Marriage of inconvenience for hackers and hacks

Andrew Baker, The Telegraph, 6 October 2006

I'm going to do my best to make this an absolute cracker of an article, but there is a slight restriction on my style which I'd like to mention first.

One of the rules at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, in which amateur golfers are paired with professionals throughout the four rounds of competition, is that professional writers should at all times be accompanied by amateur scribes.

It may seem unreasonable to readers that, since I'm being paid to write this article, my efforts should in any way be compromised. But the same applies to the golfers, who are competing for $5 million (about £2.65 million) in prize money and crucial places on the European Tour Order of Merit and the organisers don't seem to mind cramping their style by lumping them together with film stars, former sportsmen or (for the most part) run-of-the-mill multimillionaires.

In which connection I would like to introduce Gaynor Spindrift, who will be my writing partner at Kingsbarns today. Gaynor, as I'm sure most readers will know, is the popular, blonde, on-screen anti-cyclone analyst with the Discovery Weather Channel and has been a keen amateur writer for the past 18 months.

It is early days in the journalism game but Gaynor makes up in enthusiasm for what she lacks in basic literacy and has promised not to interrupt my coverage of the golf.

One of the problems with this tournament…I'm sorry, Gaynor tells me she once met Martin Amis at a book signing and his teeth were immaculate. As I was saying, one of the problems with the Dunhill Links format is that it is impossible to quantify the extent to which the professionals are handicapped by the antics of their partners.

If you pair Lee Westwood, say, with the charming wife of a private equity mogul, does that represent more of a burden than the real estate tycoon playing with, say, Padraig Harrington? Successful racehorses just have to hump lumps of lead. A successful golfer may be saddled with a garrulous film industry executive.

I'm sorry…Gaynor wants to say that the comparison is inaccurate, since some golfers are handicapped by weight already. Think of John Daly, she says, with a shudder. Thank you, Gaynor. Back to your notebook.

Where was I, oh yes, on the 18th at Kingsbarns, one of three courses used in the early stages of this championship. It's a lovely hole, with the elevated green guarded by a steep bank and a babbling burn.

Here is how a typical quartet played the 18th yesterday. The two professionals were on the green in two shots and briskly holed out for their birdies. One of their partners, an eminent former sportsman, shanked his approach into the burn, while the other, a comfortably proportioned financier, boomed his approach over the green into thick gorse and then looped the ball into the burn.

It's quite amusing…I'm sorry, Gaynor's just split an infinitive and stormed out of the Press Room. I'll have to go after her.

There, that's better. We've agreed that Gaynor should stick to the simple stuff and leave the polysyllables to the pros.

Colin Montgomerie, last year's winner of the championship, came to a similar arrangement with his playing partner, Michael Douglas. The American actor barely played a part on the back nine of the final round.

It has started to drizzle quite hard now at Kingsbarns and all the ink in Gaynor's notebook has run. Using a pen was a real beginner's error, since the pros stick to pencils on Scottish links courses, but she'll learn from her mistakes.

Gaynor is disappointed with the way she has written today. She says that she was unprepared for the pressure of a deadline and was thrown by the poor dress sense of her fellow writers. She is determined to do a better job tomorrow when the tournament continues. So am I. Golf? Sorry, I can't tell you about that. I've had to lend Gaynor my pencil.