John Helm: Eyes wide open
Former tennis queen Chris Evert is here to support the love of her life Greg Norman, Yorkshire coach Peter Cowen is here to fine tune the games of players like Lee Westwood, Leeds United fan Jonathan Loosemore, no mean player himself, represents Titleist on the practice ground, and caddies like Billy Foster from Bingley hope they’ve inspired a player to add his name to the list of Open champions.
Ex-professional footballers like Chris Nicholl and Mark Bright are inevitably to be found casting an eye over the swings of the great players.
Both play a lot of golf these days, especially in celebrity days, and are as keen as mustard to improve.
Nicholl, the former Halifax Town, Aston Villa and Northern Ireland centre-half told me: “I draw inspiration from watching great performers.
“When I was playing football I just did what people had coached me to do, and kicked everything that moved until later in my career, when I learned to use my head and the game became easier as a result
“Golfers have to use their brains and you can learn a great deal just by watching how they deal with playing conditions, weather, bad lies, contours of the course and matchplay situations they get into from time to time.”
Stars from other sports like Dennis Taylor (snooker) and Richie Benaud (cricket) can generally be seen walking the fairways at the Open – to say nothing of Prince Andrew or US presidents – and golf has a knack of bringing people together all with the same question.
“Why can’t I hit a ball like Tiger Woods?”
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