These are the last links with a journalistic career during which he served over 25 years

These are the last links with a journalistic career during which he served over 25 years as the golf correspondent of the Observer and the Guardian before shocking his colleagues seven years ago by announcing his retirement from newspapers to concentrate on designing golf courses.Still regarded as the doyen of world golf writing - his latest book, Well, I'll be Deemed, a hilarious but informative skit on the rules of golf is due out this autumn - he has added to his reputation as sage, philosopher, purveyor of discreet tips to the stars, and a leading authority on all golfing matters by proving that when it comes to expressing oneself about golf, the sward can be mightier than the pen. Dobereiner's reflections on the thesis provide the basis of his latest column in the leading American magazine, Golf Digest, in which he is a long established favourite and will also feature in his monthly offering in Britain's Golf World. Then, with the walking stick he keeps beside him, he gives the surrounding blankets and pillows a whack and then a few deft prods while explaining that he is reconstructing two holes at Turnberry that would greatly improve that course.The legendary Bernard Darwin engaged himself in similar therapy many years ago and wrote an essay about it called "The Links of Eiderdown". From the longest hole, 54 yards, to the shortest, a teasing 21-yarder, the course is riddled with problems to which the most accomplished golfers would not be accustomed and even Dobereiner is astonished and delighted at how much of a challenge and a leveller it is.Far from being a whim, his mission was based on a desire to prove that the game can flourish in the most unlikely places and real golf can be played on the shortest of courses. Throughout his career, he has been given to advancing the cause in directions most others would ignore and at Royal Lytham this week he would have been found expounding his evangelical views but he is confined to his bed by illness.Even recumbent, he finds no rest from his golfing obsessions.

Visitors can't fail to notice that his bed clothes seem untidily arranged. Neither the title of the Pratts Bottom Inaugural nor the explicit insignia deterred the tour's executive director, Ken Schofield, from performing the opening ceremony in front of an invited entry that included three former Ryder Cup players, John Jacobs, Michael King and John O'Leary.None of them found it easy. I've learnt a lot since then."Wasim has just turned 30 - a prime age to be captain, even if his game is beginning to show signs of wear and tear. The sado-manicurists may have the top end of the game in a stranglehold but golf abounds with a variety of opportunities to sample its delights and one of the more rare has recently been created by Peter Dobereiner at the bottom of his garden - nine holes cleverly and mischieviously routed through less than an acre of sloping land reclaimed from the nearest thing to a jungle to be found in Kent. Dobereiner's standing in the game is such that when he held an inaugural tournament on his handiwork recently the titled heads of the European Tour flocked to his home in Pratts Bottom, a name that delights him as much as his home.

They may not realise, however, that there are more ways to satisfy a lust for golf than to submit it to the mercy of a classically sculptured course of 7,000 yards' length, hemmed in by wicked rough and strewn with merciless hazards. Whatever golfing dramas the Open provides this week, the tournament will inevitably infect a countless number with a sudden urge to play the game. I've had some good Opens and that gives you a lot of confidence, but it is a new week. You just have to start from the first hole and try to keep it going."And if not Els, who else? "Faldo is the danger man. There are so many - Norman, Nick Price, Steve Jones who won the US Open There are so many guys, it is so hard to pick one Even Seve You never know He might find the magic.

He's won there twice, so maybe." It appears the man has a soft heart like the rest of us.. I felt that my swing wasn't very good and I saw Bob and asked if he could have a look at my swing. It's nothing major, but the things he told me about my swing made sense."The first two rounds of the Scottish Open were a fierce re-introduction to links golf and Els thought Carnoustie had beaten him until the cut rose to include his nine-over-par score. That allowed two more days' acclimatisation to the conditions he will experience this week "You have to get used it. I haven't played links golf since last year."That means keeping the ball low in the wind, and realising that a hole that plays two-iron, five-iron one day, cannot be reached with two drivers the next "I think I've got the game to win the Open.