DREAM ON...

From our golf correspondent

On Thursday, the Open Golf Championship gets under weigh at the famous links course at Turnberry in Scotland. The world`s finest golfers will be assembled to compete for the most prestigious trophy in the game - the Claret Jug. It may not be the richest prize in terms of hard cash, but in status and prestige, it is unequalled in the history of the Royal and Ancient game.

No-one knows who will be in contention let alone win the tournament, but one player who will most definitely not be there is our old friend Snopper, who has had a mixed season so far and continues to play consistently at a level which makes it impossible for him to enter any kind of competitive tournament, especially those where rules have to be obeyed, conventions respected and where there is no room for `improvisation` or creative accounting.

Now, none of those impediments will prevent Snopper from taking a keen interest in events in that Caledonian seaside golfing paradise. He will be glued to the television and the car radio as he drives down to Devon on Saturday for yet another break from his hurly-burly life. But he watches and listens not for the excellence of the play on offer, from which he could learn so much. No, our hero, who reaches his three score years and ten as The Open reaches its climax, watches and listens for the hooks, the shanks, the missed putts and the drives that go out of bounds or, better still, find the water that adjoins much of the course.

You see, Snopper thrives on inadequacy, on embarrassment even, for such spectacles at such a prestigious event merely serve to make him feel better about his own quite dreadful game. And so, far from dreaming of ever playing in such an event, he comes to terms once more with the undeniable truth about his own golfing `talent.` But I suspect he might just `enjoy` his game a little more than those professionals who may see it as just a job - another day at the office - and who may sometimes wish that their own approach could be as free and, indeed, as carefree as that far off elderly inadequate living in his own private make believe golfing world.