OH we do like to be beside the seaside. There’s always plenty to see in a jaunty coastal resort, not that the diarist and his colleague get much time to see anything else other than the Open and each other’s increasingly saggy vision in our Pontins bolthole.

The British Lawnmower Museum in Southport houses a fascinating array of turf shearing paraphernalia. Perhaps the curator could add a sombre bust of a golf writer to the exhibits?

During Open week, after all, we are always muttering about non-golf writers swooping in for one week of the year and cutting our grass.

TALKING of things swooping in, there was much commotion in the press centre when Jet the peregrine falcon made an appearance.

Jet is the R&A’s resident bird of prey charged with frightening off pesky seagulls so that the masses can enjoy their £8.50 fish and chips in peace.

Being a man of learned ornithology, the diarist engaged in an erudite blether with said bird’s handler. “Are you aware of Falco Peregrinus?,” he asked. “Aye, I think he shot an 82 to miss the cut,” came the response of authority.

THE R&A heid honchos are not renowned for swiftly dispensing with protocol so it’s been something of an eye-brow raiser to hear bubbly, bearded ba’ batterer Andrew Johnston being announced on the tee as his nickname, Beef, by David Lancaster, the official starter.

Lancaster took the shine off Scottish amateur Connor Syme’s big moment by wrongly pronouncing his name as ‘Sim’.

The diarist was eagerly awaiting a fleshy faux pas with the aforementioned Johnston too. ‘On the tee from England, Pork Johnston.’