Analyst finds himself being analysed

Peter Alliss, the doyen of golf commentators, has long since accepted, like the rest of us, that it is not possible to please all of the people all of the time. A failure to recognise this fact of media life can be a source of considerable grief.

It must be said that people can be remarkably generous in complimenting the various sections of the media for what they would perceive as services well rendered. But on the other hand, there are those who leave one convinced that if it is humanly possible to find fault with one's work, they will gleefully do so.

Alliss deals with the subject with predictable good humour in his book Bedside Golf which I still delve into with great delight, 20 years after its publication.

One assumes that his early experiences at Ferndown GC, taught him to be somewhat circumspect in his expectations of public opinion. His father, Percy, had given distinguished service to Ferndown as their resident professional since 1939, and in 1953 the Alliss family were about to bring further distinction to the club.

As a 22-year-old, it was on the cards that Peter would be picked for the 1953 Ryder Cup team. And by way of reward, word percolated down that he might be afforded the facilities of the clubhouse.

When the time approached, however, and the matter was put to a vote, a cautious voice from on high suggested that it might be prudent to wait until young Alliss was actually named in the team, before the honour was conferred.

As things turned out, he was duly named in the team for the matches at Wentworth and, remarkable though it may seem these days, was allowed the use of the clubhouse.

Regarding his work on television, where he succeeded the legendary Henry Longhurst, Alliss observed: "People have their favourite players and think we should show only them. Others deeply resent any form of autobiographical intrusion. If I have a cold, I had better not draw attention to it - as if it wasn't already obvious - and certainly not apologise for it.

"If I do, this is the response: 'Dear Alliss, Yesterday I had to write complaining about one commentator being boring about his brother in New Zealand. Now we have you babbling on about your cold. What on earth makes you think any of us are interested in your cold? Who do you think you are - the most popular boy in the dorm? I wish you commentators would realise that most of your dribble, dribble is unnecessary and unwanted.'"

Apologies for the cold in question, came in his commentaries from the 1979 British Open at Royal Lytham.

And it brought another resounding absence of sympathy from a viewer in Penzance, who wrote: "Dear Mr Alliss, I see nothing to be proud of in the fact that you have passed on your cold to everybody else. Had you not been so mean, you would have stayed at home and kept your damned cold to yourself. It did nothing to improve the quality of your commentary."

Then there was the letter he received from, as he put it, "a lady who shall be nameless", after Lord Scanlon had played in the popular Pro-Celebrity series on which Alliss commentated from Gleneagles.

"Dear Mr Alliss, "Please don't spoil the enjoyment of golf with half-baked discussions on trade unions. We get quite enough of that on other programmes. I felt really cheated tonight when, having given up another programme to watch you, I found myself tuned in to yet another party political broadcast.

"Stick to your knitting and talk to your guests about golf, their problems or experiences with the game. And please, when you are covering a big tournament, could you give us a few more details about the distances, choice of club, and what the player is hoping to achieve. We don't need to be told it was 'a beauty'. Tell us how and why."

Not surprisingly, he considered this letter on the same subject, from a viewer in Edinburgh, to be a lot more palatable. "Peter Alliss, I've just watched you and Lord Hugh Scanlon on BBC2. Quite marvellous. Keep it up. There are always two sides to a story. My old man and I had a game with you and your father many years ago at Ferndown. He went round in 72. A few days later, we played again with you and you had a 72. You couldn't putt, though. Your father could."

Another letter, from a JCP Dennison in Gloucestershire, was wonderfully informative. "Dear Peter, At St Andrews last week, you mention Bobby Locke's famous hickory-shafted putter. I think you may be interested in some of the history of that club. At the turn of the century, an aunt of mine, then Miss Annie Dennison, later Mrs Jack Graham, emigrated to South Africa, and apart from becoming a South African lawn tennis champion, she also played golf. Bobby Locke was her caddie. And when she retired from golf, she gave him her putter, which he fancied. And that was the one with which he had such success in his heyday."

Meanwhile, a homophobic Scots viewer wrote to Alliss rather formally: "Dear Sirs, I would like to know why your fine commentary on the British Open Golf Championship from Royal Lytham and St Anne's is continuously interrupted by cricket.

"I consider it a gross insult from the British Broadcasting Corporation to broadcast a homosexual sport of England and Wales. Britons north of the border generally are not entertained by a bunch of Anglo-Saxon poufs chasing each other about a field. As far as I am concerned, the Fairy to blame can take his cricket and stuff it. . . . . . ."

Elsewhere in the book, Alliss describes golf as a silly game. As he puts it: "All games are silly, I suppose, but golf, if you look at it dispassionately, does go to extremes. Players have to cover a huge area on the ground to carry out something that is really a very pedestrian exercise."

Still, he finds himself being forced to acknowledge: "And yet the drama and the excitement that golf generates, the sadness and the elation, are there all the time. Other games have their dramas, of course.

"But usually those moments are over so quickly. Whereas, if you're watching someone coming down the last hole of a great championship, the suspense can just build and build."

All of which is a product of the inimitable Alliss equanimity. It is an attitude which allowed him to take a remarkably detached view of the committee at Ferndown prior to the Ryder Cup in 1953.

He wrote: "I've always had the thought that more good men were ruined through being allowed into the clubhouse and to participate in its activities, than were ruined through being kept out.

"You may think that's being rather reactionary, and indeed it may well be, but I have seen it happen to too many golf professionals."

Small wonder he appears to have had so little difficulty in coping with the decidedly mixed reaction of television viewers during the ensuing years.