I went to the English Open golf tournament at the Forest of Arden one year (on the Thursday of what I would guess was around 1996 or so) with one of my cousins (called Kenny G for the sake of this post) and some other people. Aside from hearing the radio station BRMB for the first time (heavily advertised on ITV at the time), I did manage to come away from the day with two celebrity golfing anecdotes, just the thing every raconteur or bon viveur needs for those occasions when you are talking to golf fans, or at a golf club.
(1) At the practise putting green, bearded New Zealand golf sensation Frank Nobilo was being filmed. I managed to position myself at all times so that I was always in line with the camera and behind Frank. I don't know how much of it they showed on Sky Sports* but I would have been there in the background too. If you happened to tape that day's golf, please watch that day's entire play then e-mail me and let me know if they showed any of that footage. Thanks.
* Interestingly, all the camera equipment I saw that day was (former?) BBC equipment where the BBC symbol was still clearly visible beneath the Sky Sports stickers/logos.
(2) At one point, Kenny G and I followed Colin Montgomerie around for a while, as he was probably the main man of European golf at the time. Needless to say, I was suitably impressed by how far he could smack the ball. Also, at the time, he seemed like the tallest person I had ever seen in my life, but Wikipedia says that he's only 6ft 1in, so unless he's shrunk a lot since then I was probably just imagining it. Either that, or people from Staffordshire are like hobbits compared to the rest of the world. Anyway, after one hole, Kenny G and I thought we would get a move on to the next tee to get a good spot. I found myself walking along talking to what I thought was Kenny G but was actually just a random stranger, so I stopped to look for him only to have somebody walk straight into me with such force that it knocked me to the ground. I looked up sheepishly to see the one and only Colin Montgomerie helping me back up as it was he who had knocked me over (I bet you didn't see that coming). He saw the funny side about it and apologised. Whenever people would say he had a bad attitude etc I would always tell this story to show him in a better light.
I think you'll agree these are two dynamite anecdotes, fit for any occasion. Please feel free to steal them and use them for yourself. If you need more information to make the stories more convincing or watertight (in case anyone starts asking questions about the whether it actually happened to you, for example), then let me know, I'll be happy to help.
