Oosthuizen stays dead calm as Open season turns into a hoot

TV VIEW:There were times on Friday afternoon when watching the British Open was a similar enough televisual experience to viewing Deadliest Catch, the rollercoasting images leaving you ever so slightly green about the gills. They appeared to be beamed to us by cameras planted at the epicentre of a 'quake, and might even have left a Bering Sea deckhand feeling a bit queasy.

Before the hooter sounded to suspend play, Maureen Madill had wondered what all the fuss was about, telling Sam Torrance that the wind “is what you and I, being Celts, would call frisky – but I think the Americans would call it a gale”.

The BBC commentary team, though, somewhat revised their opinion of the conditions when they spotted American Steve Marino almost being air-lifted off the course, Andrew Cotter conceding that “when Marino starts oscillating on the greens, never mind his ball, perhaps it is time to think about a pause”.

“Yeah,” said Wayne Grady, battening down the hatches, “and he’s a big lump of a bloke”.

If the big lump was oscillating then there was no hope for “wee Tim Clark”, Andrew worrying that the South African would be “blown away like tumbleweed” if the wind got any stronger.

“Aye,” said Maureen, “even the seagulls are beginning to walk out of here”.

Despite the gale force evidence, all of this led to a rather heated email debate among the BBC’s viewers, Hazel Irvine telling us that one frisky windswept Celt had called on the players to “man up” and get on with it, but another was supportive of the decision to suspend play because “it’s hard enough playing golf when the ball is still, never mind when it’s moving”. Altogether: Amen.

Martin Kaymer was a bit puzzled as to why the hooter hadn’t sounded a bit earlier, when he was directing his drives towards Norway only to see his ball pitch in Newfoundland. Good sense finally prevailed, he reckoned, even if it was a little late for him. “I can see why they called it off, we are flying away here almost,” he said, as the bush beside him turned in to a high-speed metronome and threatened to whip him to death.

Ah, if only they held the darn tournament in summer. Oh, wait.

The break left the BBC team with a bit of time to fill, but few fill free time better than Andrew Cotter, a fella who sounds like he was born in a commentary box – which you can’t imagine was much fun for his Ma.

A mellow chap, is Andrew, unless the topic is discarded banana skins. “They say they’re biodegradable, but it takes about a year for them to disappear,” he complained when he spotted Camilo Villegas chucking the remains of his nana to the wind. “Ah, it’s all natural,” said Wayne, trying to calm him. “Not in Fife, it’s not,” he said, (as opposed to Fyffes), promising to withdraw his grumble if “we come back in 30 years’ time and there’s a nice banana tree growing there”.

That’s probably as likely as hearing a vuvuzela at a golf tournament – although we thought we heard one, only to be told it was the work of the St Andrews bagpiper. We were left pining for our old South African friends.

But it wasn’t all stormy gloom and doom, Lodewicus Theodorus Oosthuizen (“I’d imagine it’ll just be Louis on the Claret Jug,” said a tongue-tied Peter Alliss), the dazzlingly marvellous Rory McIlroy and John Daly’s collection of pants bringing some sunshine to the proceedings. We wondered at times if Daly was wearing them for a bet, but in light of his past gambling difficulties you’d have to hope not.

Oosthuizen, then, was the man of the weekend, not least for the classy opening words of his ‘acceptance speech’ – a very lovely birthday greeting to Nelson Mandela.

Waterford folk, though, might beg to differ, their nominee for the award very probably the scorer of their extra-time goal against Cork in the Munster final. “If there’s ever a film made about him it should be The Legend of Dan the Man,” as Ger Loughnane said of the Shanahan fella.

Cyril Farrell couldn’t disagree, especially when Dan the Man had managed to find the back of the net under floodlights. “And it’s not easy hurling under lights,” Cyril had said, “there’s a kind of an unreal effect, it’s like Cinderella under the Christmas tree.” The panel fell silent. Ger tried to work out the conundrum all on his own, but failed.

“What happened Cinderella under the Christmas tree,” he asked, waving a white flag. “She was dancing,” explained Cyril.

Honest, if a Bering Sea deckhand found a glass slipper in his nets he wouldn’t have looked any more puzzled than Ger.