It’s been some old week. As I sit here pondering life’s subtle nuances and worrying that I’ve spent so long perched in the media centre that my rear end has become fossilised, I realise that I’m trying to finish a column while the Open Championship, that should have finished on Sunday, was finishing on Monday and all this unfinished business will probably finish us all off. You are now reading an unfinished symphony ... and you have my unfettered sympathy.

The delays of Friday and Saturday were a right scunner but super Sunday salvaged this savaged Open. Stories to raise the spirits tumbled forth with every birdie that dropped. For the hysterical masses who declared that this championship would be forever damned and tainted by a day of delays and disgruntlement, the Sabbath helped to shut them up.

In a few years time, when we gaze back with sighing affection at the 144th Open, it won’t be the mutterings and mumblings of a few brassed off players that will stick in the minds or the down beat assessments of those commentators who suggested that the overwhelming storyline would be of a chaotic backdrop rather than a worthy champion. What we will reflect on will be the quality of the golf that was subsequently produced, the quirky novelty of ‘£10 Monday’ and the fact that you had a 22-year-old amateur leading the Open heading into the final day with a 21-year-old grand slam-chasing superstar lurking right behind him. The supporting cast, that made the leaderboard more congested than the Blackpool turn-off on a Bank Holiday, was pretty tasty too. If the Open had stopped on Sunday night, most folk would have been quite content given the feel-good factor that was generated on a day when the game took its rightful place in the spotlight and did what it does best at the highest level; rouse the senses, excite, inspire and captivate.

The debates about golf technology roared on during the wind delay on Saturday as the self-appointed custodians of the game pondered and pontificated. The greens, they wailed, were cut too short because the modern ball goes too far and that’s one of the defences against players who are regularly coming in with a short iron or wedge for their approach. Of course, greens are quick because players want them quick. Slow surfaces are one of the biggest bug bears among the elite. As the gusts hurtled through at 40mph on a bright, sunny July Saturday, there were folk playing golf at Crail, Anstruther and various other courses dotted around the east neuk of Fife while the Old Course at St Andrews lay empty for over 10 hours. But then comparisons between world class tournament golf with millions of pounds on the line and the weekly batter about with the boys or girls are pointless. The eager amateur will go out whatever the weather. It is a different dimpled ball game entirely.

The groans and gripes about golfing equipment are hardly a modern phenomenon. There were probably folk saying ‘we’ll need to rein in the featherie’ back 1859 when Allan Robertson traumatised the Old Course and became the first player to break 80 on the hallowed links. Robertson, himself, was a ball marker by trade and his own business suffered gravely by the development of the gutta percha. “It’s nae gowff,” Robertson lamented. It was ever thus.

While a number of a extremely well paid professionals groused and girned about the wind, the green speeds and the Royal & Ancient’s decision to get play underway and then haul everybody in after barely half an hour, the loyal footsoldiers who had paid extremely good money to get in retained the kind of sturdy resolve you’d get with a wrought iron portcullis.

All they wanted to do was watch some golf. They probably couldn’t give two hoots about the distance the ball goes or the stimp rating or all this pious chin-stroking that goes in media centres. Give them birdies, bogeys and eagles, raking putts, booming drives that makes them gasp ...and possibly their money back. As the colourful Brian Barnes said back in the day, “we’re bloody entertainers.”

Dustin Johnson’s mighty blooters certainly got the crowds oohing and aahing. As fevered observers were worrying themselves into a desperate fankle about the crash, bang, wallop nature of the modern game that threatens venues like the Old Course, Johnson was a key part of that particular narrative as he reduced the links to something resembling a pitch-and-putt. Yet, on Sunday, in largely benign conditions that saw flags hanging limply like dead leaves, Johnson was ineffective and slumped to a 75 that featured just one birdie. Unpredictability will always remain a weapon in golf’s armoury.

AND ANOTHER THING

Council House Crackdown, Heir Hunters and Bargain Hunt were all on the BBC while early birdies were flying on the final day of the Open Championship. Coverage finally began at 1.45pm, six hours after play teed-off. The Beeb will lose the live Open rights to Sky after next year’s championship at Troon. Sadly, it seems the big switch off has started already.