I hope that Tiger does come back ... he was Gulliver in a land of Lilliputians
Legendary broadcaster Peter Alliss is backing golf’s fallen idol
ON Friday morning, after a visit to Royal Portrush, Peter Alliss chuckled wryly as he thought back to The Open championship of 1951, and the midsummer mingling which may have cost him a crack at the Claret Jug.
‘I was here with my brother (Alex). I just finished my National Service and I started off with a 69,’ he recalled.
‘Then he and I went to a little dance hall in Portrush, where we met a couple of lovely ladies.’
Before you could say ‘fore’, the voice of golf continued.
‘Doreen was her name, she was on holiday from Harpenden. We danced the night away and I took 84 or something the next day. It was worth it,’ he grinned.
Alliss has returned to these shores many times since, first as a player — he was a close third to Eric Brown in the Irish Open at Belvoir Park in 1953 — and then as the finest broadcaster of his era.
Along the way, he was never short of an opinion, and isn’t going to change at 86, although he accepts a need for some restraint. ‘I try to be an observer now and not a critic.’
Alliss (below) has no time for golfers who surround themselves with a team of advisors.
‘The greatest player in the world, in my opinion, is Jack Nicklaus. He didn’t go in for any of that. He had one teacher, Jack Grout. He used to go to him, hit 20 balls and they finished. (Lee) Trevino was the same.
‘They all do it now because they think “he’s got his own psychologist, his own psychiatrist, he’s got his own barber, I must get that”.
‘You don’t need to. Do you want to go into body-building and make tuppence ha’penny? Or do you want to play golf?
‘You’ve got two good feet, not too many varicose veins, good hand and eye co-ordination. Play golf, man,’ he bristled.
He laments the demise of Luke Donald, the former world No1.
‘In my opinion sadly, people got at him. Somebody said, “You’ve got to hit the ball further and do this, and do that”. And he took himself to pieces and he can’t play anymore. It’s ridiculous.
‘Sometimes, you have to wait for the courses to come around to you. If you play cricket, the wicket will either suit the spinners, the seamers or the fast bowlers.
‘If it’s the wrong wicket for you, you can’t do anything about it. You have to wait your turn.’ ‘If you hit it 280 or 290 yards, hit it straight every time and you don’t three putt, you’ll make yourself 10 million a year, no trouble at all.’ Alliss is also a fan of Rory McIlroy. ‘He plays a few stupid (shots) occasionally but I like watching him very much. He’s a good middleweight,’ he said. And he fervently wishes that Tiger Woods can revive his career. ‘If he does come back, I hope he wins something because it would be a travesty if the only memory of Tiger for those under 25 years of age is of him being down the pan. A wreck. ‘And that’s wrong, because he was the greatest of his time. He was Gulliver in the land of Lilliputians.
‘He played shots I’ve never seen the like of. He played some awful shots too but when he was in trouble, he holed putts from all sorts of distances. Not just once or twice but for 20 years.’
Alliss, whose son Simon is the European Tour director for the Irish Open, is a natural raconteur and in recent years has staged a series of one-man shows.
‘I’ve done 122 of them, including eight this year. I’ll see if I do many more’. While he may not be as fleet of foot as he was, his mind is sharp, the wit is ready and he intends to be on the premises for The Open’s return to Portrush in 2019.
‘It’s a magnificent clubhouse and setting. If they can get people in and out reasonably easy, I think it’ll be a huge success,’ he said. And if there are any Dorothys visiting from Harpenden, Alliss may yet put his best foot forward again.