Bill Elliott GOLF
The blazered battalions of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club (R&A) of St Andrews will be defrocked for this year’s Open in July. In a remarkably forward-thinking move for the conservative R&A, the famous blazers will be dispensed with for on- course officials and replaced by … windcheaters.
For the first Open of the 21st century, the tournament organisers show encouraging signs of dragging themselves belatedly into the second half of the 20th. Buried away beneath the week’s news that the new champion will pick up a cheque for half a million quid, and that the Old Course’s 112 bunkers have been refurbished and refaced, is the fact that the 50 referees set to prowl the planet’s most famous fairways in July will be blazerless.
No jacket required? I say, hang on chaps, can we cope? While new secretary Peter Dawson was eager to reassure me that this sartorial move away from hidebound tradition does not mean a frantic modernising of the institution that overlords the grand old game everywhere apart from the United States and Mexico, he agreed that the new on- course dress code for officials should help at least a little to defart the R&A’s boring old image among the public.
“That is indeed true,” said Dawson, the 52-year-old who succeeded Sir Michael Bonallack as secretary last year. “The championship committee decided that if the weather turns showery then blazers are not very user-friendly. So the officials will wear windcheaters unless it turns hot in which case shirt-sleeve order is allowed.”
Ties, however, remain de rigueur, as much for identification as for reasons of protocol, while players and caddies are expected to look decently smart, with jeans and shorts banned for all. It suggests an authentic move towards the present, if not the future, by an organisation that can seem Jurassic in its outlook at times.
Certainly there are now men in positions of real power at St Andrews who are happy to talk privately of the need for change.
The decision a few years ago to allow youths free admission to the oldest championship in golf revealed a determination to market the game.
Perhaps 40E000 under-16s are expected to accept the invitation to St Andrews this summer and that can only be reassuring to those of us who fret about the lack of foresight being exhibited by so many others. But before we get carried away by all this R&A modern thinking it should be pointed out that, according to Dawson, there is little, if any, inclination to invite women to join the most prestigious and influential club in the sport.
“In our role as administrators we do have ladies from various golf unions who sit on our committees. We do listen and consult and accept input from the women’s game and we do support women’s golf.
“But you must remember that we are a members’ golf club and that the situation in St Andrews is that there are two ladies’ and three men’s clubs and, as far as I can judge, the women do not much want men polluting their clubs,” says Dawson.
Nor is the R&A likely to move out of its clubhouse behind the first tee, a reassuringly stern building erected in 1854 and one that is now, along with perhaps Wembley’s Twin Towers and Wimbledon’s ivy-clad walls, the most recognisable piece of sporting architecture in the world. Rumours flew a few days ago that new, hi-tech offices were being considered but Dawson denied that any such transfer was imminent.
This is hardly surprising. His top-floor office with its balcony and views across the Old Course is probably the most desirable work station in the country. “Yes, it is a lovely place to come into each day,” he agreed. “I can only just afford the cheque I pay out each month for the privilege of working here.” But then Dawson’s last office, as chief executive of a hydraulic crane company, offered a wide- angle vista of … Sunderland.