Age is no obstacle

The reaction to Greg Norman’s performance in the Open Championship has been nothing short of remarkable.

No, not the fact that he had to pay his ex wife $103m in his divorce settlement but that he is now a member of the golfing senior brigade.

He led this top class field a merry dance from day one and only faltered at the very end. That’s just not on, is it? He is, after all, 53 years old. You can’t play golf like that when you are a coffin dodger.

I’m a fraction older than Norman, just a fraction, mind, and it really annoys me when others, who are a tad younger, categorise me.

‘He’s old, you know’. You can tell by the way they look at you, or by the way they talk in your presence.

Sometimes they talk as if you’re not there.But Norman has made sure the rest of the players at Royal Birkdale definitely knew he was there.

He has handled the course and the conditions much better than many of his younger contemporaries and, in the process, put a lot of them to shame.

With people like him in our corner we might just conquer the doubters.

So what if he didn’t win this great championship, or if he never wins another tournament.

He has got himself a new wife, someone called Chris Evert, a former champion of some ball game or other herself, and he has been prancing around the golf course like a dog with two tails.

And long may it last.