All you need is skill and the golfing gods on your side

Caddie's Role/Wednesday: I pulled into the caddie parking lot at the idyllic sounding location of Cherry Lawn. A shuttle transported us from the lawn about a mile south of the course to just outside the locker room. The workplace itself, the West at Winged Foot is, however, a daunting ordeal. With single file fairways and jungle thick rough there was no doubt about the winning formula for this year's Open champion. Accuracy.

There was a sense of concern from many players about how best to extract their errant tee shots from the lush rough. The manufacturers wagons were working overtime on building tailor-made seven woods.

Retief toyed with a seven and five wood from the rough on the practice range in an effort to come up with the answer. You were going to miss fairways the way Winged Foot was set up, so practising from the rough was as important as clipping the ball off the short grass.

Thursday: Show time and the predictions that we all made earlier in the week are put to the test. Three over is a good score. Ten over will be the cut. You can't expect to hole many putts on these bumpy poa annua greens. We were paired with Stuart Cink and Padraig Harrington. Padraig is a man who has his own theories about the game of golf and will stand by them. When I saw him playing out of the rough I gave a double take. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I was sure I saw him lift his left foot completely off the ground as if he was batting at baseball.

I observed closely the next time he found the rough. My eyes were not deceiving me; he was indeed lunging into the ball. He explained his theory later to me on the practice range. He got me to throw a ball. As I raised my arm to launch the ball I realised that my left foot was moving forward to plant itself in resistance to the sling shot from my right arm. I cannot wait to try out the Harrington manoeuvre out of the thick fescue grasses at my home club this week. It certainly worked for Padraig.

Friday: It is quite interesting to walk around the course on the other side of the ropes. It gives us a whole new perspective on the national open. These national championships are institutions, they are not just a major or another event, they are annual outings for some spectators that like the idea of their tradition.

These events are largely supported by fraternity boys. They wear big shorts, trainers, short white socks, polo shirts and baseball caps. They smoke cigars, drink beers from the morning tee times and there is very much a sense of drunken wellbeing by mid-afternoon.

If Jack Nicklaus thinks it's right to fluff up bunkers as a way to ruffle the feathers of the molly-coddled modern pro, why not add on a little abuse from the mouthy crowd to test his nerves even more? As Monty lined up a 15-foot putt on the back nine a knowledgable member of the crowd whispered loudly to his accomplice that this guy had won 10 or 11 European Order of Merits. After Monty missed the curving putt, the same gentleman continued that no wonder he had never won a major, he couldn't even make a 15-foot putt. The statement probably sums up the major crowd. They are part of a tradition rather than the intelligentsia of the game.

Saturday: A sobering start to the day knowing that your chance of competing for the second major of the year is over.

Retief missed the cut having hovered around the mark all day. Halfway around the back nine he resigned himself to the fact that he was not going to hole any putts on these greens. He was not alone in this position. The poa annua grass created the most confusing surfaces for good putters. To those who strike their putts well and are used to watching them hug the putting surface as they track their path towards the cup; these greens are a disappointment.

Lest I get accused of sour grapes, I know someone was holing putts and our playing partners of the first couple of days Padraig and Stuart Cink drained their fair share. I can't help but feel that even they were surprised when their balls found the bottom of the cup.

Sunday: Golf is of course a very skilful game. At the risk of stating the obvious, no matter how skilful you are you need an element of luck. It seemed like Phil Mickelson was drawing on his fortune just too many times for it to take him all the way to his third major in a row.

Geoff Ogilvy probably could not believe his luck when he got up and down on the last hole to finish on five over par, which was enough to win the 106th US Open. As Phil met his doom on the back nine, Geoff took advantage of his good fortune. His trap shot on the short 13th was a good one but unless it hit the pin and dropped into the hole it was going to leave him with a 10-foot putt for par. Then on 17 he chipped in for birdie, but like 13, if the ball didn't go in it was likely to be a bogey.

The vicissitudes of the back nine of a major on Sunday were never as apparent as they were in Winged Foot last week. You need the skill to get into a position to win and then you need the golfing gods to shine favourably upon you in order to win.

Over 72 holes the chances are that equilibrium will determine a worthy champion.