Windswept Golf

God, the commentators were moaning minnies yesterday. "This isn't fair"; "it's getting silly"; "it's so hard to play when you can't ground your putter." And the golfers themselves were mooching round like they were facing mission impossible, impending doom, the valley of death. So it's a bit breezy. It's Scotland. In the Summer. By the Sea. What a pampered bunch of preening fuck-putts.

I love watching them suffer. We were at Birkdale in 1999 when the average score for the day was 77 and by the end every golfer had the 200 yard stare of a Vietnam veteran. Frankly, it was one of the best day's sport I've ever witnessed. Yesterday looked nearly as good.

Rory McIlroy swaggered off the first tee like a cocky young gun riding into Dodge and 80 hapless shots later slumped off the last green like a little boy who has just lost the egg and spoon race at his own birthday party and just wants a hug from his mum. The old cowboys chewed their baccy and looked on. My Betfair account giggled uncontrollably.

Pro golfers get looked after far too well. They get every advantage imaginable to help them. Spectators quiet; rough manicured; free drinks and sandwiches on every tee. The greens they play on are given more care and attention than a Playboy bunny's minge. They hit truly terrible shots (which for us would be balls lost forever), which slam into the grandstand and they get a free shot from an amenable spot. I say cobblers to that - get up in the fucking stands and play it from there -

A few days ago Mark suggested I couldn't appreciate the Tour De France properly unless I had been halfway up the Col Du Tourmalet out of bidons and the peloton attacking. Here, it's actually the other way round.

I'd like to see them turn up at the annual Rottingdean CU Old Boys Pitch and Putt championship, tackling the last nine tricky downhill holes - holes as mangled as a Playboy bunny's- in a late September gale, armed with just a nine iron and a broken putter, with your glasses having just blown to the windmill of oblivion, having just had a Full English, four pints of Guinness, and a slug of brandy on each of the first nine holes...

Pussies...


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