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on the day before the championship. He was a good player, very ‘laid
back’ and usually ambled around the course, so I was surprised when
I saw him dashing across to the tee. When I asked him “why the
hurry?” he explained that he had been drawn with George Duncan and
was “having a practise run”. Some of the Irish boys I knew had fixed up a caddie for me and told me: “Give him a couple of rounds to get your strength, then take the club he gives you. He is a five handicap player and knows the course inside out”. Well, we did make a good team and the only time we crossed swords over club selection we were both wrong – it was the one in between. At first there was little sign that this tournament would be different. Again I was hitting the ball well enough and made the cut with a few shots to spare at 144. I followed this with a 71 on the Friday morning, which lifted me into the top dozen. In the afternoon’s final round a front nine of 37, completed with a three-putt five, seemed to have spoiled my chance of a high finish, but golf is ever an unpredictable game. The back nine started with four routine fours, but at the 14th things started to happen. ‘Calamity Corner’ is one of the most famous short holes in Ireland and never was a hole more aptly named, indeed the golf writer Patric Dickinson described it as a “tactful understatement” in his book A round of Golf Courses. Every aspect invites disaster and the prevailing wind does not help. A shallow rough filled valley stretches from the tee cutting across just a few yards in front of the putting surface and sloping severely away to the right into ‘the mine’, a deep ravine fifty feet below the green. In those days the rough on the left was waist high almost to the edge of the green, making the entrance to the green very narrow. I hit what was probably one of my best ever three irons to this ‘target’ green, finishing about eight feet from the pin. – and holed the putt. I was now back in the running and fours at 15 and 16 set me up for a good finish.  My caddie knew what scores were in and there was some banter on the
17th tee when I asked what I needed on the last two holes, both
par-5s in those days, to win the trophy and he told me that two
threes would probably do it. More realistically he felt that a top
five spot was on the cards if I could birdie them both. The 17th was
then some 530 yards long and I took a two iron for my second, (my
favourite club,
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