  |
|
 |
Claret Jug will get no kisses in 2005! |
July 16, 2005; Source: AnyoneForTeeR&A forbids Open winner to kiss the trophy as new code of etiquette comes into force! |
ST ANDREWS. Famous or unknown, Tiger Woods or Lew Pepperoni [Lloyd Saltman - Ed], this year's winner of the Open Championship will be forbidden from embracing the Claret Jug as new rules governing etiquette for professional golfers come into force for the first time at the Home of Golf. "Golf is a game of discipline, of controlling one's nerves and one's emotions," R&A secretary Peter Dawson told AnyoneForTee. "But in recent years we've seen players kissing the trophy, hugging their caddie, high-fiving and punching the air. These excessive displays of emotion have no place on a golf course. We'll have players running around with their shirts pulled over their heads like footballers when they've scored, and loud grunts and screams every time a player hits the ball like the tennis pros, if we don't take urgent action."AnyoneForTee however understands that the R&A may have had another, altogether different, reason for the kissing ban. Health concerns, or rather worries over costly litigation from golfers catching germs from the heavily embossed and engraved Claret Jug, may have motivated the new rules. "You know, we do our best to clean it every year," said an R&A spokesperson, "but if you believe only half the stories we hear about what people get up to with the Claret Jug, well, you can't be too careful." What could the world's finest golfers possibly do with the oldest and most prestigious trophy in golf, we wondered? We decided to ask four recent former Open Champions.
 And what sanctions will the R&A take against a player who fails to comply with the kissing ban? "Well, we decided, after taking legal advice, that we couldn't actually fine the player or withdraw the trophy from him just for showing how happy he is," an R&A spokesperson told AnyoneForTee. "So we decided to employ a different tactic. Aversion therapy, I believe it is called. People who have a chronic nail-biting habit can put a liquid coating on their nails which dries and then tastes so foul if they bite them that they quickly give up. We've done the same thing with the Claret Jug. Anyone who kisses it, or tries to drink from it, will never want to win another trophy, much less kiss it!"And what is this amazing substance the R&A are using to treat the most famous trophy in the world of golf? "I'm sorry, this story is a good one but I can't tell you," the spokeperson said, laughing quietly to himself as he walked off in the direction of the Trophy Room. |
 |
| Back to top |
|
This page © Copyright 2005 by Duffersgolf |
Greg Norman confessed to a 1am orgy with the Jug on the 18th green at Turnberry when he won his first Open in 1986. "We were drinking champagne out of the Claret Jug... and that's what it's all about," he said. But more ominously he then added: "The best story is a good one but I can't tell you."
Nick Faldo had a rather more intimate relationship with the Claret Jug when he first won it in 1987 - he took it to bed! "When you wake up in the morning you can put your hand out in the dark and say, 'Bloody hell, it's the Claret Jug'," he explains. No wonder Nick's on his third marriage...
Ernie Els, who won the Open in 2002, pressed it into abundant, but equally unusual, service. "We did a lot of drinking out of it," he says. "A lot of friends around the world had a lot of sips out of the Jug - you've got to have a slug out of it." Honestly Ernie, drinking out of it we can understand, but why on earth put slugs in it? Dreadfully unhygienic!
Ted Harlequin [Todd Hamilton! - Ed], we understand, drank beer from the Jug after winning it last year at Royal Troon in a playoff with Ernie Els. Beer from the Claret Jug, really... Some people just have no idea how to behave. Didn't anyone ever tell Tim [Todd!!! - Ed] that you don't mix the grape with the grain?
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|