When it comes to off-the-cuff, impromptu actions and gestures, this correspondent tends to be about as spontaneous as the D-Day landings.
Of course, at this time of the year, when you are deluged by great torrents of rosy-cheeked festive merriment in the squares and thoroughfares of our toons and cities, this sense of stifling rigidity buckles. The result? You end up going ice skating.
In those carefree days of youthful exuberance, taking to the ice was a birling, twirling exercise in fresh-faced, enthusiastic abandon. As you clamber the brae on the age front, though, it becomes a perilous, pessimistic palaver of tottering, wobbling self-preservation as you try to avoid serious cranial trauma, a shattered pelvis and a few sheared fingers amid a chaotic, thudding, thunderous frenzy that resembles the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.
Mercifully, we emerged unscathed. Which is a lot more than we can say for glorious Turnberry, that enchanting golfing haven of legends and landmarks, of the Duel in the Sun, that lighthouse and the general, visual splendour of the Firth of Clyde with the sombre beauty of Ailsa Craig looming in the distance. Donald Trump’s latest, and well-documented, political posturings regarding muslims being temporarily banned from entering the USA must have had the good people who earn a crust down at the American tycoon’s Ayrshire resort sighing ‘here we go again’.
The high heid yins at the Royal & Ancient, meanwhile, have a tricky situation to deal with regarding the Open Championship but amid the hysteria, the mouth-frothing and the general fist-shaking demanding that Trump be banished to the outer rings of Saturn, the game’s governing body, outside the US and Mexico, continues to play a fairly calm, canny game. Trump may have promised himself everything when it comes to the Open, but the officials at the R&A promised him nothing. Unlike the PGA Tour, the PGA of America or the United States Golfing Association, there are no deals in place for future events.
The presumption by many is that golf’s oldest major will be returning to the storied Ailsa Course in 2020 but this was never a foregone conclusion even in less controversial times. The R&A are usually never that keen on having their biggest championship outside England for more than two years. With the exception of the cradle of the game in St Andrews, the attendances and the money tend to be much greater when the skirmish for the Claret Jug takes place south of the border. In 2018, the Open heads for Carnoustie, in 2019 it will be something of a step into the unknown when it goes back to Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland for the first time since 1951. 2020 remains up for grabs but there is a good chance it could return to Royal Lytham or even Royal St George’s with St Andrews expected to move from its traditional five-year cycle and host the 150th Open in 2021. Turnberry, the least attended of all the Opens, had to wait 15 years to get another Open between 1994 and 2009 and we can only wonder where or what Trump will be doing six or seven years down the line. Amid the current clamour, the R&A doesn’t really need to say anything about something that may or may not happen years in advance, although, given the perceived issue of gender discrimination in golf that has caused a frightful stooshie in recent years, they have been quick to use the inclusive phrase “open to all” as they, like the rest of the golfing world, inch away from Trump’s trumpetings. There are now 10 venues on the rota but the R&A certainly don’t need Trump’s money or the mayhem.
Not long after his equally controversial spoutings on Mexican immigrants earlier this year, Trump hijacked the first round of July’s Women’s British Open at Turnberry, hovered about in his helicopter and used it as a promotional tool for both himself and his Presidential campaign.
Poor Lizette Salas, the daughter of Mexican parents, was surrounded by news reporters, cameras and microphones after a level-par 72 and was forced to defend her heritage as she faced barking questions like ‘is he a racist?’ instead of ‘what club did you hit into the 14th?’ It was all spectacularly unedifying and lamentable on the first day of a women’s major championship.
The lamentable thing now is that tranquil, treasured Turnberry, one of the jewels in Scotland’s golfing crown, continues to be dragged into this messy mire.
AND ANOTHER THING
Providing they make the cut, the likes of Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and others will be out and about in round three of the Open at Royal Troon on Saturday July 16 2016. On that same day, the new, all singing, all dancing Scottish League Cup will kick-off as the domestic fitba’ scene begins its encroachment into the summer. World class golfers or Rangers versus, say, Airdrie? Knowing the exhausting coverage football commands in this country, the golfers may, sadly, face a fight for top billing.
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