Vaughan takes the rough with the smooth

Robert Philip, The Telegraph, 30 September 2005

Show me a man who plays a good game of golf and I'll show you a man who is neglecting something - John F Kennedy.

Whatever Michael Vaughan - who plays a very good game of golf - has been neglecting, it is clearly not his cricket; when last seen, the England captain was quaffing and spraying champagne in equal measure aboard an open-top bus surrounded by his fellow Ashes heroes.

An estimated crowd of 250,000 paid homage to the most popular England captain since Francis Drake in the streets of London that day, two men and a dog (well, one man, his wife and their King Charles spaniel to be strictly accurate) were at the side of the 10th tee when Vaughan struck his opening drive in the Dunhill Links.

It does not matter whether you are Dan Quayle, Boris Becker, Michael Douglas or Michael Vaughan, remove them from the pressures of the Oval Office, Centre Court, Hollywood or Lord's, stick a golf club in their mitts, and, hey presto, they are revealed as mere mortals, like the rest of us hackers.

Partnered by Welsh professional Stuart Manley (could the organisers not have found him an Aussie companion over whom he could gloat on the way round?), Vaughan began as he had left off with a willow in his hand by grabbing a net birdie three on the opening hole but, as the gallery grew, so his confidence gradually dwindled.

Vaughan's drive on the 11th hole careered into rough and left him facing the kind of tangled lie Tiger Woods would have viewed with trepidation. Lashing blindly at the ball as if it were a Glenn McGrath bouncer, Vaughan's hooked approach flew over the putting surface, accelerated down the steep bank, hopped, skipped and jumped across a road and came to rest on the apron of the adjoining eighth green, 30 feet from the pin. Vaughan fluffed his chip into the face of the aforementioned bank, chipped on to 20ft in four, sent his first putt past the hole and, being of no further assistance to Manley, pocketed his ball.

Vaughan's madcap adventures continued on the 12th, where he crossed paths with Test colleague Andrew Strauss playing the neighbouring 14th. I use the word 'playing' loosely; Strauss's tee shot landed nearer the beach than the fairway.

The boy Michael had problems of his own. What can best be described as an 'ugly runner' of a drive which found waist-high rough. He advanced the ball a mere 50 yards and found himself standing halfway up a grassy hillock from where he belatedly returned to the fairway, for the first time in 45 minutes. Not for long. Vaughan hooked his fourth shot wildly towards the beach and, though he played a respectable recovery, with Manley on in two, the ball again disappeared into a pocket.

Vaughan's England team-mate, Paul Collingwood, playing in the same foursome as partner to Sweden's Peter Gustafsson, fared even worse, losing his ball among the St Andrews Bay rocks.

Ah, but these athletes are proud beasts. Collingwood all but holed his tee shot on the par-three 13th and, suitably inspired, Vaughan produced his best shot of the outward half with a lofted iron to within 15ft of the pin. Alas, neither cricketer could nail the birdie that their tee shot so richly deserved.

On to the 14th tee, where Vaughan's fame had obviously not yet reached. "Who's this geezer?" demanded a local Fife worthy. "Someone called Vaughan," yawned his cronie. "What? Frankie?" "Nah, he's deid." "Norman?" "Who?" "Norman Vaughan. You know, Sunday Night at the London Palladium." "Cricket," I whispered in an attempt to get this conversation back on the tracks. "Whit?" "Cricket," I hissed a tad louder than intended. "Oh, he's one o' them crickets," explained Pal One to Pal Two. "Used to sing wi' Buddy Holly ..."

A hook can be a thing of beauty against Shane Warne; on a sunny but windswept Kingsbarns course, it is a weapon of self-destruction. Into the rough Vaughan's drive flew, then into a bunker, followed by an approach, swiftly followed by ball disappearing into pocket for the umpteenth time.

I once spent 10 minutes at Kingsbarns' par-three 15th watching Sir Steve Redgrave - another who plays a good game of golf - strike successive tee shots into the sea. Vaughan engaged in no such shenanigans, finding the middle of the green with an exquisite iron for a rare par.

Normal service was resumed on the 17th, where Vaughan was 40ft short of the pin in three and, after a heavy-handed putt, 40ft beyond the hole in four.

Through it all, however, Vaughan nodded his acknowledgement of the many well-wishers, chatted amiably to his caddie and smiled his way from one crisis to another.

Suddenly, the sporting gods beamed down upon him; a net birdie at the first (his 10th) was followed by others on the third, fourth, seventh and eighth as he took his two-man team to five under par. A long way behind the leaders, but a remarkable turnaround.

And so to Dan Quayle, who had a net 68 at Carnoustie. Now, if you think that I have mentioned the former Vice-President simply as an excuse to drag out some of his infamous thoughts and sayings, then you are dead right.

Like his handwritten note to Sam Snead after a round of golf together: "Sam, had a great weekend even if the golf was lousey."

And ... "Our party has been accused of fooling the public by calling tax increases 'revenue enhancement'. Not so. No one was fooled ..."

Never forgetting ... "The global importance of the Middle East is that it keeps the Near East and the Far East from encroaching on each other."

He may get tongue-tied on occasion but our Dan certainly knows his way around a golf course. "Anyone who knows Dan Quayle," explained his wife Marilyn, "knows that given a choice between golf and sex, he'll choose golf every time."

Aye, as JFK said: "Show me a man who plays a good game of golf and I'll show you a man who is neglecting something."