It’s the Open Championship, but if you’re American, no one will raise eyebrows if you refer to it as the British Open. For the rest of the golfing world, your columnist included, there’s really no debate on the ‘true test of golf’. You might argue that the passage of time can’t be held up as an accomplishment; certainly, the Open, the first edition of which was held on the windswept mounds and troughs of the Prestwick Golf Club in 1860, is the oldest golf championship in existence. But that’s more a testament to the event’s longevity, not its significance.
You might cite the brutal conditions on the third day of this year’s US Open at Shinnecock Hills as proof of that tournament’s claim as the toughest test in golf.
The Scots wouldn’t argue with that epithet: typical US Open venues—with ridiculously dried-out glassy surfaces, yawningly long yardages, and dense foliage in the second cut—can be rather excruciating, both for the players and viewers at home. There’s only so much fun to be derived from watching the best players in the world pummel the ball as hard as they can, suffer on the greens, and then survive a battle of attrition as the USGA gets all sadistic over the weekend. It’s quite a spectacle, the US Open is, but when it comes to the sporting tradition of that country, it finishes an inspired, but far second to the American version of football.
But I digress; the reason, at least in my mind (and I claim no legitimacy of spokesmanship for anyone else), that the Open Championship is the ‘true’ test is simply that it’s played in the milieu—terrain and weather—that ‘gowf’ was invented in. Players contend with each other, but the Claret Jug is usually hoisted by the player who’s able to surmount the weather (fickle at best) and unique challenges of links golf. The wind, blowing in all possible directions at different elevations at different times of day, befuddles even the most experienced players trying to navigate their way on the treeless, largely natural undulations of the deceptively harmless-looking strips of land running along the sea. Unlike golf courses in other parts of the world, there are few, if any, man-made challenges in links golf; why bother when the elements can do a far better job for you?
Not surprisingly, links golf asks very different questions of the players, the least of which is keeping the ball down to cheat the wind. The high soft lob into the green is mostly useless, replaced instead by the age-old, yet hard-to-master bump-and-run shot. And typically, guys who can putt it from 100 feet tend to do well at the Open Championship.
And while all of this augurs well for the Continental players, the Americans on the PGA Tour don’t get to play this brand of golf all that often. There are a number of links-style courses in the US, including Shinnecock Hills, Whistling Straits and Bandon Dunes, all Major Championship venues. The difference, though, between links-style, and the real deal will be all to apparent when the Open Championship tees it up at the beast that is Carnoustie this Thursday. Chalk and cheese.
Not surprisingly, no less than 50 players from the Open Championship field are already competing in Scotland. In the mix at the European Tour’s Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open that will culminate today at the Gullane Golf Club are 21 American and Australian players hoping to get their act together before the Open. Of that contingent, only Rickie Fowler looks supremely prepared for Carnoustie. Fowler, who won the 2015 Scottish Open is in fine fettle: striking it solidly, and putting on a sublime show with the flat stick. At the time this column is being written, Fowler is tied for fourth place at ten-under going into the weekend. He trails Englishman Robert Rock by three and is my pick for the Open amongst the overseas contingent; Fowler nearly won in 2014 and this could well be his year. It’s also been four long years since Ulsterman Rory McIlroy won a Major Championship. Just saying.
Let’s not forget our supremely talented Shubhankar Sharma whose astonishing exploits in this breakthrough year continue. Sharma isn’t fazed by the big stage, and is comfortable on links courses. His game has all the attributes needed at The Open: lots of flight-, spin- and ball-control, solid putting, sound course strategy, and an otherworldly unruffled demeanour. With the pressure on him somewhat easing up in the media, Sharma is in a good place. Whether that translates into a good finish remains to be seen.
Your columnist, meanwhile, is tooling around in Ayrshire, home to Prestwick among other historic links. After a baptism by wind and rain at the Gailes Links, he’s preparing for his next outing at Dundonald Links, the venue of the 2017 Scottish Open. Dundonald Links is a fantastic layout, and no matter how bad the mauling it metes out, the pain will pale in front of what some blokes will go through at Carnoustie. My course strategy consists of putting together a reasonably authentic outfit—tartan sweater, dandy knickers and a flat cap (that the Scots call a bunnet)—to be able to pass off as a Scot (from a distance) having a bad day on the course. It’s a foolproof plan, until it isn’t. More on that, and the Open, next.
A golfer, Meraj Shah also writes about the game.