Golf interlude

I was part of the team covering the 1999 Open for Scotland on Sunday – that’s the tournament you all remember more for Jean van de Velde’s collapse than for Paul Lawrie’s victory – and what I remember most from that week was how much the pros whinged about the way Carnoustie had been set up. It affronted their sense of themselves. They had a point in as much as the fairways were narrow, the rough had been watered and a tough course had been protected against benign conditions. But they still whinged, forgetting that they were playing, as they do in every competition, the course not the other golfers. Also, of course, the links was the same for everyone. Davis Love III sneered that the championship got the winner it deserved (ie, the unheralded Lawrie) without ever realising how right he was…

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Matthew Lynn

Spain will regret its 100 per cent expat property tax

And so there has been much moaning about Birkdale today.