I’m a bit late in recording the pleasant day we had at The Open on Sunday. The train and bus access was very efficient and the leisurely progress through Fife meant that by the time we got there the morning rain had stopped. The weather got progressively more pleasant as the day wore on, for the spectators at any rate; no doubt the players would have preferred a little less wind on the course.

For a little while it seemed as though the leader might conceivably be caught but the challenge fizzled out and as the private jets slid graciously to earth at Leuchars ready to take the players on to their next challenge we left the scene for our less gracious and considerably cheaper ride home.

There I was able to see more of the actual golf than I had at St Andrews thanks to having recorded it, since good vantage points on the course are scarce. The next time The Open is on Scottish soil (Muirfeld 2014) I shall be there but may just plonk myself into a grandstand for the day. I’m looking forward to seeing The Ryder Cup at Gleneagles then as well where if memory serves there are sticky up bits of landscape to perch on.

By that time I may have a definitive answer on how to pronounce this year’s Open Champion’s name. The home-bred commentators persisted with something close to how we might pronounce the combination of letters making up “oosthuizen” if it were English. Jean Van De Verde, no stranger to mispronunciations of his own name, had the bright idea of asking the man himself and rendered the result as “west haze en”. This pronunciation found its way onto BBC TV breakfast news but not to other broadcasts. BBC Scotland’s man at the course stuck a whisper of a “w” in front of “oost” but the Championship committee representatives restrained themselves. I listened in to Afrikaans radio a couple of days later but by then the news was stale and since they haven’t caught up with the iplayer revolution yet no backtracking through bulletins was available.

The best I’ve been able to come up with through a combination of Afrikaans and Dutch pronunciation guides is “wist how sin” and although it has rather a Chinese ring to it I’ll stick there till I know any better.