Criminal behaviour. The Rolex clock on the fifth tee-box confirms the time at 11.0 a.m. and two yahoos are strolling down the fairway on the trail of the Tiger armed with plastic containers of Britain's finest lager.
The weather's criminal too, with the wind - a mite over 10 miles an hour from the north-west, for goodness sake - barely tossing the players' hair, and others on Tiger watch are slurping ice cream and fidgeting for sun cream out of back-packs. For good measure, Eldrick Tiger Woods is destroying the front nine holes on the Royal Birkdale links. Thirty strokes for the journey. Criminal, absolutely criminal.
Although, as if to prove he was human after all, Mr Woods took the opportunity of nipping into the portable loo beside the 10th tee-box immediately after hitting an iron down the fairway and before either of his playing partners bent down to put a tee-peg into the ground.
It was another day for the Tiger. Another day for his caddie Mike "Fluff" Cowan, a devotee of rock band The Grateful Dead, to be particularly grateful to the living - and his golfing meal ticket.
Team Nike, the essence of golfing fashion, were in overdrive. Woods (off-white top, black baseball cap) and his swoosh buddy Nick Price (navy top, white baseball cap) played and talked together and kept the third member of the group, PerUlrik Johansson - Team, ahem, Peak - very much in their shadows.
Every move Tiger makes is accompanied by a whirring of cameras. If he puts the chapstick to his lips, the cameras click. If he holes a putt and raises his fists with the middle finger of his right hand wrapped in a plaster to the surprisingly blue skies, the cameras click in unison. And, if, as happened on the 11th fairway, he hits a poor shot and utters the "s" word, with an accompanying grimace, the sound of cameras reaches a crescendo and resembles that of a helicopter at lift off.
Tigermania is alive and well on the Lancashire coast.
His influence is particularly evident among the kids kneeling under the ropes to catch a glimpse. Almost 50 per cent of the caps on their young heads bear his sign, and the players from around the world who'd competed in the Junior Open down the road at Formby earlier in the week are noticeable in their red shirts, and they have eyes only for one man. The Tiger.
"Come on, Woodsie."
Every few holes, the applause - almost reverential, with none of the hysteria and hoopla that accompanies his trips around American courses - was interrupted by an English accent intent on suggesting that he has a familiarity with Woods that no one else has. Woodsie? Somehow, it doesn't have the same ring as Tiger.
And, although he bogeyed the last hole, Tiger let everyone know yesterday that he has serious business by the seaside.
