The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Winning has to come before entertaining.
Sir Alex Ferguson kicked off an interesting debate about the duty football teams have to entertain. I can see where he is coming from, but I wonder if he would be saying the same thing if he was still managing. I bet he would be telling his players that the first priority is to win.
For me, that will always be the case. If you can do both, all the better.
From our own point of view, the fact that our natural game in curling is an attacking ones means we’re never likely to be accused of short-changing spectators.
We’re maybe too attacking for our coach’s liking sometimes!
But if we need to grind out a win and play the percentages, that’s what we’ll do.
Winning always has to be number one.
I do think that athletes have a duty to give something back when they can, though.
I’d like to think that part of the reason for our popularity when we travel to places like Canada is that we’re not just four girls who play the game and don’t engage before and after a match. We’ll speak with fans, sign autographs and that sort of thing.
It is important that you take the fact that you’re a role model seriously.
Football will have plenty of those types as well, I’m sure.
I played golf with one earlier this week – Steven Naismith.
He was great company on the course and I know that he has been a big part of the community at every club he’s gone to and has done a lot of charity work.
The duty to represent your sport in the best way you can is something I’m sure Sir Alex would agree with. Impressive links The round of golf with Steven that I was talking about was at Dundonald Links for the AAM Scottish Open media day.
I’d never had a round there before and it was certainly an impressive course.
If I had to pick another links course that it reminded me of a bit, I would probably say Turnberry.
But all the great coastline venues in Scotland are unique.
It was cold, wet and windy on the day we played and – it might not be what the Scottish tourist board hope for – but I think it will need to be similar conditions for the tournament to stop the pros posting really low scores.
The organisers seem to have a good plan in place to get spectators to the course so, fingers-crossed, they get good attendance figures.
With The Open being in England this year, it’s important that the Scottish is a big success.
How many times do you see top-level athletes struggle with the slide into retirement?
What’s left to say about Tiger Woods? It’s just such a sad story. You have to worry about the people he’s got around him to let him get into this sort of a mess.
It just reinforces the picture of a guy who is fighting himself and the world.
How many times do you see top-level athletes struggle with the slide into retirement?
You certainly have to worry about what’s going to happen next.