[mack]

TEE TIME
Late-night meal worthy experience
Ron Kroichick, San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, July 20, 2008

Southport, England -- No visit to jolly old England would be complete without a word or three about the food. As the running joke went all week, not many people contemplate their dinner options and enthusiastically declare, "Hey, let's get some English food!"

The best line in the ever-cynical media center came in the wake of Hank Gola's misfortune. Gola of the New York Daily News is probably the most avid player among the golf writers assembled here, so he was more than a little miffed when Continental Airlines lost his clubs on the journey across the Atlantic.

At one point, Continental told Gola his brand-new sticks (naturally) were in Rome. And one scribe quickly cracked, "See if the clubs can pick up a good meal and bring it over."

This is all in good fun, because the food actually has been fine. Lots of chicken, plenty of pasta, a good piece of fish at a cool little restaurant down the road.
Even the media-center cafe offers palatable choices, though the "mature cheddar salad" - a cheese sandwich, apparently - doesn't sound too appetizing.

Friday night, after lingering over the laptop until nearly 11 p.m., we hit the streets of Southport in search of fish and chips, just because it seemed obligatory. Most places were long since closed, but one bobby kindly directed me and a colleague to a suitable takeaway establishment. We ordered our food, looked over and saw Boo Weekley, the pride of tiny Milton, Fla.

Weekley, one of the most down-to-earth and engaging players on the PGA Tour, was there with his parents. He had missed the cut, bent his putter in frustration and now faced a golf-less weekend in England (Weekley said it was too expensive to change his return flight). But he still was in a cheery mood, because that's his nature.
So there we stood, scooping up the finest in greasy English cuisine while trading late-night small talk with a man from the rural South named Boo. Now the trip is complete.