The team and the city are barely on speaking terms, each blaming the other for the fiasco. Washington state officials who first argued for the stadium now act like it doesn’t exist. Even the Safeco insurance company, which paid $40m for the name, must be pondering the wisdom of its investment.The bottom line is ominous. But it has ended up costing a whopping $517 million (pounds 340m), more than twice the original estimate when plans were hatched four years ago and a full $100m over the worst-case budget drawn up when the stadium was nearing completion.It is the most expensive sports stadium in the United States, and now somebody is going to have to pay for it. LAST THURSDAY, the Seattle Mariners opened a new baseball stadium worthy of Xanadu. The 44,000-strong crowd that piled into Safeco Field for the inaugural game against the San Diego Padres were treated to stunning sunset views of the city skyline and mountains, a demonstration of the fancy retractable roof, a firework display and a rousing concert by the Seattle Symphony.

The Mariners lost the game 3-2 – but that, as it turns out, was the least of anybody’s worries.
The real problem is the stadium. Sitting directly behind the Mariners’ old home, the dingy indoor Kingdome, Safeco certainly looks very nice with its elegant brickwork, its heatable grass surface in place of the Astroturf next door, and that 11,000-ton rolling roof to counter Seattle’s plentiful rain. “I know, because I tripped over him,” said Thomson.Carnoustie’s hotels have come on a bit since then. Thanks to the men in blazers, however, the course is not what it was.. But when Ado went for a pee in the night he inadvertently locked himself out, and, unwilling to disturb his host, kipped down in the corridor. Ado, a protege of Henry Cotton’s, also had a fine tournament there in 1953. He was an unsubtle but powerful player, whose strength, it was rumoured, came from carrying contraband over the Pyrenees.Not expecting to make the cut in the Open, Ado gave up his room in Dundee, so Roberto de Vicenzo invited him to share his room at the Station Hotel.

Indeed, Ben Hogan nearly went home to Texas when he found that he couldn’t pee without first taking a stroll along the corridor.Which brings us to Jean-Baptiste Ado. Jean van de Velde is not the first Frenchman to do well at Carnoustie. He stayed in the Station Hotel, which used to shudder when the London-Aberdeen express thundered by, and had no en-suite facilities. There was later some doubt about the provenance of the letter. But whether genuine or not, it had the desired effect.Similarly, suggested Thomson, old mischief-maker that he is, the Championship committee would think twice about tricking up the Open venue if the likes of Tiger Woods threatened to boycott the event.Thomson’s recollections of staying in Carnoustie during the 1953 Open (he was, remarkably, to win the claret jug in 1954, 1955 and 1956) would not strike much of a chord with his modern counterparts.

Years ago, he said, the leading pros were more inclined to flex their muscles.In 1967, according to Thomson, the R&A was more or less forced to permit the larger American ball to be used in the Open, after receiving a letter from the top American players, who threatened to pull out otherwise. “I think they may have crossed the line this time,” he said, meaning the line between toughness and unfairness. Thomson hoped that the players would kick up a stink before the Championship, forcing some last-minute adjustments to the course But he knew they wouldn’t “They’re too polite these days,” he complained. In short, they turned it from being hard to shoot even par to being nigh on impossible.What they did was like adding a skid pan to Silverstone, in the sense that it discouraged aggression and rewarded caution, which made the Open a less enjoyable spectacle than usual.I got my first taste of the brewing controversy a week ago today when I had lunch with the five-times Open champion Peter Thomson The great man had just come back from Carnoustie. Apparently, they commanded the greenkeepers to chuck fertiliser on the rough, which made even the sparse tufts just off the fairways look like Tina Turner on a bad hair day. The fairways were reduced, in places, to barely 10 yards in width. Rage, blow.” Was that King Lear, or a chap in blazer, flannels and R&A tie, standing on the first tee roaring at the heavens, just after dawn last Thursday morning?For the officials did all they could to turn Carnoustie into the severest challenge ever to confront the world’s best.