Greetings from the 154th Open here in sunny Southport. I was reading a snippet in the local paper that said this fine auld coastal town had slipped down the order of merit of UK seaside resorts because it was “tired and lacking in value for money.”
Funnily enough, a couple of readers sent letters in to me recently saying exactly the same thing about the Tuesday golf column.
Anyway, I won’t hear a bad word said against this place. A flooery, reflective observer of yore once wrote that Lord Street, Southport’s main Victorian boulevard, possessed an alluring “flash of Menton with a soupçon of pre-war Vienna.”
I don’t know what it possessed when some of the golf writers got turfed out of the Sir Henry Segrave Wetherspoons as they tried to sneak one in after last orders, but soupçon wasn’t the word for it.
The bold Sir Henry, of course, set the world land speed record here 100 years ago over the sands of Ainsdale Beach.
Those aforementioned golf scribblers will probably hurtle along just as quickly when they hear that the breakfast buffet has officially opened in the media centre.
It’s pretty toasty in this neck of the woods as the sun gets his hat on and comes out to play.
Fifty years ago at Royal Birkdale, the weather was so hot in that sizzler of 1976, even the Claret Jug had to wear a knotted handkerchief on its top.
In 1983, meanwhile, Linda Watson, the wife of the eventual champion Tom, had to go out shopping to buy just about every electric fan in Southport as her hubby and other global stars sweated buckets in the roasting Prince of Wales hotel.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Already this week, one or two American golfers have taken to social media asking, “why do you Brits not have air conditioning?” Presumably, they’re staying in the Prince of Wales?
The temperatures have been rising. The Open attendance is on the rise too. They are expecting a record-busting 300,000 spectators through the gates this week. It could be a lively old affair.
Golf fan behaviour has been a major talking point, particularly after last year’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Park which was as raucous and as foul-mouthed as a bunch of squaddies on a pub crawl.
Last month’s US Open at Shinnecock Hills was also marred by hoots, howls and heckles from gurgling, slack-jawed halfwits.
Ahead of the final men’s major of the year, the R&A unveiled a new code of conduct for those on the other side of the ropes.
Something called ‘The Open Commitment’ has been published and it "encourages everyone attending to play their part in protecting traditions".
On-course signs, meanwhile, will urge fans to respect the players, respect the links, respect each other, be aware and enjoy responsibly.
I’m sure the majority will but in some ways it’s a depressing sign of the times that grown adults – and I use that term loosely - must be reminded to show a bit of decorum at a golf championship.
Of course, when many hark-at-me “event goers” treat sporting occasions as nothing more than an excuse for a booze-fuelled stag do, what chance have you got?
It wasn’t like this back in the good old days. Then again? In 1870, when the dash and vigour of Young Tom Morris stirred the public’s imagination and he became the game's first superstar, The Open attracted a vociferous gathering of spectators to the links of Prestwick.
According to the newspaper reports of the time, many of the onlookers were "clearly completely new to the sport" and "decidedly unruly in most part." Sound familiar?
At Birkdale in 1983, an American writer described it as one of the drunkest Opens in history.
There was the added stooshie of vandalism to one of the greens too when the words, ‘Dennis Kelly is innocent’ were gouged into the turf on the eve of the third round.
The day before The Open started that year, Parliament voted not to restore capital punishment in the UK.
As one golf scribe wryly observed at the time when the damage to the sixth green was discovered, “the MPs no doubt would have been more inclined to bring back hanging if they'd been confronted with the disruption of a major golf championship.” This year’s code of conduct won’t go quite that far.
Opens in the north-west of England tend to be quite boisterous.
Imagine if the nation’s fitba team get to the World Cup final? And Tommy Fleetwood or Justin Rose have a chance to lift the Claret Jug on the same Sunday that the soccer showpiece is being staged?
Radio Five Live, for a start, will self-combust. Twenty years ago, when The Open returned to Royal Liverpool for the first time in yonks, the use of mobile phones and the cameras on them became so overwhelming, the R&A brought in an actual phone ban.
It lasted until 2012. Nowadays, of course, these phones are part of the wider Open experience as punters immerse themselves in this, that and the other with championship Apps, info, downloads, videos and whatever else you can cram onto a clump of scroll and swipe gadgetry.
Our obsession with the light of a screen means we must all be descended from bloomin’ moths.
The 154th Open is going to be big. It’s going to be boiling as well. Let’s hope everybody behaves too. Now, where’s that code of conduct?
