The golf is fine but it is the scenery I love the most

The Herald Scotland

2 days ago

To be honest, despite 40 years - more or less - of living in Scotland, if I say the word home I still usually mean Northern Ireland and that corner of the province at the top of the map slightly to the right of Derry/Londonderry.
Which meant when it came to the TV coverage of the Open all I wanted to see were the drone shots of the coast. The golf I could take or leave.
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On radio, though, the sport had a rather meditative, relaxing quality. Golf, like snooker, is the nearest sport to an ASMR video (autonomous sensory meridian response, but you all knew that), or, in the circumstances, ASMR audio. The BBC could package the whispery commentary, the satisfying smack of golf club on ball and the polite applause that results; the BBC could easily package it as a well-being broadcast.
It probably helped that on Sunday there wasn't much sporting tension or jeopardy. Scottie Scheffler's road to Open victory was, for the most part, a procession. Local hero Rory McIlroy was one of the many who couldn't get close to him.
Golf - with its inbuilt gaps in play as players hustle to catch up with their ball - requires its commentators to fill the airtime with little word portraits and that's the fun of it. Commentator Katherine Downes probably offered up my favourite, describing the fifth hole 'tumbling down towards the sea' at Royal Portrush.
'This green,' she began, 'It just looks even better today on this clear day. The sea, that patchwork of blue … these lazy, low, frothy waves collapsing onto the beach after the long trip across the Atlantic, the white jagged cliffs carved into the coastline. It is magnificent.'
Yes , it is, Katherine. I've cleaned that beach.
Some 25 minutes later, admittedly, she slightly overegged things. 'I don't know if you can hear it overhead,' she said, 'but just as Rory McIlroy is lining up this putt there's an enormous flock of seagulls that have come calling and corring down the hill as if to cheer on McIlroy.
'They're supporting the Northern Irishman, the Northern Irish seabirds, circling overhead.'
Well, maybe. But they could also have been Scottish gulls on an awayday.
'They're must be 50, 60 of them,' she continued, 'and another flock, white flecks out to sea, settled on the blue water as McIlroy settles his feet into the green. This for a birdie. And in it goes.'
It was all really rather soothing.
Earlier on Sunday morning Northern Irish presenter Colin Murray was clearly enjoying his trip home for 5 Live.
'I want to start by giving you some stats. Six scoops of ice cream from Morelli's, five packets of Tayto crisps, four packets of Ritchie's Cinnamon Lozenges, three Maine pineappleades two Ulster fries and a cheeky Chinese from the Red Dragon in Ballycastle; the Open has ruined any chance of me making my summer weight.'
That sounds like a perfect Northern Irish summer if you ask me. Oh, and you can get Morelli's ice cream in Tesco in Scotland now, by the way.
There was something rather ASMRish too about Five Leaves Left Revisited, a new 6 Music documentary which aired in the early hours of Tuesday morning. All that delicate music and whispering vocals from one of British folk music's lost boys.
Presented by Radiohead's Ed O'Brien, the programme explored - as the title suggests - the story behind the creation of a new box set dedicated to Nick Drake's first album Five Leaves Left.
Drake's own story has always been defined by its tragic ending - he died aged just 26 from an overdose of antidepressants - and by the fact that no one was much interested in his music when he was alive.
But this documentary wasn't really interested in the shorthand legend of the man - the stellar talent crippled by stage fright and mental health issues.
No, it was more interested in the music. And so we got early recordings of the songs that made up his debut album - just Drake and guitar and tape - as well as input from his engineer John Wood and producer Joe Boyd, as well as his sister Gabrielle.
The result was like an extended feature in Mojo or Uncut, where every last detail of the recording process is nailed down. Rather nerdy for the uncommitted listener, perhaps, but Drake fans will love it. And listening to those songs again had the same anaesthetic effect as listening to golf club on golf ball. I was happy to let it wash over me. Radio as comfort blanket.
Listen Out For: Acqua Alta, Radio 4, Sunday, July 27, 3pm
Even radio likes a good murder mystery. Julian Rhind-Tutt plays Commissario Guido Brunetti in this new two-part drama featuring author Dona Leon's Venetian detective.