AN OPEN AND SHUT CASE AS NICKLAUS TAKES DOWN TIGER
SKY GET CREATIVE WITH CLARET JUG VOID
IN this year of sporting postponements, on what should have been the greatest golfing weekend in the calendar, nothing was going to completely fill that Claret Jug-shaped hole in our summer schedule.
But a clever bit of novelty telly on ‘Open Sunday’, a melding of modern technology with sweetly satisfying nostalgia, almost did the trick. Almost.
For fans of Jack Nicklaus, the sight of a young Golden Bear just edging out a fully-fit and fearsome Tiger Woods — in his powerful links-taming prime — over 18 holes on the Old Course provides extra ammunition for the next clubhouse argument about the Greatest of All Time.
But yesterday’s Open for the Ages broadcast, an exercise in strip-mining the archives and splicing together a grand experiment in cross-era competition, wasn’t really about winners and losers.
A reminder of what we were missing? True. Yet also a celebration of the great game.
And, intentional or otherwise, a hilarious retrospective on golfing fashion, taking in everything from young Rory McIlroy’s unwieldy hair to Peter Thomson’s bonnie bunnet.
With special mention for not only Seve Ballesteros’ cooler-than-cool white Slazenger shirt, but John Daly’s voluminous green Reebok pullover/windbreaker creation.
‘The following programme is a work of fiction,’ read the disclaimer preceding the opening titles on Sky. A sort of health warning for the easily befuddled, if you like.
What followed was a joyous riot of clashing colours and competing brilliance, with Tiger and Jack making up the final pairing — naturally — in a field liberally sprinkled with Open winners.
Seve versus Nick Faldo was a throwback two-ball, while Daly playing alongside Jordan Spieth was clearly just too good a ‘what if’ scenario to ignore.
In a field that also included Tom Watson, Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Lee Trevino, Ernie Els and more, class and quality weren’t exactly in short supply.
Younger viewers would have been confused, obviously, by the sight of old-timers wielding persimmon drivers with — by today’s standards — horribly shrunken heads. No, son, that’s not a mashie niblick. Very funny. Now, if you want some real laughs, take Granda’s old Ben Crenshaw Cleveland woods out of the shed and try hitting this Dunlop 65 more than a hundred yards without slicing it. For those actually old enough to remember three-woods without a sweet spot the size of a dinner plate, yesterday’s three-hour extravaganza was like a guided tour down memory lane. St Andrews was as eternally perfect as ever, the only workable backdrop for a project using footage from half a century of past Championships.
Realism? Well, yes, there was some of that. Young Spieth fourputting the eighth green, just to remind us that golf is a cruel game.
Even Tiger duffed one. Some assistant producer must have spent hours looking for that.
But the majority of shots recaptured for posterity represented nothing less than a true highlights reel.
Seve sweeping his fairway wood off the deck remains one of the most elegant movements committed to celluloid.
Watson’s swing may not have changed much over the decades. But, man, when he was hitting it at full speed… it was a thing of almost unparalleled beauty.
And the shot he played from up against the wall on 17 was typical of a genius with five-and-a-half Open Championship wins (we’re still giving him a share of the 2009 tournament at Troon) to his name.
Woods at the absolute peak of his powers, meanwhile, seemed intent on committing an act of violence against the golf ball with every athletic turn and release.
Daly’s rip-it-and-grip-it approach contrasted beautifully with the big man’s delicate touch. Faldo’s radar was dialled into about a yard of the target. At the business end of the tournament, the titanic tussle between Nicklaus and Woods was predictably tight.
Tiger went a shot clear on 14 with a tap-in birdie. Only to find that Jack was just warming up.
A birdie on 16 for Nicklaus and a dropped shot by Woods on 17, still the toughest par-four on the Open rota, gave the record-setter a one-shot lead heading up the last hole.
Even though his bump-and-run approach was more of a bump-and-run-and-run-and-run, he got up and down for par from the back. And was duly crowned … well, what, exactly?
Commentator Butch Harmon was clearly just a bit at it when he described yesterday’s thought experiment as ‘even better’ than The Open itself. And nobody’s about to top up Jack’s tally of majors to 19 on the strength of this.
Still, without wishing to sound like one of those anodyne American pros who comes in grinning after just breaking 80 in a monsoon at Carnoustie, it was a whole lotta fun.
Nobody could fail to enjoy seeing Arnie cross the Swilcan Bridge one more time.
And there was sport to be had in people-watching, a particularly entertaining spot being one lad — almost certainly from the 1978 footage — dressed like young Chachi from Happy Days. Ah well, for all we know, he could be club captain at Muirfield by now.
Forgive the diversion but, really, what made the entire Open for the Ages production work was this human element.
The massive galleries standing silently while the putter head is drawn back, roaring their approval of a great shot, joyously stampeding up the 18th behind the final group … that’s what The Open is really about.
That’s what we’re missing. That feeling of being part of something bigger, of watching the most important event in the world.
Well done to the team who put yesterday’s production together, then. But you’ll understand if we hope that it’s the last time your imaginative and inventive skills are required.