Open champion gets a standing ovation

Jul 24 2009 by Yonnie McInnes

NEW Open champion Stewart Cink – still clutching the famous Claret Jug – received a standing ovation when he walked into Turnberry Hotel’s dining room on Sunday evening.

Many of the world’s top golfers, including runner-up Tom Watson, stayed at the newly re-opened hotel last week.

Now Cink will join other former Turnberry Open winners Watson, Greg Norman and Nick Price – and have his name on the door at one of the hotel’s four new suites.

Had Watson won, he would have had the honour of having two suites named after him – Watson 77 and Watson 2009.

Stewart Selbie, the hotel’s general manager, said: “Everyone was rooting for Tom but we have a worthy Open winner in Cink.

“There was some very late dining going on in the hotel as many of the players had interviews to do after the late play-off.

“We are delighted that the R&A and the players have voted both this Open and our new hotel an enormous success.

“As from the hotel’s perspective it was certainly a baptism of fire but we pretty much got away with it.

“Our operations team had no service issues apart from a few small problems like difficulties with internet access.

“It just went incredibly smoothly and even commentator Peter Alliss gave us some fantastic comments on air.

“Both Peter Dawson, chief executive of the R&A, and Michael Brown, chairman of the championship committee, publicly acknowledged how great things had been on both sides of the road.”