Golf Central

What the hell do portable bicycles, Operation Links in Iraq and Chris Moyles lookalikes have to do with one another? And what do they have to do with golf? Carry on here, and find out more in our weekly essential list of stuff that helps us be marginally smarter and more worldy wise than we were seven days ago...

1. We're not holding our breath for that Ernie Els interview:

It was supposed to happen this week, but after that treble-bogey on 18 at the Dunhill last week, would you avail yourself to the world's press?

2. Dunhill winner John Bickerton's no relation to Harry Bickerton, inventor of the revolutionary Bickerton Portable Bicycle:

Still won't stop everyone running headlines like 'Bickerton Gets On His Bike', though…

3. Golf's not as easy as it looks (slight return):

A regular inclusion in 10 Things, there was no better illustration than last weekend's defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory performances by Els, Rory Sabbatini (Australian PGA), Angel Cabrera (The Challenge Tour's Abierto Visa del la Republica) and Juvic Pagunsan (Volvo Masters of Asia).

4. We like Jack Nicholson a little bit more with every week that passes:

Most of us like to hit balls on the range. Jack likes to stand on the back porch of his Beverly Hills home and smash range balls into the canyon at the end of his garden. How cool?

5. Some people just can't spot a business opportunity…:

Four years ago, Alexander and Laura Simonis built a house next to Milnerton Golf Club near Cape Town. They've been peppered by over a thousand golf balls, do their gardening in hard hats and have banned their children from playing outside. They've only gone and taken the club to court, when they should have been trying to get Jack Nicholson's number to flog him all those spare pro V1s.

6. Kenneth Ferrie's had an up and down month:

Not only did he spend most of 2007 suffer from our predictable Chris Moyles-related captions, he ended up 167th in The European Tour Order Of Merit. Then he turned up for The PGA Tour Q School and made it onto the toughest (and richest) tour on the planet!

7. Caddies have never had it so good:

OK, so they're banned from entering some clubs and they often have to carry the flak as well as those huge tour bags. But life can't be all that bad if Billy Foster can afford to leave Darren Clarke's side to work part-time for Sergio Garcia.

8. Padraig Harrington's got his priorities right:

After being named The European Tour's player of the year, he said: "Lots of things made this year special, starting with the birth of Ciaran [his second child, born in November], but not far behind was winning the Open." Some past Major winners might question his priorities…

9. Never overestimate American national pride:

Even Tom Watson got a bit carried away with himself last week. Having spent a few days in Iraq on Operation Links, a morale-boosting troop visit by Watson, Tom Lehman, Butch Harmon and David Feherty, he was asked if he'd felt threatened at any point: "Not a single time, I've got the American military covering me," he replied. Ulp…

10. You're never too old…:

Britain's oldest golfer recently celebrated his 100th birthday at The Shropshire Golf Centre in Telford. Charlie Viner played his first round in 1926, using a driver, a brassie, a mashie niblick and a putter. And he polished off his anniversary round with a well deserved glass of champers.