Alliss potters toward Birkdale swansong

THE Open Championship at Royal Birkdale in July looks like being golf commentator Peter Alliss’s last appearance on BBC TV before retirement at the age of 86.

Alliss has given the clearest indication yet in an interview with US magazine Newsweek that he will finally call it a day this year as advanced years and health issues make it increasingly difficult for him to work at tournaments. He had an operation in February to realign pins that had been put in his ankle following a fall 12 years ago.

And Alliss, who needs wheelchair assistance and plenty of planning around his golf commitments — including Augusta for the BBC’s coverage this week — also admitted that his mind is not as sharp as it was.

Asked when he would retire, Alliss said: ‘When I get to the point where I see something and I can’t respond, I’m interviewed and I have no words to say and this is all getting fuddled,’ he said, tapping the side of his head. ‘I’ll go before I’m pushed.’

But the voice of golf, who has worked for the BBC for 56 years, will retire on his own terms. The Beeb, with whom Alliss is on a rolling one-year contract, have blindly kept faith in him in his old age, despite his many controversial comments leading to accusations of sexism and racism.

He was still causing offence in his Newsweek interview, saying: ‘I don’t care for macho women, I don’t care for them very much. And yet they’re prevalent today and very prevalent in some cases.’

His blunders on air have also become regular occurrences since he failed to realise Phil Mickelson had won the Masters in 2004.

The BBC’s paltry 2017 golf portfolio ends with the British women’s Open in August. But it would be more fitting and sensible — especially after the macho women jibe — for Alliss to bow out on the grand stage of the Open Championship a fortnight earlier.