Grey around the edges of The Open

I know we all want to talk about The Open Championship, and we can, if you like, but first a word about the tournament up in Union, Wash., that dares to schedule against it.

The tournament, Stop No. 4 on the Grey Goatee Golf Association Tour, is better known worldwide as the Howl at the Canal, the now 11th annual. While the canal, these days, is down over there somewhere, out of sight from the rented HQ by the 9^th fairway at Alderbrook Golf and Yacht Club, we still have George, presiding sternly over the wooded foothills of northern Mason County, and we can still howl, though we waver some on the high notes.

There are no tropical mosquitoes at Alderbrook, therefore no threat of any virus exotica to prevent the top guys in the 3GA from honoring their playing commitments. It means, this week, that the eyes and noses of the global media are pointed elsewhere.

We of the Association are accustomed to the heavy breathing of our vast fan base, but we rest uneasily in the glare of the writers and commenters, the tweeters and bloggers and snarks and cranks … When they write about us, they never get a damn thing right.

So keep it here, Grey Goatee Nation, for the good shit, guaranteed to be wildly and irrationally biased or your money back.

And true, every bit of it true.

***

The Open Championship offers the only reason to get up at 3 in the morning and watch your television set, short of Sputnik orbiting the earth, and that won’t be happening this year, so set your alarm and coffee-maker in synchrony, sit down and settle in for the duration. It’s like the weekend you watched all five seasons of “Breaking Bad” in order, only better.

Danny Willett will win, and when he does, remember you might have read it here.

7-17 update: Danny Willett did not win, but he was only 27 strokes off the pace.