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V. Kmetz

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Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« on: February 10, 2013, 12:40:17 AM »
From the 05 Open Championship at St. Andrews:

On a camera montage panning a younger section of face-painted crowd and dozens of Scottish flags:

"It looks at bit like 'Braveheart' all about.  I tell you, if William Wallace should come galloping out of the rushes - I'm off."

On Montgomerie's need to return low scores in The Loop (teeing off #9):

"Well yes, here it is; he's got an opportunity here, he's thinking 2-3-2 or -3-2-2...something like that. Mind you, more often than not, it comes out 5-6-5...5-6-7...8-9-10, Jack, Queen... (trails off)"

Pure unadulterated pleasure, listening to the man.

cheers

vk

"The tee shot must first be hit straight and long between a vast bunker on the left which whispers 'slice' in the player's ear, and a wilderness on the right which induces a hurried hook." -

Colin Macqueen

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Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2013, 01:08:42 AM »
VK,
 I've told this story before on GCA but can't find the thread so I apologise to all who are bored with the repetition!

My favourite memory of Peter Alliss's commentaries was when Peter Jacobsen tackled a nude streaker on the 18th. (I think) in one of The Opens during the eighties.
The streaker, successfully brought to the ground, was hauled back onto his feet by your quintessential British bobbie.  Now in those days the coppers still wore a helmet reminiscent of a pith helmet. This perspicacious policeman escorted the offender off the 18th. green all the while retaining the chap's dignity by covering the culprit's genitalia with aforementioned helmet.

All very good and of course  things had come to a stop as far as play was concerned. Filling in the slightly awkward silence Peter Alliss  declared in a solemn and droll manner to millions of viewers the world over…

"My, oh my. What a big, big fuss to make over such a little, little thing."

That wee nugget stuck in my mind.

Cheers Colin
"Golf, thou art a gentle sprite, I owe thee much"
The Hielander

Ronald Montesano

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Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2013, 08:37:34 AM »
I think he is still lost...anyone catch his rant when inducted into some hall last year?
Coming in 2024
~Elmira Country Club
~Soaring Eagles
~Bonavista
~Indian Hills
~Maybe some more!!

jeffwarne

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Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2013, 09:56:43 AM »
I think he is still lost...anyone catch his rant when inducted into some hall last year?

I'm gonna disagree with you on that front, Ron.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_HSJ8niuKE

Show me another man in his eighties that could address a crowd with that kind of charm and humour.

Alliss even when "lost", is far more witty, entertaining, and prescient than Johnny Miller has ever been.
That streaker line was priceless  (can't even imagine Miller describing that event, but somehow there'd be comparisons about his own "performance" or the "firmness" at Oakmont ;D)
Although I'm beginning to warm up to Johnny Miller as he softens and occasionally even realizes it's not about him.
"Let's slow the damned greens down a bit, not take the character out of them." Tom Doak
"Take their focus off the grass and put it squarely on interesting golf." Don Mahaffey

V. Kmetz

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Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #4 on: February 10, 2013, 10:09:34 AM »
I'm so pleased that I have 7 Open Championships on my own VHS, there's literally three dozen or more of Alliss' quips that double me over.  My significant other hears me cackling in the den, comes in says, "what are you watching?" - and sees a Golf tournament on the tube...can't figure it.

The absolute best I remember was from a Senior TPC in the early 90s...the leaders (and spectators, marshals, officials) were hunting for a ball in 10 foot high rushes and broken ground...after some moments of awkward silence, a cut away to another group, a return to the search party and in a hushed narrative voice reminiscent of a nature program, Alliss resignedly quips:

"The hunt continues. At this point, they're likely to find Sir David Attenborough in there."

cheers

vk
"The tee shot must first be hit straight and long between a vast bunker on the left which whispers 'slice' in the player's ear, and a wilderness on the right which induces a hurried hook." -

Rich Goodale

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Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #5 on: February 10, 2013, 10:15:38 AM »
Johnny Miller is to Allis as Allis was to Henry Longhurst.  No pundit will ever better Henry's immortal line when asked if he was OK whilst staggering to his commnetary booth after at least a half dozen large gins and tonic:

"I'll be fine just as long as they don't pair (Bernard) Hunt and (Neil) Coles....."
Life is good.

Any afterlife is unlikely and/or dodgy.

Jean-Paul Parodi

V. Kmetz

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #6 on: February 10, 2013, 10:34:49 AM »
lol...

the few clips I've gotten to experience of Longhurst are magical, but when I think about libations and the British commentator, I remember hearing the story about Ben Wright, getting so plastered at the Crosby clambake that he threw up his dentures into the toilet, flushed out to the Pacific, gone forever, and how CBS had the tee time of a prosthetic dentist playing in the Pro-am changed to make new ones in time for the broadcast.
"The tee shot must first be hit straight and long between a vast bunker on the left which whispers 'slice' in the player's ear, and a wilderness on the right which induces a hurried hook." -

Carl Johnson

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Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #7 on: February 10, 2013, 11:01:52 AM »
I think he is still lost...anyone catch his rant when inducted into some hall last year?

I'm gonna disagree with you on that front, Ron.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_HSJ8niuKE

Show me another man in his eighties that could address a crowd with that kind of charm and humour.

Agreed.  I just watched it for the first time.  A tiny rough in the humor a couple of times, but I think not inappropriate for the crowd to whom he was speaking.  Very enjoyable.  Ron, are you remembering something else?

Ronald Montesano

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Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #8 on: February 10, 2013, 11:03:31 AM »
"I'll be fine just as long as they don't pair (Bernard) Hunt and (Neil) Coles....."

That ends it today for me. Thanks, Rich (or Rihc, which is it?)
Coming in 2024
~Elmira Country Club
~Soaring Eagles
~Bonavista
~Indian Hills
~Maybe some more!!

Ronald Montesano

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Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #9 on: February 10, 2013, 11:07:21 AM »
"I think not inappropriate"

Carl, there are no longer "crowds to whom he was speaking." Once the cameras and microphones are on, those being honored or roasted are all subject to the desperate attention of the internet.

I haven't watched the clip that Brian put forth, so I can't say for certain that it's the one I reference. In addition, if he had imbibed a few and reached Joe Namath orbit, then I can certainly forgive him his detours.
Coming in 2024
~Elmira Country Club
~Soaring Eagles
~Bonavista
~Indian Hills
~Maybe some more!!

Dave McCollum

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Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #10 on: February 10, 2013, 11:55:57 AM »
I like the story of Longhurst and Aliss commentating at some ladies event.  They had three monitors in front of them.  One was showing an overview or flyover of a hole, the other two were following the action.  They thought the director was showing the overview on air.  

Aliss said “Lovely hole.”
Longhurst chimed in, “Yes, but it was quite a bit tighter back in my day.”

What the viewing public was actually seeing was a woman sinking a putt, then bending over and picking her ball out of the hole.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2013, 03:11:04 PM by Dave McCollum »

Sven Nilsen

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Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #11 on: February 10, 2013, 12:06:56 PM »
A collection of Longhurstisms:

They say "practice makes perfect". Of course, it doesn't. For the vast majority of golfers it merely consolidates imperfection.

There, but for the grace of God...
(Watching Doug Sanders miss a short putt to win the 1970 Open Championship)

Golfing excellence goes hand in hand with alcohol, as many an Open and Amateur champion has shown.

The most exquisitely satisfying act in the world of golf is that of throwing a club. The full backswing, the delayed wrist action, the flowing follow through, followed by that unique whirring sound, reminiscent only of a passing flock of starlings, are without parallel in sport.

Splosh! One of the finest sights in the world: the other man's ball dropping in the water - preferably so that he can see it but cannot quite reach it and has therefore to leave it there, thus rendering himself so mad that he loses the next hole as well.

Whatever anyone may care to say about golf, at least one thing is mercifully certain, namely it is a voluntary affair.

I have always believed there are far too many rules in golf. For me, if you cannot write them all on the back of a matchbox then something is wrong.

Golf, perhaps through its very slowness, can reach the most extraordinary heights of tenseness and drama.

Not until death has holed him out does the golfer abandon his search after the perfect game.

"Never had a lesson in my life" is a phrase uttered with smug satisfaction by a good many people. The correct reply is, of course, "That's why you are no better than you are."

But the bitter, inescapable truth remains. Once you've had 'em, you've got 'em.
(On the putting yips)

If you call on God to improve the results of a shot while it is still in motion, you are using `an outside agency' and subject to appropriate penalties under the rules of golf.

The answer to Hogan is, I fancy, that if Hogan means to win, you lose.

Sic transit Gloria.
(Referring to the defeat of Gloria Minoprio, the first lady to wear trousers for golf, in the 1933 English Women's Championship)

A forward press on the green... is one infallible characteristic of the very bad putter.

Playing golf is like learning a foreign language.

Golf is the Esperanto of sport. All over the world golfers talk the same language - much of it nonsense and much unprintable - endure the same frustrations, discover the same infallible secrets of putting, share the same illusory joys.

There is not the slightest doubt in my own mind that golf as played in the United States is the slowest in the world.

Fashions come and go in golf clubs as they do in clothes and often what is hailed as the latest thing is only a revival of what was all the rage 50 years ago. (In 1962)

No, it is match play, man against man, that is the true essence of golf. Beside it, stroke play, as a famous champion of earlier days contemptuously put it, is "no better than rifle shooting".

Every ball maker all over the world, according at any rate to the advertisments, makes a ball which goes farther than everybody else's.
(In 1966)

You mustn't blow your nose when your partner is addressing the ball.

His golf was fallible and impertinent, which endeared him to the common man.
(On Walter Hagen)

Walter Hagen goes down in history as the greatest exponent of the dramatic art of turning three shots into two.

I am sure there is no body of professional games players who so cheerfully know so little of the rules of their game as do professional golfers.
(In 1959)

It is doubtful that there was a man present at Birkdale [1961 British Open] who wanted Palmer to lose. It's impossible to overpraise the tact and charm with which this American has conducted himself on his two visits to Britain. He has no fancy airs or graces; he wears no fancy clothes; he makes no fancy speeches. He simply says and does exactly the right thing at the right time, and that is enough.

He's all hands and wrists, like a man dusting furniture.
(Of 1963 US Open winner Julius Boros)
"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

V. Kmetz

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #12 on: February 10, 2013, 12:46:20 PM »
Sven and David,

I am crying with laughter...the loving description of the club throw...that exchange with Alliss and Longhurst over the wrong camera shot...all of it, so f'n brilliant.

I've got to track down as much of this as I can.

cheers

vk
"The tee shot must first be hit straight and long between a vast bunker on the left which whispers 'slice' in the player's ear, and a wilderness on the right which induces a hurried hook." -

Ronald Montesano

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Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #13 on: February 10, 2013, 03:46:54 PM »
Don't think for a moment that Alliss and Hank did not know what was on camera. That exchange was not born of awkward fortune.
Coming in 2024
~Elmira Country Club
~Soaring Eagles
~Bonavista
~Indian Hills
~Maybe some more!!

Sven Nilsen

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Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #14 on: February 10, 2013, 03:53:04 PM »
The Boros description is my favorite.
"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

David Whitmer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #15 on: February 11, 2013, 09:00:21 PM »
My favorite from Peter Allis was at the start of the 4th round of the US Open at Medinah in 1990. Somebody was getting ready to tee off on #1 (Mike Donald or Billy Ray Brown, I think), and Peter was talking about how nervous he must be. Paraphrasing him, he says something like, "He's got to think, 'What's the worst thing that could happen to me here?' Well, I suppose the worst thing is someone could come out of the crowd and knock him over the head with a crowbar."

So irreverent, and so funny. I can still hear him saying it, 23 years later.

M. Shea Sweeney

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Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #16 on: February 11, 2013, 10:06:31 PM »
I think he is still lost...anyone catch his rant when inducted into some hall last year?

Ron-

If by "some hall" you mean the World Golf Hall of Fame, then you might want to watch the youtube clip.

If one does not enjoy that 15 or so minutes then I suspect they would feel the same of some old story telling from the likes of Darwin, Wind, Ward-Thomas, etc.

« Last Edit: February 11, 2013, 10:08:16 PM by M. Shea Sweeney »

Peter Pallotta

Re: Two Gems from Peter Alliss
« Reply #17 on: February 11, 2013, 10:20:41 PM »
Sven - thanks much for that great collection of Longhurst quotes. Here's an exchange from the 1975 Masters:


Ben Wright (off the cheers as Weiskopf birdies 15): "Ah, evil music to the ears of Mr. Nicklaus". 

Henry Longhurst (as Jack drills in a 40 footer on 16): "And now, young Mr. Weiskopf will have to take it, just as he dished it out".