Some might find it curious that the Open Championship which begins at Lytham this morning is listed on the American PGA Tour calendar as a US Tour event, just as, for instance, the US Open appears in the diary of the European Tour. This is the result of a sensible accommodation struck some years ago, largely to ensure that the world's best players were not penalised for deserting their respective tours to play in golf's major events.

Their performance in the British Open, in fact, is applied toward the standings of aspiring American Ryder Cup participants, just as prospective European Ryder Cuppers can earn points toward qualification at, to use another example, the Masters in Augusta.

All of that is well and good, but when, a week from this morning, the Senior British Open is played at Royal Co Down, the event will be without a genuine threat from the top American seniors. The American and European Tours have yet to reach an accommodation that would ensure top-quality fields for both the British and US national championships for the over-50 set although it is high time that they did.

Surely Irish golf knows no better friend than Tom Watson, who would dearly love to be playing in Newcastle next week, but once the proceedings at Royal Lytham have concluded on Sunday, Watson will be winging his way back to the US.

Six weeks ago, the weekend he was in the process of winning the Senior PGA title at Ridgewood, Watson briefly but eloquently addressed the subject.

"Would I like to play the Senior British? You're darned right I would - and if it were designated a major, I would be playing in it."

"Should it be a major?" Watson paused to smile.

"No question about it. Of course it should."

Clearly, there is something wrong with a world in which a tournament called the Countrywide Tradition is considered a Senior major, but the Senior British Open is not. The problem seems to be that the respective tours have gone about deciding what is major and what is not, rather than leaving it to the players, the media, and the ultimate adjudicator in these matters, the court of public opinion.

A brief history lesson might be in order. Although the point seemed to be lost in the hullabaloo over whether Tiger Woods' four straight major titles did or did not constitute a Grand Slam, the fact of the matter is that the entire concept of modern-day Grand Slams and major titles only came about four decades ago, and was essentially cooked up during one transatlantic plane flight.

The year was 1960, and although Arnold Palmer had already won that year's Masters and US Open titles, the Pittsburgh Press did not deign to cover the British Open, an event it deemed of insufficient importance to its readers. Since his newspaper had declined to send Palmer's Boswell, the late Bob Drum, to St Andrews, Drum put in for a week's vacation and made the trip anyway, on his own time and at Palmer's expense.

En route the conversation turned to Bobby Jones' 1930 Grand Slam, and Drum noted that duplicating Jones' feat (which included the US and British Amateur championships) had become virtually impossible 30 years later, when virtually all of the world's best players were professionals.

Palmer suggested an alternative - a modern-day Grand Slam consisting of the US and British Opens, the Masters, and the American PGA Championship. Drum publicly aired the concept, which immediately gained widespread acceptance.

Palmer, who invented the concept of major titles, will be playing at Royal County Down. Although, at 71, he can hardly be considered competitive and probably won't survive the halfway cut, he left no doubt about where he stood on the subject.

"Should the Senior British Open be a major? Sure," Palmer snorted. "Hell, it is already. Any tournament that has 'British Open' in its name has to be a major."

An interesting sidelight to the concept of majors is, of course, that Palmer, having dreamed up the idea of a Grand Slam, failed to win it.

But although he was pipped by Kel Nagle in that 1960 Open, Arnie had put himself in position to win after the first three rounds, and as the story swept across America, even the editors of the Pittsburgh Press took notice.

They frantically tracked down Bob Drum and dispatched an urgent cable: NEED 1,500 WORDS ON PALMER.

The curmudgeonly Drum unhesitatingly fired back a wire: HOPE YOU GET THEM.