As economic gloom turns to full-blown recession and the Government rewrites formerly stringent rules which allow it to increase the national debt, there are few sports immune from the credit crunch’s unwelcome attention.

Fears that Tiger Woods’s enforced absence from the Open would have a marked negative impact on attendance numbers at Royal Birkdale were dispelled yesterday when R & A officials described last-minute ticket sales as brisk.

For almost two years, the US housing market has had to contend with a succession of bad news, falling prices and depressing, longer-term growth forecasts.