A frugal lot, the Scots. Especially when it comes to words and a Scottish policeman's use thereof.

Here is a record of the briskest dialogue I have ever shared: Me to a police sergeant at St Andrews on Sunday: what's the traffic going to be like when the Open finishes this evening? " Horrendous." Me again: any tips for beating it? "No."

So I took my chances and they looked desperate as thousands upon thousands of golf lovers morphed into motorists and attempted to find a way home. Some of them, I fear, may still be in a queue. I was in a very long queue indeed that was inching, literally inching, along a police-defined route.

There was a barrier across a road that I wanted to use and a young man, my all time favourite Scot, was manning it. When I reached him, a flash of journalistic inspiration caused me to call on my years of training as a liar, shove my Press pass under his nose and with what I hoped was a pathetic wheedle, I begged him to let me through to answer an emergency at the Press centre.

And he moved the barrier, ushered me through, and I then raced 11 miles to Coupar in not much more than an hour. I claim that speedy journey as a record for the last day of any Open Championship in the 30-odd years I have been attending them.

Having sat in my car at 7.15 pm, I was abed in Sutton Coldfield not much more than five hours later and I may yet face retribution for my scoundrelcy, for I fancy I saw a camera or two flash along the way.

Open Week is an extraordinary blink in the sporting calendar. It must be among the world's most arduous social events while, for some of us, for some of the time, it's a 14-hour a day slog.

It also features some of the finest golf that is ever played anywhere on this earth and the dramas, extraneous and on the course, make it a microcosm of life itself.

But it's changing and, apart from the golf, 2005 was the least enjoyable Open I have ever been to. Too much officialdom, too many people trying to do their jobs to the detriment of you trying to do yours.

The R&A may kiss Alliss's back seat; the money they fling around makes television a sacred cow. But the tribes of scribes have a hard time of it. We're just a nuisance these days.

The R&A Press office did send me this information on Tuesday, though. Which had been passed on from the Fife Constabulary who had called in 150 officers and support staff to make the Open work and to keep it safe from mass murderers.

Tiger Woods had a couple of coppers to himself, PCW Angie McLaren and Sgt Bob Yuill, if you're interested. The rest of the field were under general protection. Nothing happened, thank God, but you couldn't help wondering what contingency security plans there actually were for anyone could take almost anything on to the course on practice days and only one spectator's bag in four was being searched thereafter.

But as the Fife police said: "Our main concerns were making sure everyone travelling to and from the event could do so without congestion on the roads." Well, they couldn't. But that's the trouble with Open Championships: they're not played in designer stadiums with convenient parking for all.

They're played in little places that have limited access, unless, that is, you go by helicopter or come in from the sea.

Carnoustie lost the Open after 1975 because it couldn't cope. It can now - just - but six years have passed since their last championship.

Hoylake, that pinched little part of the Wirral, hasn't staged an Open since Roberto de Vicenzo won there 38 years ago. Hoylake is back on the rota next year on account of the facilities improving but getting there and getting from there isn't going to be a dawdle, that's for sure.

The Open Championship is always going to be a massive inconvenience, wherever it is staged and aren't we all relieved that the golf almost always make it worthwhile.

Oh yes! I forgot to mention. It was so hot in the first part of last week that the officers who were policing the Open drank 1,500 bottles of water.

However, no figures were issued about the number of bottles that the rest of us drank that were filled with something else.