Sir Michael Bonallack

My first Open as R and A secretary was at St Andrews in 1984, which obviously remains special to me. Being at the Home of Golf and with absolutely magnificent weather, a heatwave, added to its appeal. Everything seemed to go like clockwork.

Then we had that wonderful finish with Seve (Ballesteros) holing the putt on the 18th green and punching the air like a matador. And after- wards, there was the party that went on in the whole of St Andrews that evening, making it probably a bit like Paris must have been like after the World Cup, except on a smaller scale.

Though I had taken over from Keith McKenzie the previous September, that became a wonderful introduction to my secretaryship of the R and A as far as the Open was concerned. I remember Seve coming up to my office and I still have photographs of him drinking champagne with me.

Obviously Seve was a very exciting golfer to watch and, of course, he beat Tom Watson who was a very great favourite.

I was apprehensive going into that event, as I would be prior to any championship, wondering how it was going to work out. But we had a very skilled team and I had something of a dry run the previous year, at Royal Birkdale.

On joining the R and A, I went straight to Birkdale at the end of June, when the final preparations for the Open were in full swing; stayed until the championship was over and then went back to St. Andrews.

That was when I was understudy to Keith and I remember he had a new plan for the prize presentation. It involved having a mobile stage made, which could be dismantled in sections. Rising to about two or three feet off the ground, there were steps onto it.

It was an enormous thing, very heavy, and the idea was that it would be erected quickly on the fairway, 50 yards short of the 18th green, after the last putt had dropped. Given its prime position out there on the course, everybody in the stand would be able to see the presentation.

So, four little dots were placed on the fairway to mark exactly where it had got to go. And they had a rehearsal with people rushing out from the side of the stage and putting it up there. Which, of course, was fine when there was nobody else around.

When the big moment arrived, Keith took me out to the back of the 18th green to watch his plan go smoothly into action. But he hadn't bargained for one of the most traditional happenings on the final day of the Open. Horrified, he saw the crowd do their usual breakthrough before coming straight down the middle of the fairway, where the stage was meant to be.

He then grabbed me by the shoulder and said "They can't do that. Go and stop them." With that, he turned round and went straight back into his office.

Well, there was clearly nothing that I or any of the marshals could do in the face of a formidable charge of 3,000 people, coming down the middle of the fairway. And the people who were waiting by the sides of the 18th, ready with the sections of Keith's stage, were fully aware of this.

Still, out of a sense of duty I suppose, they eventually struggled out there and assembled it as best they could where it was originally planned to go. With that, a section of the crowd went and stood on it to get a better view.

While all this was going on, the presentation was set up at the back of the green, in front of the clubhouse window.

The next day, when we had our usual wind-down press conference, somebody asked Keith what the odd-looking platform erected on the 18th fairway was for. Without batting an eyelid, he said he was concerned that the spectators coming down the final hole didn't really get a proper view of the presentation ceremony.

So, the idea was that with this easily-assembled platform, the problem would be overcome. I remember thinking that he got out of it very well. Two months later he had retired and nobody was any the wiser about his special plans for the Royal Birkdale victory ceremony.

Which, come to think of it, was as it should have been.