Birkdale members are cutting up rough
THERE is considerable upset among members of Royal Birkdale just four weeks before the Lancashire golf club hosts the Open Championship.
The club have decreed that during the week of the tournament, members can invite only one guest into the clubhouse, which offers a panoramic view of the 18th green from the bar. Birkdale regulars believe one of the perks of their membership is to invite friends to the golf when The Open comes to Southport.
A Birkdale insider said the decision had been made to keep the numbers in the clubhouse manageable.
Royal Birkdale has always been choosy about who they allow into their exclusive club, with football greats Kenny Dalglish and Allan Hansen famously denied membership because of their profession. Instead they joined nearby Hillside Golf Club, who won’t say why another Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard never became a member, having been proposed and seconded by Dalglish and Hansen. The Hillside secretary confirmed that Gerrard’s application had been withdrawn but didn’t say by whom. THE Football League’s shambolic Carabao Cup draw in Bangkok is being blamed on their production agency’s reliance on hired locals to display the graphics of the first-round ties, which was the biggest mess. It was staged in Thailand at the request of the Thai energy drink title sponsors, who could prove high-maintenance backers of the competition. But FL chief executive Shaun Harvey has only himself to reprimand for being such a poor presenter. THERE are 800,000 good reasons why Cristiano Ronaldo (right) is not coming to the Premier League any time soon. That is the amount of money in sterling an English club would have to pay him before tax every week to match his wages at Real Madrid. Much the same reason applies to Gareth Bale, who is paid the equivalent of £780,000-a-week before tax at the Bernabeu. IF the first MCC consultation evening over the Lord’s redevelopment plans reflects the views of the 18,000-membership, there will be a landslide vote in September rejecting the £150m offer from property developers Rifkind Associates for two 10-storey residential towers at the Nursery End. The vast majority of 200odd present last night gave the impression they don’t want the 97 flats at any price.