that I would not have seen for some time. It is easy to forget people you used to see on a daily basis but haven’t for almost a year, but it is equally as easy to strike up a casual conversation as we rambled through some slow-moving groups of players as they prepared laboriously for the 138th Open Championship

It is the one big trip of the year for the Americans where they have got to dig out passports and fly though the night to an event. We played with Steve Marino who, along with his bagman, was shell-shocked with the effect of the six-hour time change. Three movies later and a couple of sleeping tablets and they were coming to terms with their first case of jet-lag.

It is refreshing to see the reaction of the US contingent to this bizarre form of golf on the unique links terrain. As the southerly wind freshened across the championship links the novice US seaside golfers were somewhat in disbelief at hitting their three-irons 280 yards downwind.

There is an overwhelming sense of nostalgia at such a prestigious event. Spectators will tell you how many consecutive Opens they have attended and how they always plan their holidays around it.We get to see rules officials from such countries as Ecuador who are drafted in by the R&A to follow each group. Past champions get to play in the event until they are 60 years old.

This is how an eventually play-off-vanquished 59-year-old five-time past champion Tom Watson gained exemption to this year’s tournament.

You get the impression the event is for aficionados only. The fans are there to see their golfing heroes who they only get to watch on television the rest of the year. The stroll into the amphitheatre of the 18th green is hair-raising, making even the most seasoned pro feel he is taking part in something very special.

As traditional as the Open is there is no doubt the R&A are moving with the times. On our pins sheets this year we were given the distance in yards-and-a-half to the hole; on the 13th last Thursday the pin was set 24.5 yards from the front of the green and 5.5 yards to the left. With a north-westerly gusting at 25 miles an hour by the weekend, the half numbers seemed somewhat irrelevant even for the most detailed number analyst.

Players favour certain courses. You have often heard golfers saying that particular holes just fit their eye.Well the Ailsa Course at Turnberry undoubtedly fits Tom Watson’s eye. He mentioned that he didn’t need any visual footage of the famous battle he had with Jack Nicklaus in 1977, he could recall every shot he hit 32 years ago in winning his second Open title.

Although it seemed outrageous thatWatson should dare to present himself on top of the leader board on Thursday morning last and stay there until the very end, the silence in the locker-room as players and caddies hushed for his nine-foot putt on the last hole on Sunday to try and capture his sixth Open betrayed how those at the very heart of the modern era truly believed an ageing legend was going to win at almost 60 years of age.

I am not sure the nutritionists and physical trainers would have been enamoured with a senior player with a new hip raising the Claret Jug amid the applause of contending players young enough to be his super-fit grandchildren.

Just as Ailsa Craig has done meteorologists out of a job on the Ayrshire coast so nearly did Tom Watson put the modern big-hitting golfer back in his place with a sublime display of savvy links golf where distance yielded to dexterity from a man who was supposed to play only as an act of nostalgia and not as a serious contender.