WHILE it was a crying shame that rain should interfere with an enthralling match between Durham and Yorkshire, the minor consolation in not having to rush to the cricket yesterday was to watch the BBC's early coverage of the Open.

As I am one of those beginning to question why I should pay a licence fee to a company who scarcely deserve it, at least the Open coverage will give me some return on my unwilling outlay.

I tuned in just in time to hear Peter Allis say: "It's been an extraordinary opening 40 minutes." He didn't elaborate, but it seemed to me that Tiger Woods' brow was a little more furrowed and his bottom lip protruding a little further than usual.

It quickly transpired that he had taken a triple bogey at the first, of which another commentator, Alex Hay, later observed: "I suppose if you're going to drop three shots it's best to do it at the first because you have another 71 cracks at getting it back."

The same could be said for the man who later took 11 at the opening hole, although I doubt whether he saw it that way.

The "extraordinary" events continued with Greg Norman punching his 4-iron second shot under the breeze to within a foot of the flag at the par five fourth to go three under par.

Perhaps it was Norman's presence which prompted another commentator to say that some of the biggest names in golf were at the top of the leaderboard. This was a surprising observation as the names included S K Ho and H Otto.

The South African Otto had teed off at 6.30 with the player who struck the first blow, Iain Pyman, who because of his Scarborough connections is as close to a North-Eastern presence as we usually get in the event. Except that this time Ashington's Kenneth Ferrie is there, which is just as well as all the region's would-be qualifiers failed to make it, as usual.

Ferrie, the first European Tour winner from this neck of the woods for 14 years, finished 14th in the Scottish Open at Loch Lomond last week, while Pyman was eighth, thereby earning his first crack at the Open since 1993, when he was leading amateur.

As these chaps don't exactly roll out of bed, swallow a mouthful of coffee and rush to the first tee with their shoelaces unfastened, it's a fair bet that Pyman and Otto were up by 5am.

It obviously didn't do Otto any harm, but his fellow early bird was risking jokes about Simple Simon with his ten over par score.

Patience is the key, we are boringly told, to winning around Royal St George's, which probably rules out John Daly. He quit his final practice round after three holes because it was taking too long. Or perhaps he just fancied a drink.

MEANWHILE back at the cricket, why on earth wasn't Michael Vaughan playing at Riverside this week? Are we to believe that captaining England in ten one-day internationals in 25 days has exhausted him and the other members of his squad with England contracts.

The top batsmen admit that they have to work on rebuilding their concentration after a period away from four or five-day cricket, and as Vaughan has yet to play a major innings this season a few hours at the Riverside crease would surely have benefited him ahead of the Test series.

Anthony McGrath was released because he doesn't have an England contract, and at least Vaughan's absence spared Yorkshire a tough decision. On form, the man they would have had to leave out would be the Indian, Yuvraj Singh.

WHEN the deadline for submitting bids to host the 2012 Olympics passed on Tuesday it was confirmed that London has eight rivals. They have all paid £60,000 and those who advance to the next round - which could be all of them - will have to make out another cheque for £300,000.

Then there's the not insubstantial salary being paid to London's bid leader, the American Barbara Cassani, who has to appoint a chief executive and install her team in offices at Canary Wharf, where rents are astronomical.

Yet after the Dome, Wembley and Pickets Lock fiascos, the suspicion lingers that we won't even be able to beat the least likely of our eight rivals, Havana.

A letter in a national broadsheet from a man who had run in the British 10k round the streets of London said: "We were led to believe this was in some small way part of our Olympic bid. Yet by the time many of us reached the two water stations supplies had run out."

Why are we not surprised by this?

FURTHER to my tirade about football agents, I heard Damien Duff's "business manager" on the radio yesterday saying there was still a lot of work to be done with regard to the player's transfer to Chelsea. This is agent-speak for: "I am trying to justify my existence."

Published: 18/07/2003