Which events do you look forward to most during the year?
Is there a particular one?

Not really. I do like the US Open, there’s a good feeling about it. I enjoy doing some of the smaller ones too. I don’t do many of them but I do enjoy doing them because you see people you don’t see at the major tournaments. People who have come through the challenge tour and people through the qualifying school. So its important to go to some of those too.

One of the hot topics at the moment is how the game is modernising itself.
Do you think it needs to continue modernising or is it in danger of leaving traditions behind and damaging the integrity of the game?

It’s very difficult to stop progression, which is what the manufacturers will tell you it is. Tennis has been a bit more careful I think. I mean they could have a ball and a racket that could produce much more speed on the ball which would ruin tennis as a spectacle, so they have been very careful about that. I think now that its happened its very difficult to go back on it. I think long putters should be banned. There should be a certain circumference of a driver which is smaller than the bigger ones today. 60 degree wedges should be banned because I think they make difficult shots easier. The courses can do something to combat it but they haven’t done it. They put in a bunker at 320 yards, that catches out the 18 handicappers on his second shot. I think they should reduce par to 70 or 69 or 68 and do away with two par 5’s for sure, maybe even three, and all of a sudden you’re not going to hear of par 5’s which can be reached with a drive and a 9 iron.

Yeah I see no reason why not. For the club members the par of the course is 72. That’s what the handicap is based on. When the tour arrives it can change for the next four days and revert back as it normally is on a Monday morning. I think bunkers should be hazards, on nearly all American courses they aren’t. Colin Montgomerie introduced Carlton House last year at the Nissan, and that proper bunkers, and it was a terrific spectacle because when you went into the bunker you lost half a shot. They had to maybe play out 20 or 30 yards short of the green and rely on the short game. That’s the way things used to be, but bunkers are now designed by landscape designers, gardeners.

Some of the time players are aiming for the bunkers off the tee because it is easier to play the second out of the bunkers than the fairway simply because you can get more spin out of it. That’s nonsense. But we need to return to bunkers being hazards, we need to tighten up fairways... again that can be changed the day after tournaments and put back for the members. Reduce the par by a couple and all of a sudden you’ve got 5 or 6 under winning tournaments. I hate tournaments won by 23 or 24 under par because that means the test is too easy.