I have been fortunate enough to have attended the last two Open’s, although last year’s Open was held in an absolute dump of a town called Blackpool, which is apparently largely a seaside getaway for people living in Manchester, or used to be in any event, and which is clearly having tough economic times and probably has had for the last 30 years because there does not appear to have been any development since then.

This year’s tournament is taking place at Muirfield in Scotland and the defending champion, who obviously feels very differently about Blackpool than I do, is Ernie Els! It is one of the easiest golf tournaments for most people to follow in South Africa, because the similar time zone, as well as the fact that the sun only sets at about 10 pm in England and Scotland at this time of the year, allows for one to watch it most late afternoons and early evenings over the next three days unlike the PGA Tour where you have to stay up until all hours every weekend. The Open is typically famous for courses involving links golf alongside the sea, although it rotates between a number of venues, so that is not true of all of the courses, but certainly invariably it is pretty cold and probably windy too.

I love the atmosphere of a golf tournament and being there in person, but with the weather of the Open I could enjoy watching it on TV this year as well! Somehow I feel more comfortable at home in front of the TV when I watch people huddled up under two or three jackets, barricaded behind umbrellas when the rain starts pouring down, but on the other hand you will never at home get the sense of the sheer shock of somebody throwing away a tournament, namely Adam Scott last year, and then a South African winning the tournament while you are there, 10 000 kilometres away from home.