Movie idea: Cocoon III. This Time It's Golf.

The premise? Tin Cup meets Grumpy Old Men. Starring Hale Irwin, the anti hero and only man to win a major tournament in golf wearing braces, eyeglasses AND contact lenses.

It goes like this: A group of old timers are hermetically sealed into a device (let's call it the Senior Tour) and after many years they return to earth and find all is changed, changed utterly.

Golf is ruled by a slender black guy who has just started shaving and who hasn't got a proper first name. They are undeterred. The old timers, clinging together for comfort, stick to what is comfortable: mainly jumpers, bad slacks and old jokes.

Scene: Cut to The Fifth Hole, Pebble Beach, California. Day Two of the US Open. Four groups of golfers are waiting to play this dinky little par three. Among them Hale Irwin, Tom Watson, Tom Kite and Jack Nicklaus, with Greg Norman lingering behind.

If lightning strikes this little promontory, half of golf's hall of fame will be wiped out and they'll never hold another tournament so busy will they be with the memorial ceremonies.

The fifth hole is a bottle neck like no other in golf. The Nicklaus group waits half an hour before they can tee off. The young 21-year-old amateur David Gossett is playing in Nicklaus' group.

He tees off. The hordes, who have come to see the old timers, watch the flight off the ball in absolute silence. Nicklaus tees off. Mutters the words, "sliced the bastard", picks up his tee and moves off looking sheepish.

Fifteen minutes pass. Gossett suddenly re-appears on the tee. Scarlet red. Ball lost. Teeing off for three. Down on the edge of the green Nicklaus is looking back, more sheepish than ever.

The fifth hole is his baby, designed and overseen by him. Irwin, Kite and Watson exchange glances and little smiles. Poor whippersnapper.

Scene: The old timers have been standing on the fifth tee for some time. The jokes are flowing.

"Can you let Byron Nelson play through there?" "Keep walking guys don't let that arthritis bite!" "Anyone need vitamins?" "Hey Is this the senior tour or the Alzheimers' Open? Anyone remember?"

Finally Tom Watson shoots. Tom Kite shoots. Then Hale Irwin steps up. Irwin is 55. He played more years on the PGA tour than Tiger Woods has lived through yet. Irwin has made $10 million on the Seniors Tour but you got to believe that the Seniors Tour doesn't quicken his pulse.

This is the business he lives for. He is the oldest winner of the US Open (45 years old, ten years ago) and today he is trespassing cheekily on the leaderboard. Two under at the fifth.

He takes a look at the hole that Jack built, takes a look around the gallery, then he plants the ball three feet from the flag. Perfection. Whoa Hale! says Tom Watson. Oh boy. Hot! Hot! Hot! says Kite. "Phew," says Hale Irwin, "after all that".

He looks better than he ever did, more like the big guy who was a rated defensive back for the University of Colorado. This will be his best moment of a long, long day for him (he had to get up at 4 a.m. to finish his first round) but he revelled in it. so did they all.

"You know," he says, "on the Senior Tour we have these nice relaxed starting times but this is the US Open. Ladies and gentlemen I'm just so excited to be here."

All day long the fog hovered like a bad thought over Pebble Beach, great puffy pillows of the stuff waiting to descend. Tiger was out late and the surly upstarts who would be Tiger were busy being charmless.

For most of the day the best fun by far was to be had with the greybeards, the guys who'd seen it all and appreciated it more than ever.