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In common with millions, I’ve just had a communication from Peter Dawson, the outgoing Chief Executive of the Royal and Ancient. In it, he says that he and his masters, the custodians of the game of golf, are excited to be taking coverage of the Open Championship away from free-to-air terrestrial television and handing it to Sky, to swell the Dirty Digger’s obscene profits still further.
I knew the Open was screwed in 2014 when it came back to Gullane after a twelve-year absence. I couldn’t believe that it was possible for a paying (through the nose) punter to walk into the tented village, which used to be the greatest golf equipment exhibition of them all, and be unable to pick up and swing a golf club. I was astonished, and yet, under Dawson’s stewardship that’s what happened.
Now, as a final twist of the knife before he sashays off into retirement, he has overseen the taking of the people’s game, the people’s Championship, away from the people, and its delivery to the Great Satan.
‘Excited’, he says in his brazen ‘Open Letter’. ‘Ashamed’ would be more fitting, but he and his people don’t have a grasp of that concept.
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