Iron man Player is suddenly full of tips nobody wants

They say you should never meet your heroes so it was probably just as well that Gary Player didn’t feature on my list of all-time favourite sporting stars when I shared a car journey with him to a golf tournament.

Okay, I’ll be a little bit more precise. Yes, there was only the two of us in the car, but I was the taxi driver and Player was my back seat passenger.

It was 1998 and I had wangled a job at the Senior Open Championship that was being held at Royal Portrush.