Tarby to blame for fairway horror show

Jasper Gerard, The Telegraph, 4 October 2008

I blame Jimmy Tarbuck. Golf never recovered from him and ‘Brucie’ donning pink Pringle sweaters and tight slacks to give us that macabre spectacle known as pro-celebrity golf. It tarred the fine sport of golf as a naff game for naffer people.

Once, Bright Young Things set off from Mayfair night spots in the early hours and motored down to Sandwich for a round. Kings, prime ministers and film stars played. Then, thanks to Tarby, golf became the working man’s game. Those who suddenly found themselves too de trop for football in an age of ‘boutique clubs’ and billionaire owners headed for the first tee. The only surprise? Golf didn’t embrace hooliganism, though judging by Lee Westwood’s complaints after the Ryder Cup, it is rapidly catching up.

Anyway, we assumed the game’s pro-am element had been consigned to its proper place: the archive department, under ‘X-rated horror’. But British golf looked enviously across the Atlantic, where Hollywood actually regards golf as rather pukka. And so we have been treated to the Dunhill Links Championship which re-works this grizzly format, minus Jimmy and Brucie (“not to see you, not to see you nice”). For you, dear reader, I’ve been stuck in front of the box watching ‘golf’, with a twitter of cretinous celebrities doing their best to hold up Europe’s finest players. There was a programme last week called Tubby Toddlers; and, I wager, that did more to uphold Reithian standards than this made-for-TV confusion.

Confusing because pros compete against each other, but are also partnered – or handicapped – by ‘celebrities’ for the team event; one uses the term ‘celebrities’ loosely, for as well as Hugh Grant, Samuel L Jackson and Sir Ian Botham in plus fours, there is a high quota of corpulent businessmen. These are famous, Sky commentators tell us breathlessly, for achievements like once owning City Airport; fascinating.

The pros hide their frustration and think of the money. But honestly: it is like Lucian Freud working on a masterpiece with additional brush strokes from Girls Aloud; or an Olympic eight being coxed by Jade Goody; or Salman Rushdie leaving the magic realism for his next novel to Wayne Rooney; or Chopin being helped with a masterpiece by Def Leppard; or Lewis Hamilton being held up around Silverstone by Miss Marple in her Morris Minor; or Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson making a pro-am team to run the country – oh yes, sorry, that surreal partnership is already upon us.

Tim Henman paired Colin Montgomerie. If they were a football team, they would be called Chokers United. The now wrinkly Hugh Grant hasn’t driven so far off course and into the rough stuff since that little misunderstanding on Sunset Strip with Divine Brown. A TV interviewer asked why he liked playing in Scotland, though he was actually slicing halfway to Norway.

These ‘ams’ should stick to dram, or Grant and Co might just find golfers diversify into acting. And judging by his private life, Monty would be a natural at romantic comedy.

With England to host Kazakhstan on Saturday, surely Gary Lineker should make way for another TV anchor: the visitors’ most celebrated TV reporter, Borat.

True, there is a danger he might opine that Emile Heskey couldn’t score with Kazakhstan’s fourth best prostitute. But we viewers might prefer the odd undeserved insult to the usual undeserved sycophancy from pundits.

Last week on TV David Pleat all but declared his man-love for Manchester City’s Stephen Ireland; yes, Ireland is a great prospect but after he slashed yet another chance wide Pleat cooed “shades of Fabregas”.

No David: if Ireland is Cesc Fabregas, then Tarby is Padraig Harrington.