Ian Pattinson, who was the R&A’s rules guru in the TV commentary box for 18 consecutive Opens, was saying how he used to take his "Rules of Golf" with him whenever he and his wife went out for dinner. Just as I was beginning to ponder on why his wife did not leave him and his rule book to dine alone, he began to elaborate.
People would recognise him from TV and hurry to his table for an opinion on one golfing muddle after another. Pattinson, in turn, would feel duty-bound to make a hurried check of the regulations to ensure that he was dishing out the right answers.
A lawyer and one whose three years as chairman of The R&A board and chairman of The Royal & Ancient itself come to an end in September, Pattinson has 100 percent been the right man for his double role at this stage of the game’s history. “The worst thing I had to do,” he said, “was to announce that the 2020 Open was not going to happen.”
Born in 1950, Pattinson went as a child to the Centenary Open at St Andrews in 1960 and now, 62 years later, he will be operating on all cylinders at the 150th edition of the championship on the legendary Old Course.
This once 2-handicap man was born into golf. His father, Reg Pattinson, was a fine amateur who qualified for the Open in 1946 at St Andrews and 1948 at Muirfield. In those days, the draws were legitimate instead of being arranged for TV purposes and, at Muirfield, Reg found himself playing alongside Sir Henry Cotton, with King George VI seeing them off from the first tee.
Where Reg opened in ’48 with a 75 and a 76, Cotton had a 71 and a 66 on his way to winning the last of his three Claret Jugs.
All along, Reg, who was a schoolmaster, was struck by the extent to which Cotton wanted to make life easier for his amateur playing companion on a day when the crowds barely noticed his existence. To give an example, Cotton’s way of stopping the spectators from rushing to the next tee the moment he, Cotton, had putted out, was to let Reg complete the hole before he did.
Pattinson’s memory of his father’s experience was such as to put one in mind of another genteel champion, Collin Morikawa. Last year’s winner took a genuine and touching interest in Matti Schmid’s golf and his Amateur medal at Royal St George’s.
When Pattinson started out as a rules official, it was the norm for a young referee to work two rounds a day, that in spite of the fact that rounds were taking as long as 5½ hours. Today, there are 75 referees at an Open rather than the old 40, and they do no more than 18 holes.
Pattinson’s first week of TV work was in 2004 at Troon, where one happening of particular interest to the viewers occurred at the 13th. As far as Pattinson can remember, Ernie Els was the player in question after his ball landed bang on top of the dividing wall between the course and the Glasgow-to-Ayr railway.
Among the many questions detonated by the situation was whether or not the ball was in bounds and, if it was considered to be inside the boundary line, could it be played from the top of the wall. (Yes, and yes again, are the answers, while what happened next was that Els took a penalty drop on the near side of the wall).
Because the odd incident could be too technical to untangle for a TV audience, Pattinson used to tell himself that he was trying to explain it to his mother-in-law. The latest generation of mothers-in-law might be up in arms at such a line but, to be fair, Pattinson did add that his mother-in-law was not a golfer.
At the ’98 Open hosted by Royal Birkdale, Hugh Campbell, a former Scottish Amateur champion and then the chairman of the Championship Committee, asked Pattinson to name his preferred group for the following day’s refereeing roster. Pattinson opted for Tom Watson, Seve Ballesteros and Steve Stricker, a top-notch trio if ever there were one.
Meanwhile, for one of the most interesting moments in the time of the Tiger, Pattinson went back to 2000 at St Andrews when he refereed the player’s Saturday 67 on an evening when the lights were twinkling in the clubhouse as they came up the 18th.
The trouble was that there was a payoff for that happy arrangement. The day after that – it was grey and drizzly – he was first out at 6:30. What is more, for the purposes of getting the pace of play off to a good start, he was expected to shepherd his party ’round 20 minutes inside the recommended time.
When Pattinson did the referee’s usual thing of introducing himself to the players on the first tee, one member of the party, Howard Clark, a Ryder Cup man who tends to be more fun off the course than on, was in no mood for such pleasantries. Instead, he had a question. “Do you have a light meter in your kit,” he asked.
“Why?” queried Pattinson.
“Because it’s too dark to play,” Clark said.
Alas, the player’s state of mind did not exactly take a turn for the better when he lost his ball on a hole where the ball spotters had positioned themselves in the wrong places. With that second incident coming on top of a flooded tee at the fourth – Pattinson eventually was given leave to move the tee boxes – this somewhat harrowing outing ended up exceeding the allotted time span by 25 minutes.
For someone who was at the other end of the spectrum when it came to all-round good will, Pattinson chose David Duval, the winner in 2001. Though it is 25 years since he last refereed for the player, Pattinson says that the American will always greet him by name and shake his hand.
It is the referee’s duty to wait outside the recording hut just in case there is a problem with one of the players’ cards, but when Tiger hurried out to have a word with Pattinson, it was to ask if the practice ground would still be open, and if so, for how long.
Going back to complicated rulings, Pattinson recalls being hugely impressed by a colleague who gave an immediate and authoritative opinion on a ruling with which he, Pattinson, was not familiar.
“I didn’t know the answer,” said the colleague. “I made it up.”
Top: Ian Pattinson, once a 2-handicapper, is dimming the light on his stint as R&A chairman.
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