TV View: It's not that long ago a well-known Dublin journalist was asked at a job interview for the sports editorship of a national newspaper what changes he would make if successful.
"I'd drop the f---ing racing for a start," was the typically definitive response. "It's not a sport. It's a business."
Our hero didn't get the gig, and quite how his Corinthian spirit is coping with the readies floating around both his beloved rugby and GAA is uncertain. But he, and his theories of what constitutes a sport, came flooding back as the PGA golf championship wound its tortuous way through the weekend at Wentworth. Your correspondent has reached a conclusion: something only qualifies as a sport if it involves sweating; ergo, golf is not a sport.
Now, before all you Disgusteds in Dalkey get thick about how, ho-ho-ho, only someone who's, ho-ho-ho, never stood over a five-foot putt on the 18th, ho-ho-ho, could say such a thing, that doesn't mean golf isn't a massive test of nerve and skill. But so is pottery, and we don't have to deal with hours of that on the telly.
No, on Saturday, instead of hippie facial hair, we got acres of polo-shirts traipsing around in the rain. I'm sure it was great fun for the participants, but that doesn't make it good viewing. Forty-five minutes was all yours truly could take. Life's too short.
A full five minutes of that was spent watching nothing. Well, that's not strictly true. Some people walked, others switched their brollies from one hand to the other. David Howell, who embellished his polo-shirt with a V-neck pullover, scraped his shoe with a tee. Then he took a practice swing. Then another. And after that, he hit a shot he spends his working life practising 100 yards in the wrong direction.
Quite how Peter Alliss & co are supposed to work with this kind of material remains a mystery to those of us who don't look like our mothers still dress us. And while Alliss is "Mr Golf", he's much too bright a man to ignore the obvious.
One worthy called Nick Dougherty is something of a rebel apparently, because his hair is spiky and he uses the phrase "thanks, mate" when accepting congratulations. This is the golf equivalent of Liam Gallagher really tying one on. But Dougherty is no speed-ball.
"That putt was no more than seven inches yet it took 12 seconds to knock into the hole," sniffed Alliss. "You don't have to be Einstein to see where time is wasted."
And if Dougherty is Britpop, Miguel Angel Jimenez's pony-tail makes him Keith Richards with a chainsaw. Except even Keef wouldn't be mad enough to fall out of a tree in the rain.
"Looks a little miserable out there, Maureen," ventured Ken Brown.
"Nothing a nice cup of coffee wouldn't fix," came the reply.
It was all wonderfully cosy, and nice and super, while also being definitive proof that golf really is the pursuit of the retired, the middle-aged and those who decide the schedules.
But if you want sweat there's nothing like rowing. Long, thin boats being propelled along a lake by long streaks of muscle isn't scintillating TV material either, but there's no doubting its sporting credentials. At the end of a round of golf, there's a nice cup of coffee. At the end of Saturday's World Cup series in Munich, most of the rowers looked like they needed a nice drop of oxygen.
One of them was Alan Campbell, an unknown youngster from Northern Ireland who somehow lost and then retook the lead against a German champion called Marcel Hacker, who looked big enough to make kindling out of a redwood with his bare hands.
"I've come too far and done too much not to win," gasped Campbell.
Steve Redgrave was watching from Ascot racecourse, where he unhesitatingly described Campbell's achievement as "our best single sculls performance at a World Cup by a long way."
But as statements go, it didn't have the shock effect of what had gone on earlier at Ascot.
"It's up - and ready to go!" boomed Clare Balding.
What? Clare? The spiritual home of racing snobbery was unveiling its new grandstand and Clare was not going to be guilty of underplaying the significance.
"The most impressive grandstand in the world," she declared with that hale and hearty manner that doesn't even entertain the idea of disagreement. Colleague Rishi Persad proclaimed the new gaff "sets the standard for facilities around the world".
If it all sounded like a terribly posh tongue bath, then substance was added by BBC race commentator Jim McGrath, who is so proud of being Australian he can make Merv Hughes sound like a Kiwi.
"Flemington in Melbourne is very good, but I would say this is now the best racecourse in the world," he drawled. The fact the plug came through teeth that were being gritted perhaps a little too tightly for comfort only made it more genuine.
