Out of the mouths of babes... I'm not sure what comes next actually but I think it means you can always trust pesky brats to cut straight to the chase.
No pussy-footing around, no niceties, no conversational etiquette. In our house you don't even get the slightest hint of a “Hi, I'm home!” before one kid or another is throwing their school bag at your feet and getting right to the nub of the matter.
If it's not demanding a lift to training or money for a slice of pizza, it's asking where babies come from. So it should come as no surprise that athletes are subjected to similar experiences when approached by young fans interested in the minutiae of their careers.
Take English golfer Lee Westwood, who blew his chances of winning the Open Championship at Turnberry last month. Having lost a two-shot lead on the back nine of his final round, a par at the 18th would have put Westwood into a tie with clubhouse leader Stewart Cink, the eventual winner.
The day after Westwood kept his promise to present prizes to kids at his local golf club in Worksop, Nottinghamshire and then embarked on a three-day tour of his golfing academies for kids aged between seven and 16 at nine courses around England.
At each and every one he was reminded of the outcome “fairly unsubtly”, Westwood joked yesterday ahead of today's first round of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio.
Despite reporting nothing but good responses from the kids to his tie for third place at Turnberry, Westwood did encounter some probing inquiries.
“It was interesting, some of the questions that came out,” he said. “A couple wanted to know if it was a fake tan or a real tan that I had.
“From an eight-year-old, that's a very serious question.”
The most direct, though, was a piercing reference to that fateful tee shot at the 18th on Sunday.
“Why did you hit the first one so hard?”
“That will bring you down to earth with a pretty big bump,” Westwood commented although there was some welcome perspective from his own offspring.
“My son was one of the best walking off the 18th green. I was pretty deflated afterwards. He said, 'Dad, you did really well. You finished third’.”
The golfer failed to mention if the kind word was followed swiftly by a request for pizza.
