*Dressed for success? Justin Thomas was striding oot on the Birkdale links wearing a woven knit skinny tie and neatly fitting cardigan. Back in yonder times of yesteryear, before smiling was invented and the Open was dominated by hirsute men with faces like rocky outcrops, the apparel was equally as dashing with Glengarry bunnets and Beau Brummell lapels being worn in classy abundance. In the Birkdale media centre, meanwhile, it is very much an exercise in what not to wear as the hattered, dishevelled golf writers shuffle around with all the sartorial elegance of Worzel Gummidge standing in a stiff breeze.
*In these health conscious times, when hand-wringing, twig-munching fitness zealots are constantly tut-tutting in the faces of we blobsome paupers in a sustained effort to fuel our self-disgust, it seems the end is night for life’s routine, soothing pleasures. Fag sooking former Open champion Darren Clarke certainly won’t like the finger-wagging from the R&A top brass after Martin Slumbers, the chief executive, was asked about smoking on the course and replied by saying, “it’s not what we encourage or allow.” They’ll be banning quick swigs from the hip-flask before a nervy three-footer in the club medal next.
*Tommy Fleetwood, the local lad with the name that sounds like he could be on the list of end of the pier tribute acts at Team Herald’s Pontins dwelling, is the centre of Southport’s attention this week. The diarist’s golf writing compadre, Matt Cooper, has taken the adulation further though, with a brief re-working of The Who’s rock opera, Tommy. All together now, “Since I was a young boy, I’ve played a Titleist ball. From Hesketh down to Hillside, I must’ve played them all. But I ain’t seen nothing like him, right down at Formby Hall. That long haired local kid sure plays a mean golf ball.”
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