and strode on to beat Ken Brown in a playoff.

Good enough reason to cheer for Norman today.

I haven't seen any of the tournament so far, but my 110 yesterday doesn't seem as bad as usual looking at the overall scoring. My driving has gone completely to pot, though; I think I was on the fairway twice.

I drove into a greenside bunker on the 18th last week. The club secretary was furious, they had to get a tractor to tow my car out.

Ber-ding tish! Try the steak, folks, I'm here all week.

Thinking of "club secretaries", we were kicked out of the bar yesterday because we were wearing golf shoes. It's fucking moronic rules and etiquette obsessed stuff like this that makes me hate golf in the UK. I mean, everyone there should be wearing bloody golf shoes. Twats.

Isn't there good sense to that one, insofar as the spikes can tear up carpets? It's not the same as being kicked out because of jeans...

It's a golf club for christ's sake. Make golf club floors tolerant of golf shoes. Wouldn't that be sensible? The fact that there was a no caps rule, too, added to the stupidity. And the collared shirts on the course. And the men-must-wear-long-socks rule which, admittedly, is honoured in the breach.

No golf shoes seems sensible to me, spikes, mud and sand will inevitably ruin a carpet.

Why would you want to wear a cap inside?

I hope Norman wins. Apparently he just showed up for practice for the senior tournament, expecting to be out after the cut.

Heh, straight into the bunker on the first hole.

Meanwhile the BBC didn't bother showing Harrington's shot onto the green or his par putt on the first. English golfers at +6 and +10 are more important.

Norman's first three holes: Bogey, Bogey, Bogey.

Congratulations to Padraig Harrington... great stuff. Shame the Shark didnt win (or Anthony Kim, my pick) but back to back wins is not to be sneezed at, Tiger or not.

(the adverts at the bottom of the thread are beginning to get on my nerves)

He beat Tiger last time, so this is perhaps the one victor people can't fairly say "what if?" about.

Meanwhile, the ongoing crisis for non-Irish Europeans in the majors continues. What has gone wrong for the non-Irish Europeans? Why has the rest of the world, and Ireland, so dominated the majors for the last few years? Is it the (non-Irish) European mentality? Is Europe - Ireland aside - simply not producing players of the right mental calibre? Either way, it all bodes ill for Europe's Ryder Cup chances, except for the Irish.

The Irish, all joking apart, have a fantastic record in the Ryder Cup, recently. Christie O'Connor Jnr in 1985, Eamonn Darcy in 1987, Phillip Walton in 1995, Paul McGinley in 2002. All beat American players in the crucial final singles match, who were ranked way, way, ahead of them in the rankings, and should have hammered them.

They do make a lot out of that "fighting Irish" spirit in sport sometimes, but I do wonder. Half the original population of Australia were Irish (and Cornish) convicts, and look at how their sporting prowess has grown since we took the shackles off them.

The only famous Australian sporting bottler is called "Norman", which tells you all you need to know about his heritage. His great-Grandad must have been one of the prison governors.

As an aside, Harrington's win will make him the world number 3 tomorrow morning, the way I've worked the projected rankings out, which will beyond any doubt make him Ireland's greatest ever golfer in world ranking terms. Fred Daly would possibly have been among the top ten in the late 1940s, had rankings existed in those days, and Christy O'Connor snr (himself) would have been top-ten in the early 1960s. Harrington's definitely the first, however, to have got anywhere near as high as third.

If he wins the USPGA as well, with Tiger out of action (gulp) Harrington could - could - finish this year ranked number one in the world...

I watched a few holes of this over the weekend (or it might have been the same one shown over and over again, for all I could tell), and I was initially impressed by this guy Ian Poulter, in whom the spirit of Duncan Norvelle seemed strong. Then I Googled for a few more images of him and quickly gained the impression that he's a 'wacky' 'character' who takes great delight in parading a succession of kerayzy outfits. Shame.