Looking Ahead to the Home of Golf

In just a few short weeks The Open will once again be fought out over the hallowed turf of the Old Course; St Andrews not Fanling! That brings to mind another highlight in my distinguished broadcasting career. Years ago in the Dunhill Links Championship there was to be a play-off. After five hours of roaming the chilly links I badly needed to relieve the tension. Knowing that the play-off would be up and down the 18th, I reckoned there would be a few minutes before I was required to comment, so I sprinted across the first fairway and into the nearest portaloo, without telling our producer that I was temporarily indisposed. Relief was just about complete when the producer cued me for the first tee shot. Don't panic, I told myself, you know this course like the (still visible) back of your hand. "This is a tough tee shot," I opined from the echoing bathroom, "with the wind howling off the left and out of bounds tight to the right hand side of the fairway". Being the astute fellow that I am I immediately recognised a confused tone coming from the commentary box. It was only when I stuck my head outside I realised that they had in fact gone straight to the first tee (hence the speed of play), where the wind was rolling in off the sea, from their right. At which point, equipment failure and total silence is always the best option.

My first experience of a St Andrews Open was in 1990. I was the interviewer for BBC Radio, which had its own little cabin at the back of the media centre. It worked well because it meant that the new champion could be ushered out after his press conference directly to us, without having to run the gauntlet of eager hacks, all desperate for their own moment with the winner. That year, the press officer brought the champion into my secluded booth and then, most untypically, left. It meant I was alone with Nick Faldo, Fanny Sunesson and a Claret Jug. It's normally the champion who struggles to speak on such occasions, but I had to work very hard to keep a tear from my eye and blather out an intelligent question or two.

There's much dinner-table speculation as to whether this will be Peter Alliss's last Open. He first joined the BBC team, whilst still a player, at the 1961 Open, at Royal Birkdale. It was the year "The King" won and pumped much needed oxygen into the fading old championship. Along with Jack Nicklaus and a few other luminaries, Palmer closed his illustrious Open career on the famous old Swilcan Bridge, snappers in happy obeisance recording the tear-jerking moments for prosperity. This time around, it's Tom Watson and Faldo's turn to milk the emotion as they lay down their arms on the turf where once archery practice took precedence over golf, under a former King's writ. As ever, Peter will be the man to describe their final walk over the bridge, up the 18th and into golfing mythology. Theoretically he has one more year with the BBC, before Sky TV take over live coverage. Peter has hinted that he might join Watson and Faldo in the non-playing category, but has yet to make up his mind. He has been one of the BBC's great 'voices', a true legend of broadcasting who has an extraordinary gift for potent and witty ad-libbing. Will he plan a dramatic exit or will he follow the great John Arlott's chosen route? In 1980, after 34 years of peerless description on Test Match Special, in my mind the greatest cricket commentator of all time signed off thus; (to be read with a deep, lilting Hampshire burr) "The end of the over, it's 69 for 2 and after Trevor Bailey it'll be Christopher Martin-Jenkins". It was the Centenary Test at Lord's and following a public address announcement he was given a standing ovation by everyone present.

Headquarters is never a bad place to retire. If I know anything about it, and if Peter does decide to go, Ken Brown should be the PA announcer!