By MONTE DUTTON

The Open is on when America is awakening. It’s cool once a year to get out of bed, fix some breakfast and watch the world’s greatest golfers put their flaws on display.

The British royalty is on display. Everything seems to be Royal. Royal Troon, Royal & Ancient, Royal Birkdale, Royal Air Force, etc. Want to watch the ponies? Royal Ascot, naturally. I’ve never even worn an ascot, but you can bet it will be a royal one if I ever see fit.

Drought is seldom a problem on the Firth of Clyde.

The good news on Saturday morning was that the winds subsided. The bad news was that rain was on the way. Watching rainy golf is fun for fans who are not there, not unlike snowy (American) football games.

The Open expands the vocabulary with its myriad of references to heather, gorse, firths, shires, tams o’shanter and sloppy boggies (that being Scottish for bogeys).

Uhh. A sluhpy buhgey.

NASCAR announcers treat the possibility of rain as if it were a no-hitter. They don’t like to talk about it till it’s there. Golf announcers could be staff meteorologists.

Ah! The rain just hit.

A major golf telecast makes it look as if the worst players are the best players. When they show Clarence Jug at 16, it’s going in, and Clarence advances to plus-14. If someone advances into contention, he starts missing left and right.

I took the name above from the American telecaster who called the Claret Jug that. Clarence Jug sounds like a character of Charles Dickens.

I’m looking forward to a carefree day watching the quintessential Irishman, Shane Lowry, battle the elements.

Ah! The life of the fan!

I went to the Indianapolis 500 five times as a fan, 1988-92. The next year my job became writing about NASCAR. The year after that, NASCAR began racing at the world’s most famous track.

What another example of changing times.

The first few years, I don’t think the racing really mattered to anyone in the first years. Everyone was just happy to be there.

Personally, I enjoyed the simple pleasure of watching stock cars go through those four distinct turns, dipping low then drifting up the walls in the short chutes, cutting the corner and drafting out to the wall again into the long straights.

The early races were dramatic. Jeff Gordon won the first one before he was fully Jeff Gordon. Dale Earnhardt won the second one while he was fully Dale Earnhardt.

My most memorable Brickyard 400 moment was a weird one. In the first qualifying session, the first car on the track was a red and white Pontiac driven by one of the last of the independents, Houston, Texas’s H.B. Bailey. When he crossed the line, his time was fast enough to win the pole. Momentarily. Mistakenly, his speed had been electronically measured 20 mph faster than it was.

I can still remember the incredulous tone of Benny Parsons’ voice. Rick Mast won the pole. Bailey didn’t make the field.

For several years, the Brickyard 400, then run on the first Saturday in August, was a tougher ticket to buy than the 500. Then it all went south in one awful race, won by Jimmie Johnson in 2008. Goodyear’s tires were so mismatched to the cars and the track that teams had to change them every dozen laps or so. What a mess.

I wrote at the time that a lot of the fans stomping out angry would not return. I was right.

A Texas friend, a full-time lawyer and part-time country singer named Casey Thompson, took the family to Indy that year. I ate with them a day before the race. I haven’t talked to Casey in many years. I’m sure he never came back to Indy. I wonder if he ever went to another race.

Chapin-Newberry flexed its muscles Thursday night in banishing Spartanburg Post 28 from the American Legion baseball playoffs, 15-3, in game two.

The aforementioned two could scarcely have been more different. C-N (12-8) needed eight innings to win the former game, 1-0.

Of the 15 runs, third baseman Matthew Rollison drove in four. One of his four hits was a triple.

Clinton’s Carson Glenn pitched an inning in relief of winning pitcher Tripp Bollibon. Brett Young was 0/1 at the plate.

Spartanburg committed seven errors.

Chapin-Newberry won the opener on Wednesday, requiring eight innings to slip past Post 28, 1-0, on Jack Coletti’s game-ending base hit with one out in the bottom half.

The game’s only run was unearned, off hard-luck loser Campbell Whitener.

Jacob Clark picked up the win for 193/24, pitching the top of the eighth in relief of T Stephenson, who allowed five hits and a walk in seven innings, with 10 strikeouts.

The visitors outhit Chapin-Newberry, 5-4. Right fielder Cooper Raines was the only player in the game with two hits. Both were doubles, as were C-N’s other two hits.

Inman had endless hits on special on Friday night in a series-opening 13-11 victory over Greenwood Post 20.

In a losing cause, ex-Raiders Jackson Martin (3/4, 3 RB) and Jaedon Goodwin (2/4, 2 RBI) got in the action. The Braves first baseman, Evan Avery, was 3/4 and drove four runs home.

And Greenwood (5-11) lost.

All nine of the Braves’ hits were singles. Three of Post 45’s 12 were doubles.

The teams combined for nine runs in the first inning, and the lead changed hands eight times.

As in the other series, game two in Greenwood was vastly different from the first as the Braves, courtesy a sixth-inning, three-run triple by Martin, won, 5-0, and forced a third game.

Post 20 scored five runs in the inning, which began with the score tied.

Brayden Shealy tossed a one-hitter, with three walks and four strikeouts for Greenwood (6-11).

Goodwin walked twice and scored a run.

Reliever Hayden Lister took the loss.

The series is to be decided on Sunday at 2 p.m. in Inman.

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