The main event?

TIFFS and spats between golfing superstars like Harrington and Goosen are nothing new. Sometimes, in fact, they can go a little further than that, as Christy O’Connor Senior admits in a particularly revealing chapter in his autobiography.

It became known as the Stoke Poges black-eye affair. “An exchange of opinions after the second round of the Agfa Gevaert tournament in 1968 ended up with me flat on my back in the rose bushes fronting the austere clubhouse,” he recalled.

O’Connor and Englishman Harry Weetman were good friends having been long standing Ryder Cup teammates, so Christy felt it was “perfectly natural” to have a drink with Freda Weetman having completed his day’s labour. Harry finished an hour or so later and the three then visited a couple of hospitality tents before returning to the clubhouse.