Through his ill-tempered behaviour in digging up the turf of the Old Course, quite apart from his slide down to a share of 36th place, Sergio Garcia did little to boost the prospective TV ratings for his so-called "Battle at Bighorn" against Tiger Woods on August 28th. But the ABC network are hoping that the enormous appeal of Woods on his own, will carry the day.

They pushed the event repeatedly during their telecast of the British Open from St Andrews last weekend. And all the while, Woods was attracting record viewing figures for Sunday, despite the unattractive local time of 10.0a.m. to 2.00p.m.

In fact the figures, which were up 32 per cent on last year, were the highest at least since 1989, when another American, Mark Calcavecchia, won at Royal Troon after a thrilling, four-hole aggregate play-off with Greg Norman and Wayne Grady. A broader view is that the figures are the highest ever for a US network.

"The difficulty with this case is that the player is so incompetent that every time he strikes the ball, there's an obvious risk to anyone in front of him."

A Hong Kong judge finding in favour of a caddie who had claimed compensation for being hit in the mouth by a ball.