There Will Always Be an Alliss

Every day, the one hour of TV coverage I try not to miss is the one in which Peter Alliss joins the crew. Frankly, I don't even care what he's saying. Already today he has burbled about how he got an e-mail from someone comparing K.J. Choi to Oddjob from James Bond's Goldfinger, how he and a camera operator friend used to "wrestle with a glass of Johnnie Walker," and how Sandy Lyle "lost the plot."

Rather, it's the way he says it. With those sonorous tones, he's in the great tradition of British voices who can read the telephone book (or, in this case, the leaderboard) and make it sound like a Shakespearean soliloquy. (I'm talking Albert Finney, Alan Rickman, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren.)

This is one of the great pleasures of the event, akin to the sight of the dogwoods and azaleas at Augusta.