But I made him take it round his legs like that Yank, [John] Daly, and he started hitting with a draw. He was so pleased he said ‘come in the clubhouse and take a spot of tea with me’ He took his own tea caddy everywhere with him Priceless bloody thing. Solid silver.”Who had the finest swing he has ever seen? “There was only one. Without any doubt it was Dick Burton, who won the Open in 1939 That was the only swing I ever enjoyed watching. Tiger Woods and these modern chaps slash at it so fast, but that was the finest, smoothest swing the world has ever seen His hands were a foot above his shoulders on his backswing No, Woods is not in the same class as Dick Burton Christ, it was a beautiful swing But by 1946 he’d lost it. Must have had a bad war.”Faulkner, by now as steady as a rock, starts on a new half-pint of bitter.

I invite him to name his dream fourball, the one he’d like to play in for eternity when he gets to those celestial links. “My father, Dick Burton and Hassan Hassanain, lovely fella, Egyptian, killed himself blowing up his cooker Another bloody marvellous swing. He started playing golf in bare feet on the sand by the Cheops Pyramid, you see, so his feet never moved. Hit from his hips.”Not for Faulkner a fantasy fourball with Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus and Sam Snead, in fact he probably couldn’t think of anything worse “Snead? An ignorant bloody chap He did me in the 1951 Ryder Cup, a 67 to my 71. I’d been up on any of the rest, Yanks or British, but I was four down. In the afternoon I got him back to two down but he had two ruddy birdies running and did me 4 and 3.

Then we went to the North and South Open, where he and I were playing with Dick Chapman, the amateur champion, who stood on the last tee wanting a four for a 68. He teed up the ball and asked if he could wait for a gust of wind to die down.”I said ‘of course, no problem’ but Snead walked across, kicked Chapman’s ball off its tee, teed up his own ball, didn’t bother to address it and hit it up the middle He wanted a four for a 78, you see. Anyway, he knocked his putt in with one hand, handed his scorecard to Chapman and said ‘fill it in yourself, I’m off’ There was a hell of a bloody row about that. I was stripped off having a shower when Snead came in and said ‘what did you report me for?’ He’d been ordered to apologise, you see Dick Chapman must have reported him Well, I’d been a middleweight in the RAF My dad taught me to box.