We had friends round yesterday for a late and lazy lunch. I haven’t drunk as much wine in ages and today I’ve felt pretty jaded to be honest. But first thing this morning I checked out the BBC sport website to find out how things worked out at the Open. I was rather hoping to find that Ross Fisher had won it and had had to miss the presentation ceremony to dash to be at his wife’s side as she was about to have a baby. It would have made for some great headlines – ‘Birth of an Open Champion’ and all that. And if Fisher hadn’t won it then I would have been almost as happy to see fellow Englishman Lee Westwood win his first Open. But if truth be told I was kind of hoping to read that Tom Watson had defied sporting logic to win his 6th Open at the age of 59.
My heart sank to learn that Watson had lost out to fellow American Stewart Cink in a 4 hole play-off. I wouldn’t say he’s an unknown golfer but Cink must surely be the most unpopular winner of the old claret jug in a very long time. The title was almost in Watson’s grasp – the highlights showed just how close he came on the 18th. Down in two on the last green and it would have been Watson’s Open but he just didn’t have those two putts within him. And the golfing gods weren’t going to let him repeat his last hole victory at Turnberry which he achieved an incredible 32 years ago against Jack Nicklaus, in that famous shoot-out. Maybe they figured he’d had enough success already. What a miserable shower.
So Cink went on to absolutely dominate the play-off. Watson’s game had gone and it was a little difficult to watch him struggle to get through those 4 extra holes. It looked like his enormous spirit had been broken. All Cink had to do was play regulation golf. Despite the pressure he wasn’t going to give it away, though I suspect everybody watching was hoping he’d shank one horribly into the sea. He didn’t. The bald-headed git. What kind of a name is Cink anyway?
It was turning into a really painful morning but then Freddie Flintoff only went and took 5 Aussie wickets – his first fifer on his last appearance at Lord’s – to put us 1-0 ahead in the Ashes with 3 to play. Wey hey. Isn’t sport wonderful? And the best news is that Americans are absolutely not going to steal this one from us!
pp
Pasta Paulie 
There’s lots of debate about Tom’s performance. I think it was great and a real boost for golf. But I’m curious what others think, so I set up a poll at this blog:
http://carolinabestdeals.blogspot.com/
Hope you’ll take the time to let me know how you vote.
Well i voted but it’s between me and the gods of golf lei. mind you i think you may have an idea from the content of my posting. tom was robbed!
pp
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Hi PP
I was lucky enough to be at Turnberry for the last day of practice and first two days of competition, and like you would dearly have loved to see ‘the old guy’ win it.
We witnessed the likes of Woods, Harrington & Garcia really struggle to play a course which punished anything other than accuracy, and skill with a short iron rather than power with drivers and fairway woods.
Watson played a calm, measured and highly entertaining style of golf, working with the course rather than trying to impose a style of play upon it. In the past few Opens where weather conditions have failed to trouble the players, notably Troon & Royal Birkdale, the leadcing scores have quickly run into double figures, but Turnberry had enough variety of terrain and cunning traps to prevent recovery shots keeping a players card clean.
I enjoyed seeing Co-Co the clown (Jiminez, my bet for the competition as it happens!) lead on day one, as he too played measured, accurate golf.
An Open for the purists of golf this one, and a real shame that Tom failed to finish with the Claret jug, Cink was a rank outsider and even the vocal Yank fans failed to pick up on his progress until the play off.
A shame that you weren’t able to be there, as was the case in your BT days, I’m sure we would have enjoyed a glass of chilled white and the crumpled faces of the Woods fans as they trudged home on Friday night!
Chin chin
CC
hi cc
great to hear from you. ah my favourite bit of organising BT’s hospitality programmes was doing the Open in Scotland, and Turnberry was one of the few courses we hadn’t visited. So I envious to learn that you’d been up there on your regular marshalling duties. We’ll have to do that glass of cool wine sometime soon CC. Meantime many thanks for the insightful comments – I really enjoyed watching the Open, apart from the last moments of course.
Cheers C
pp