TURNBERRY, Scotland – The press in the United Kingdom loves its scandals and a sport that normally avoids “tabloid” headlines was pulled into the muck this week.
Sandy Lyle’s non-apology to Colin Montgomerie produced the type of headlines the UK media is famous for.
“Golf gloves are off as two great Scots go to war over ‘cheat’ claim,” announced The Times.
Lyle stirred the pot when he followed his public apology for earlier comments regarding Montgomerie’s high-profile brush with a rules infraction at the 2005 Indonesia Open with a cryptic jab at the fellow Scot.
“I’m only going from what other people have said and it was a pretty poor drop,” Lyle said of Monty’s actions four years ago in Jakarta. “The problem was the drop was not close to where it should be. And, of course, TV doesn’t lie.”
And the print media in the UK doesn’t pull punches. Among Wednesday’s headlines, “Oops, he said it again,” proclaimed one publication and The Sun declared “Monty: Lyle is strange.”
Strange, indeed.
