The venerable Open Championship, bless its ancient heart, is apparently mulling over a little jig with its sacred Sunday tee times. This isn't some sudden, enlightened epiphany about making life easier for us poor sods glued to the telly. No, this kerfuffle is all down to a rather more down-to-earth collision with the World Cup final. You can practically hear the collective gasp from the R&A's hushed chambers, where chasing birdies usually trumps the roar of a football crowd.
Should our lads in England, fueled by more optimism than sense, somehow stagger past Argentina’s formidable footballing might, they'll be staring down a Sunday showdown unlike any seen at Royal Birkdale. This sporting entanglement is a real pickle. The golf is supposed to wrap up before the New Jersey whistle blows, but then there's the ghastly spectre of a sudden-death play-off. Imagine: the nail-biting climax of golf’s oldest major battling it out against the hopes and dreams of an entire nation glued to a different, much rounder ball.
The organizers have kindly assured us that the footballing bonanza won't be blaring from any of the course's ubiquitous screens. A small mercy, I suppose. Mark Darbon, the R&A’s chief executive, possessing the zen-like calm of a man who’s clearly seen this sort of absurdity coming, chirped that such a problem would be "a great problem to have." He also, with a touch of understatement that would make P.G. Wodehouse himself nod approvingly, hinted that any timing tweaks would be "subtle." I suspect "subtle" here means "just shy of triggering a full-blown continental sporting meltdown."
Now, shifting a major isn't unheard of. Usually, it's to dodge a biblical downpour or a rogue gale. It’s not typically to sidestep a penalty shootout from a sport that frankly, most golfers consider a bit of a sideshow. This is a flirtation with the truly bizarre, a departure from the stoic resolve demanded by Mother Nature’s tantrums. We'll be watching, ears pricked and perhaps a spare portable radio at the ready, to see if the ancient game can play nice with the modern world’s obsession for round-ball glory.