I had a lovely round yesterday with Greg MacGregor from Rochdale who is a golf afficiando, great character and mean player.
Greg is having a few days by himself before some of his mates arrive and is staying at an airbnb pad which was chosen for its proximity to The Dunvegan- a man after my own heart. Not to say that the Dunvegan is a million miles from the most famous golf course in the world. But this man’s obviously got his priorities right.
We got on swimmingly and were soon recounting anecdotes about the world of golf, while Greg played handsomely and we sped through the first nine holes in an hour twenty. Ok we were playing a single but this is the sort of round a caddie dreams of. We are of the conclusion that the chap Beef is going to be the next big thing in the world of golf and the game needs guys like that again. The sort of guy who when asked which way he hits the ball honestly answers ‘depends on which way it goes that week’, and is by the looks of it not a man pounding things out in the gym.
I asked Greg if he’d ever been to Augusta and a very grave expression came over his face. He said that he and a friend in the golf world had been invited down for a look around and a game. However, his first wife did not get the significance of this and put her foot down. I said that that was serious and divorce material and he thought so too.
Anyway, Greg was telling me of how he was sitting outside the Dunvegan one day and recognised this famous baseball player and another chap who were talking to Jack and Sheena, the proprietors. The other chap turns out to be Neil Armstrong. Anyway the story is that they had just been down to the Old Course starter’s hut to try and get on. The gruff starter had seemingly rebuked them. They alerted the gruff starter that this was no ordinary person that wanted to get on and indeed was ‘Neil Armstrong, the man who walked on the moon’. The classic reply was curt and to the point, that yes he may have walked on the moon but he is not going to walk on to The Old Course.
Fabulous local dourness. Made in Scotland, from girders.