TV VIEW:A LOVELY man, that Colin Montgomerie. Very lovely. David Feherty might have a bit famously described him as having "the face of a bulldog licking its piss off a nettle", but after yesterday – well, the fella's as lovely as a rose. Mind you, Justin mightn't agree.
“I would like to add three picks to that particular nine, and they are . . . de dum de dum de dum . . . from Ireland, Pawd-rayg Harrington . . .” Did my heart love ‘til now? Forswear its sight. For I never saw true beauty ‘til this night. Ah Monty, you’ve the face of a cherub.
Back in the Sky Sports News studio Ross McFarlane was almost lost for words, which is never a good thing when you’ve been invited on to talk about a sporting matter, like Monty’s wild card Ryder Cup picks. He composed himself, though, and applauded the selection of Pawd-rayg, in no sense at all.
“It beggars belief,” he gasped. “That for me is a shocking pick. Well, it’s a shock to me – whether it’s a shocking pick is not for me to say,” he said of the shocking pick.
Our presenter, Jim White, was no less shocked. “Montgomerie goes on about his stature – what does he mean by stature?!” It was a fair question. A bit like Mrs Merton asking Debbie McGee “so, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?” “So, Monty, what attracted you to three-time major winner Pádraig Harrington?” Eh . . . that’s a toughie.
Jim, then, was aghast, but Ross out-aghasted him. “You’re taking someone just because they won a few things two or three years ago – that for me is not good enough,” he said, adding a little proviso on the off-chance that Pawd-rayg might make a putt or two at Celtic Manor: “Maybe he can come ‘round, prove what a good pick it was, show us just how good a player he is and win four, five points – and then go ‘ya, boo, sucks’ to all of us who said he shouldn’t be on the team.”
Harrington, you can be fairly sure, will resist hollering ‘ya, boo, sucks’ in to the camera when he clinches the winning Ryder Cup point, but crikey, what you wouldn’t give for him to lower his pants to reveal ‘Ross and Jim? Kiss my butt’ inscribed in lipstick on his bottom cheeks. We wouldn’t bet on it, though, unless a man with a suitcase laden with cash tells us it’s as likely an eventuality as a no-ball at Lord’s.
The only announcement that met Ross and Jim’s approval was that Sergio Garcia would be Monty’s fourth vice captain. Fourth? To think the United States needs only one Vice President.
Some time later. “We’re getting quite a lot of emails coming in tonight,” said Jim, “a lot of people in Ireland say we are being very harsh on Pawd-rayg Harrington. Well, not so. Ross McFarlane put the case earlier on for Justin Rose. But of course, Harrington is a terrific world class golfer and is there in the team on his own merit.”
That was a cimbdown on a (puntastic) par with Tenzing Norgay’s Everest descent, but the way Jim’s eyes widened as he perused his emails you had a feeling he wasn’t up for having his five iron surgically removed from his nether regions.
Needless to say, we regretted sending that email, and as a voice of golfing reason pointed out, Justin Rose and Paul Casey are a touch entitled to feel ever so slightly aggrieved. But, not to be too parochial about it: ya, boo, sucks.
Anyway, that’s the beauty of sport, it never fails to surprise us. As Graeme Swann said of England’s gobsmacking recovery against Pakistan on Saturday, “it’s ridiculous – this Test keeps throwing up the strangest things”.
Well, indeed.
Sunday. “There is a sombre air here this morning,” said David Gower as he welcomed us to Lord’s, the no-ball-gate revelations of the night before casting an inky black cloud over the proceedings.
“When did you first know about the allegations,” Mike Atherton asked Pakistan manager Yawar Saeed. “I was just settling in to my room last night when I got a message that Scotland Yard officers were in the hotel and would like to see me,” he said. Saeed, evidently, feared it wasn’t about illegal parking on Oxford Street.
If the suspects are guilty? “What’s the appropriate punishment,” asked Atherton. “It depends on the guilt,” Saeed smiled. “If I have stolen one shilling from you, you punish me for a shilling, not for a million pounds.” “Well, a life ban in Pakistan usually means about a month,” sighed Nasser Hussain back in the studio, the former England captain so peeved by the whole ugly business he wore the face of a bulldog licking its, well, you know, off a nettle.
