As the eyes of the golfing world begin to focus on Royal Birkdale, Ben Schofield meets the club’s captain for a chat about preparations, pressure . . . and missing buttons

IT WAS when he was posing for pictures on the 18th green that it happened. It could have been an over-enthusiastic swing of the jacket, or idle fiddling while greeting golf’s great and good.

But, whatever the cause, the tragedy that had befallen Dennis Watson, captain of the Royal Birkdale golf club, was seemingly great.

Barely an hour prior to his guests’ arrival for lunch on the opening day of Open Golf practise, Dennis had sprung a button.

“If I’m not careful, I could be playing for the wrong team,” Dennis says, dialling his wife’s number and peering at the navy blue fabric to which the gold button used to be attached.

He rattles off a list of essentials for Mrs Watson to bring to lunch: super glue, needle and thread, stand-by jacket.

That done, he settles into a chair in one of the art deco clubhouse’s first floor bars.

The bar, probably the only room not crawling with golf glitterati, offers an imposing view of the links course’s final green. That’s where, next Sunday, the man more used to handing out gongs to the club’s members, will present the new Open Champion with the Royal and Ancient’s coveted Claret Jug.

And that will be after 156 of the world’s top golfers play two or four rounds over his course.

Does he feel any pre-tournament nerves about his moment in the global spotlight?

“I might nearer the time. Right now, it seems a long way away,” he says breezily.

Dennis says he is expecting to make the presentation to either Spain’s Sergio Garcia or Andres Romero of Argentina.

“It’s very important to keep the Open coming here,” he adds. “It’s important for the area as well, but for the members it’s the recognition that this course is one of the best in the land.

“The club always has an eye to make sure nothing’s left to lie. It’s not too difficult to get right, but it’s around the edges that the detail comes in.”

The course has been off-limits to members for the past two weeks. But, Dennis adds, the disruption is worth it because “the members get such a buzz”.

“Golf is one of the few games where you can walk in the footsteps of the masters. You can say ‘Tiger or Harrington are having this shot’.”

That meant, before the course closed for the Open, there was a spike in visitors keen to play the Championship course.