"This kind of thing makes even the bravest journalist break out in a nervous rash waiting for him to emerge from the recorder’s tent"

Nice to see Martin Johnson returning to golf coverage, now appearing in The Times and offering miscellaneous thoughts on the BMW heading into Sunday's final round:

Rory McIlroy started playing golf at the age of two, which by comparison to Tiger Woods (who was just out of the womb when he applied the interlocking grip to his own umbilical cord and started chipping cotton wool buds into the wastepaper basket) almost qualifies him as a late starter.

And on his favorite subject, Monty:

This kind of thing makes even the bravest journalist break out in a nervous rash waiting for him to emerge from the recorder’s tent, and he gave short shrift to one of them who reminded him he would qualify for the US Open were he to go on and win here. “Well I’m not going to, so that’s all hypothetical,” he said. “Next question?” Monty, though, was at least encouraged by yesterday’s round after complaining that his form had been badly affected by the Ryder Cup captaincy. “It's a huge distraction,” he said. So we can now add the Ryder Cup to the long list of Montgomerie distractions, including noisy spectators, camera-clicking photographers, irritating marshalls, and insects fluttering their wings in an adjacent meadow when he’s halfway through his back-swing.