KEY POINTS:
His mellifluous commentaries are as synonymous with golf as his countryman Bill McLaren's were to rugby.
Renton Laidlaw is the voice of the Golf Channel, an ardent Scot who is completing his 50th year writing or broadcasting about his favourite sport.
"It is no coincidence," he agreed, "having
a Scottish accent helps.
"Just as the Borders, rugby and Bill were linked, I think golf and the Scots are connected, after all they took the game to the world."
Laidlaw started as a trainee sub-editor with the Evening News in Edinburgh in 1957 and has since worked for the Evening Standard in London, the BBC and as frontman for the Golf Channel since 1995.
His switch to golf reporting for the News came after a casual conversation with his boss who was looking to ditch either golf or rugby.
"I said I would like to cover golf and my boss told me to grab my coat. We went down to the Prestonfield course in the centre of the city, where they were playing a tournament."
Laidlaw's boss introduced him to the relevant officials and then told his teenage reporter he needed his copy by lunchtime.
It was the start of a career which has kept him on the road for much of his life and still, at 67, with the thirst to keep going.
"I am fortunate that I can travel anywhere and not suffer jetlag and I also have a cast-iron stomach, I can eat anything," Laidlaw said. "If you were going to be a reporter on an international sport then I could think of nothing better than golf.
"It is a sport where players still talk to you, you can have dinner with them, you can build relationships and there is an integrity about the game. I am lucky I can work and travel at someone else's expense."
Laidlaw has had only one hiccup in that schedule, a couple of years ago when he developed septicemia after a hip operation and was later told he had cheated death by about 30 minutes. A heart bypass operation brought much less anxiety.
The broadcaster plays golf, his lowest handicap was 13 though his aim is to get into single figures. He is a member at Sunningdale and St Andrew's, courses he rates as his favourites in the world.
A natural raconteur, Laidlaw has enhanced that talent with plenty of research and is strong on any issues in the game.
Michelle Wie and the PGA tour: "I am not a great fan, she should stick to the women's tour and when she beats them and wins majors, then she should take on the men."
Golf equipment: "Many of the improvements have helped the amateurs and keep them playing the game. I think that technology has eliminated many of the shotmakers from golf."
Favourite golfer: "No question from a European point of view it would be Seve Ballesteros, while in the States there was no one like Jack Nicklaus."
Worst broadcasting gaffe: "At the PGA one year, Nick Faldo holed a putt to win it and I had been thinking how nice it would have been for Sandy Lyle [another Scot] to have done the same and promptly said Sandy Lyle had won the tournament. I very quickly corrected myself."
Best broadcaster: "Ken Brown has great insight and has perfected the on-course role while Peter Alliss' use of language, his authority and waspish manner helped him make a tremendous contribution."
