CADDIE'S ROLE:I RETURNED to a scene of great glory last week outside Newport in Wales. It was one of the tightest finishes in Ryder Cup history when Europe narrowly prevailed over the US at the end of a sodden week in October two years ago at Celtic Manor.

I recall a decadent celebration on the clubhouse balcony on the Monday afternoon, drinking champagne from the dank golf shoes of the victorious European players as the ecstatic crowd below fuelled our thirst.

It was a memory that made my return even more underwhelming as the Twenty Ten Celtic Manor course looked a little barren without the accoutrements that accompany such a vast spectacle as the Ryder Cup. The Wales Open was going to have to conjure up something special to match even a smidgen of the atmosphere of the greatest event in Welsh sporting history of two years ago.

The mood may not have risen by Thursday last but the wind reached enough speed to get the afternoon competitors’ undivided attention. The Twenty Ten course wreaked havoc with a field of players, most of whom would only dream of competing in a Ryder Cup and whose heads were much closer to the reality of the day-to-day grind of tour golf on a tough day.

Amidst countless water holes and hardened greens with treacherous shaved banks releasing to the water, the 25mph wind whipping in a westerly direction down the Usk Valley was strong enough to send defending champion Alex Noren back to his native Sweden on Thursday night with a double-digit over par opening round. There was an abundance of high numbers accumulated on a wide spread of holes. Golf has little time for nostalgia. You are only as good as your last score in this fickle game.

Back in the calm of the clubhouse, I read an article in a British daily about the woes of Rory McIlroy with keen interest. I had steadied myself having been buffeted for five hours while following my player’s ball anxiously as it took off into the wild westerly during the first round of the Wales Open. Does anyone understand just how difficult this game of golf really is? Coupled with courses primed to test even the most able golfers in tournament play it is a wonder they bring in so many consistent scores so frequently.

For a player with the profile of Rory it is a mammoth task to perform as consistently as he does. He enjoyed a run of 13 top-five finishes in 15 events up till his slight blip at Sawgrass last month. Just like with professional basketball players, who are all very tall none of them look particularly so when you see them all together, their height is only apparent when you see them stand beside a person of average stature

If an average professional golfer plays to his potential two or three times a year it could be deemed a good overall year. These top golfers like Rory and Luke Donald are exceptionally consistent performers. Like the tall basketball players, when you put them beside average golfers on a weekly basis they stand out in terms of their consistency, even with temporary moments of mediocrity.

So when someone as good as Rory has a two-week hiccup, those who should know better, highlight the lack of form rather than celebrate that the form is rarely found lacking 60 per cent of the time. There has to be some level of reasonable assessment from those who commentate on a sport that television can often make look less complex than it really is.

Many are still caught up in the Tiger Woods nostalgia era when he dominated – he knew he would and so did everyone else. This happened to Vijay Singh in 2004 when he won nine events in the one season. Naturally it would not have been reasonable to expect him to follow on the next year with the same amount of victories. Out of 109 European Tour appearances Luke Donald has won seven times. Does that mean he has been a failure 102 times? It is therefore important that top golfers don’t pay too much heed to commentaries because as is the case with Rory, a few off weeks do not signify a slump. They do highlight the difficulty of being consistent in a game that is frequently one inches with the focus on the yards.

As we battled on the manicured grass alongside the untrimmed banks of the Usk river over the weekend, the dream of a single top-10 finish, let alone a marathon run of top five finishes, touched many of the average competitors’ imaginations and put McIlroy’s “slump” into perspective.

The Wales Open was a low-key European Tour event very much in stark contrast to the global spectacle of the Ryder Cup that was held there a couple of years ago. The sponsors, ISPS Handa, are not major corporate brands but rather an organisation founded by a Japanese philanthropist, Dr Haruhisa Handa. The noble mission of the sports society is to promote golf as a sport for blind and disabled people.

There may not have been enough people in Celtic Manor last week to generate an atmosphere to match the thrill of the Ryder Cup but the sentiment of encouraging disabled people to embrace golf as a form of expression is a gesture that puts the Wales Open on a higher level than simple corporate pursuits.