...and he's got this downhill tester to win the Open

Well what a sound weekend of sport it has been, as I type, the last Aussie wicket falls and England win a test at Lords for the first time since 1936. A Michelle for Freddie which gets his name on the honours board again, and England go 1-0 up with three to play . The missus and I went on Saturday and had to put up with the bar room stewards who all said, why did we not enforce the follow-on, look at the slow run rate, etc etc, but we experts knew the game plan and it has worked a treat.

Second event on the menu was the wonderful Open Golf Championship at Turnberry, won from behind by Stuart Cink, who was never alone in the lead, but got to the front when it mattered to beat 'Old' Tom Watson in the four hole play-off. How the world would have loved to see Tom win, as he had previously done as 'young' Tom Watson, in 1977, but it was not to be and he was gutted as you would expect.

So too was Lee Westwood who was two ahead at one stage but bogeyed three of the last four holes to blow his chances.

The Turnberry track was wonderfully turned out, and it drew me back to a may day in 1989 when I played it with a couple of friends, Figs and Greg, as part of our Scotflog tour that year. Golf remains one of the few games which joe public can compete on the same playing field as the heroes of the sport. I guess swimming and cycling share that ability and there may be others. So I thought, given Tiger had a horror day on Friday, I wonder how I would have done against him hole for hole. Well given I am an anorak in a few areas, and golf being one such, I was able to fish out my card from 20 years ago and compare..... And here we have it, I parred three holes which Tiger did also, and I bettered him on 10 and 13, deep joy!! Interesting we both struggled around the turn eh!! My comments in the diary indicate Iactually played better than the score suggests.......