Dr Jeffrey Foster, a radiologist, of Louisville, Kentucky makes the headlines in The Scottish Sun…’Playing golf in kilt was out of bounds’.

David Brown, the spoilsport secretary at Royal Troon said in the defence of his decision to deny Dr Foster playing in his kilt, "Long trousers are the accepted form of dress on the course."

Fortunately David Brown’s conversation was with a polite American and not ‘The Big Yin’ aka Billy Connolly, who in his best and most profane Glasgow way would have responded with “Up yer kilt, David!”

Included in Alexander Lawrie’s coverage of the incident, there’s a photograph of Dr Foster on the tee at Turnberry with the famous lighthouse in the background. And if that wasn’t embarrassing enough for David Brown, Dr Foster was permitted to play in his kilt on the much more prestigious Muirfield course.

Dr Foster said, "As a 13th-generation Scots-American I intended playing every round in Scotland kilted, in honour of my heritage and my homeland.”

Adding that, "The official of record at Royal Troon equated my kilt to shorts."

Hey Jimmy! Make that David Brown, if ye dinnae know the difference between the wearing o’ the tartan and a pair of shorts, how come you got such a guid job?

And while all this was going on in Scotland, across the pond they were celebrating Patriot Golf Day with the kind of patriotism and respect absent in one small part of the Ayrshire Coast.

And while on the subject of over there. More information has come to hand re the Woods/ Foley alliance.

Robert Lusetich at Fox Sports writes, ‘Sean Foley has “no interest” in getting Tiger Woods to swing as he did in 2000, when the world No. 1 had arguably the greatest year in the history of golf.’

According to Robert, Foley’s teaching philosophy wasn’t of particular interest to anyone outside the small world of golf swing nerds until he started working with Woods.”

And for those golfers who love to take a tilt at ‘Stack and Tilt’ this from Sean “If it’s such a great system, then why are people coming for a ‘watered-down version’ from me?”

In response to the suggestion that he’s merely the man of the moment, Sean says, “If I’m flavor of the month then I’ve been flavor of the month for ten years…”

Finally something for hoarding Scots who’ve still got new golf balls from Christmases long past. They age well according to Bill Pennington at the NYT.

‘The answer is that new golf balls — if stored under normal conditions — will last many years without deteriorating. In fact, the United States Golf Association’s Research and Test Center stores every one of the thousands of balls it tests each year in massive file cabinets for five years. At the end of the five years, testers keep one model of each ball for future reference and donate the remaining thousands to junior golf programs.’

Here’s the links to The Scottish Sun and to Robert Lusetich  

Thought for the day.

 O wad some power the giftie gie us. To see oursels as ithers see us…”

- Robert Burns

An ‘ither’ by the name of Colin Farquarson of Scottish Golf View commenting on Royal Troon’s attitude writes, 'It’s ridiculous. Royal Troon has been stuffy back to the days when Colin Montgomerie’s father was secretary.'

Slainte

Stan