Shortcake Blow

Shortcake Blow

Wanna be the Tiger Woods?

I was listening to a rather prurient interview on Howard Stern's satellite radio show the other day in which an actor in pornographic films – do you still have to call them actors, even if their movies are the sort that rarely require you to ask what your motivation is? – was giving lurid details of hotel-room encounters with Tiger Woods.

It set me wondering, purely academically, how come golf got sexy. If you were a young man planning a career and all you were really interested in was the sex, would you be better off becoming lead guitarist in a second-division rock band – an Air Supply tribute, say, inevitably called Hair Supply – or working on your golf swing?

Clearly, in the area of obvious phallic symbolism a guitar wins over a golf club any day, but if your average cocktail waitress or adult film performer is picking the perfect partner for that romantic encounter based on manual dexterity and the ability to perform under pressure, can Pete Townshend's admittedly iconic windmill guitar technique ever compare with the skill and judgment needed to overcome the rain, the swirling winds, and the vagaries of the 17th hole at St Andrews?

Hazel Irvine was discussing this with the Duke of York on BBC on Saturday morning – the vagaries of the 17th hole, that is, not the other stuff – and described it as "a massive test of nerves, temperament, and skill", which could just as easily be applied to the other stuff. The very occasional alfresco twosome I participated in some decades ago never included links sex, but I should imagine a sudden sea breeze or an encounter with unexpected bracken could put even the most skilled practitioner off his stroke.

That was just the kind of issue Irvine failed to raise with Her Majesty's second son, blowing her chance of a gig as Jonathan Ross's replacement. Prince Andrew was in the studio to discuss his patronage of the On Course Foundation, a worthy cause aimed at helping to rehabilitate wounded servicemen through golf, but Irvine took the opportunity to inquire about the prince's own game: "How is your golf at the moment, sir?" He replied that he did not have time to play as much as he would like, because of the many important and demanding projects he was involved in on behalf of the nation. "Oh yeah," countered Irvine. "Pull the other one." I wish.

But Irvine is the consummate professional, steeped in protocol, and besides, the chumminess of the BBC's coverage precludes anything so forward and unfriendly. There was, for instance, about as much chance of Woods being approached, even tangentially, about the kind of hotel-room shenanigans detailed by his thespian friend on the radio – we are not talking about stealing little soaps and shortcake biscuits – as there was of Peter Alliss revealing his lifelong support for the Workers Revolutionary Party. "The public don't give two hoots [about Tiger's indiscretions]," the commentator Ken Brown said, and if he was talking about the golfing public he was almost certainly right.

Dan Walker, newly returned from his "Africa, isn't it brilliant?" World Cup bus tour and brought in to present the morning sessions, presumably to attract the Blue Peter crowd, asked some of the spectators before start of play yesterday to cheer for their favourites. Woods's name was greeted with the most enthusiasm.

Woods was certainly not keeping a low profile, not in a shirt Alliss described as "crushed loganberry", the kind of outré leisure wear perfect for the golf course but less suited to slipping unnoticed into the Marriott Renaissance with one of the leading lights in the world of one-handed entertainment.

Alliss, by the way, was as magnificent as ever. Age does not seem to be withering him – he appeared in the commentary box with his top three shirt buttons undone, Inverdale-style – and even his grumpiness these days seems to be self-parody in the cause of entertainment. His co-commentator Wayne Grady's casual mention of Colin Montgomerie announcing his Ryder Cup captain's assistants this week triggered the following grumble: "There was no such thing years ago. The captain was the captain and that was that. Now there are all sorts of aides; helpers, listeners-in, confidence boosters, sandwich makers, soothsayers." It was followed by a resigned harrumph, and on to the next shot.

For Alliss, the key issue with Woods was his new putter. The other stuff – hotel rooms and porn stars – was worthy of nothing more than the famous harrumph. The BBC's top people should be working on keeping him alive and commentating for another 40 years.

Martin Kelner

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