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The best US Walker Cup team in history also might have been the most contentious

Golf Digest Middle East — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 12:38:30 +0000

The victorious USA team during the final day of the 1975 Walker Cup Matches on the Old Course at St Andrews. Peter Dazeley

Almost a half-century after its last visit, and exactly 100 years after its first, the Walker Cup is heading home. Back to the Home of Golf that is. For the first time since 1975, the match between the leading amateurs from the United States and those from Great Britain & Ireland will take place this weekend over the Old Course at St Andrews.

Time for a big call. Forget the 2007 American team that included Rickie Fowler, Billy Horschel, Dustin Johnson, Webb Simpson, Chris Kirk and Kyle Stanley. And dismiss the claims of a 2017 crew that boasted the likes of Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler, Will Zalatoris, Cameron Champ and Maverick McNealy. Both powerful squads, no doubt. But the 1975 side, it says here, is at least for now the best US Walker Cup team in history.

The evidence for that bold claim is vivid indeed. Three members of the 10-player squad led by captain Ed Updegraff went on to become major champions: Curtis Strange, Craig Stadler and Jerry Pate. And three more, George Burns, Jay Haas and Gary Koch, played with more than a little success professionally. In all, those six men won 57 PGA Tour events and four Grand Slam championships.

That’s impressive enough, but three of the four remaining members, Dick Siderowf, Vinny Giles and Bill Campbell, won either or both the US Amateur and British Amateur while remaining career amateurs. With John Grace (an eventual member of the Texas and Michigan Golf Halls of Fame) rounding out the squad, this was a team with real depth, top to bottom.

But it was also a group under an unusual level of pressure. Only four years before at St Andrews, the GB&I side had pulled off a massive upset of an American team boasting the likes of Tom Kite and Lanny Watkins to record what was their only Walker Cup victory between 1938 and 1989.

“There was a different vibe in our team going into the 1975 matches, if only because we had won in 1971,” says George MacGregor, a future R&A captain who played for GB&I both years. “Back then, it was quite unexpected. We hadn’t won in more than 30 years. So this time round there was a greater expectation.”

Equally, for the visitors, where Giles (age 32) and Campbell (age 52) were the lone returning players from 1971, a repeat of what was almost unthinkable would be, well, completely unthinkable in a series that today the US leads 38-9-1.

“Our captain had us over there early,” Koch, a 22-year-old at the time who played college golf at Florida, recalls. “We played a lot of practice rounds, more than once playing 36 holes a day. His theory was that the 1971 team did not know the course well enough. I think we got there Monday morning and we were out there twice a day. He had a plan that we needed to know the course as well as possible.”

That made sense, as more than half the US team (Koch included) had never before set foot on golf’s most famous course, a place notorious for its foibles and one where local knowledge is so often the difference between success and failure. But the Americans proved to be quick learners.

“We had to deal with things we had never seen before,” Strange, the reigning NCAA champion from Wake Forest and the youngest American on the team at 20, says. “You have to be there. You can’t get it from a book. The shots inside 100 yards were amazing to us. The trajectory was different. Then there was the bounce and roll of the ball after it landed. Over there, it’s a game played on the ground. We were all taken aback by the Valley of Sin on the 18th. Every day we all hit maybe a dozen balls, running the shots up there.”

Koch, too, was embarking on what has turned into a lifelong love affair with links golf. Twice, the Louisiana native would go on to be low American in the Open Championship.

“What was fun for me was that the course and the shots it asked us to hit got me into what I call ‘play mode’,” says the six-time PGA Tour winner. “Not ‘swing mode’. It was so different, bouncing the ball in. It brought out my creative side more than my analytic side.”

“When we arrived, I was looking out at the course and asking where we were going to play,” Haas, Strange’s 21-year-old teammate at Wake, adds. “I was told: ‘right there.’ I couldn’t believe it. It was brown and didn’t look like anything. And on our first practice round I’m not sure the cups hadn’t been moved in more than a week. The edges were all broken down. We were wondering what we had gotten ourselves into.”

Across the aisle, GB&I captain David Marsh (who played in ’71) was leading a side containing three other returnees (Scots Hugh Stuart and Charlie Green, and MacGregor) from 1971. But 48 years ago, the GB&I squad was amateur in the true sense of the word.

“The Walker Cup was a softer competition back then, much more than it is now,” Siderowf, 37 at the time, says today. “The atmosphere was different. Now it’s like a fight or a war.”

Recall if you will this was an era before GB&I players made their way to American universities as a highly competitive prelude to a professional career in golf. Of the home players, only future Ryder Cup captain Mark James — who claims to have “no memory” of a Walker Cup in which he won three points from his four games — would go on to any kind of success in the paid ranks. Seven of the 10 never turned professional.

“They didn’t have any college kids,” Haas confirms. “And some of them were in their 30s. We thought they were ancient.”

So the stage was set, one the younger members of the American side were determined to enjoy. Koch talks of trips into the Auld Grey Toon to sample fish suppers wrapped in newspaper. And Strange and Haas spent an enraptured hour watching legendary clubmaker Laurie Auchterlonie lovingly construct a wooden-headed driver.

Ah, but before play would even begin, there was trouble in the American camp. Immediately after the pairings for the first day’s sessions were announced at the opening ceremony on the eve of the event, Burns was stomping off in the direction of the Old Course Hotel. Expecting to feature in all four series, the then 25-year-old college golfer at Maryland was less than pleased to find his name omitted from the Wednesday’s Day 1 singles (interestingly, the matches were played on a Wednesday-Thursday that year).

So unhappy was Burns that he announced he was flying home and would not play in the opening foursomes alongside Stadler, a threat Siderowf and Giles heard after hustling down the 18th fairway in pursuit.

“George felt he was the best player on the team,” Giles says. “But Pate was the US Amateur champion and Curtis was NCAA champion. They had earned the right to play all four games. The plan was that everyone would play three times and they would play four. But Burns didn’t like that. Dick and I actually took him behind the hotel for a talk. George was a big strong boy and could have beat the hell out of both of us. But we got him to listen. He eventually came around.”

George Burns had to be coaxed by teammates to play after threatening to fly home when he learned he wasn’t going to start for the US team in all four sessions. Peter Dazeley

Not completely though. As Stadler tells it, Burns was still in a foul mood the following morning.

“Our tee time was 10am,” says the future Masters champion. “I was hitting balls around 9.40 and no one had seen George. So Bill Campbell and I got a cart over to the Old Course Hotel. We pounded on George’s door and it finally opened. We had about 12 minutes until we had to tee off. But George said he wasn’t going to play. He was so [angry] at being left off the previous morning.

“I told him to get his butt out of bed, into the cart and we were going to play. Still he wouldn’t come. ‘Bull, you’re not coming,” I said. ‘We’re going. Let’s go. I can’t do this by myself.’ After a bit more grumbling, I got him out of the room and into the cart. He didn’t hit any balls before we played, only a couple of putts. And we won 5&4. We obnoxiously destroyed them.”

Today, Burns acknowledges he didn’t make things easy for the American team, maturity having had its time-honoured effect on perspective. Still, he actually might have had a right to be shocked at being omitted. A little more than a month earlier, Burns finished low amateur in the Masters and the previous year he played a prominent role in the four-man US side’s victory at the World Amateur Team Championship. Later in 1975, he would lead the qualifying for the Open Championship at Carnoustie, finish T-10 there and win twice on the European Tour. Then, at year’s end, he finished second at the PGA Tour Q-School (which Pate won, with Koch T-3). Clearly, he was a player.

“I have to apologise for my conduct back then,” he says. “I made a big mistake there. But if my not playing one series had been discussed previously, that would not have been my reaction. It was never discussed, though, and I was taken by surprise. But I overreacted. As my dad would say: ‘I spoke before I thought.’ Giles, Siderowf and my dad tried to talk some sense into me. I just didn’t think it through, which I’m very sorry for.”

Still, amid the bad feeling there was, too, an amusing aspect to this sudden rift in the American ranks.

“Stadler’s reaction made everyone laugh,” Giles says. “He was George’s foursomes partner. So when George said he wasn’t going to play, Craig told everyone he would take the opponents on by himself. We let that go for about 10 minutes before we told him it was alternate shot. It never dawned on him.”

Burns wasn’t the only member of the US squad creating mild controversy. Pate, a renowned chatter-box not slow to, in the British vernacular, “toot his own horn”, was causing some embarrassment with his non-stop banter.

“Pate was a bit mouthy in the lunch room,” recalls a teammate who prefers to remain nameless. “Some of the language wasn’t exactly what you would want to hear in public. We called Campbell ‘the saint.’ And eventually he had had enough of Jerry, who never shut up. He was making comments to the waitresses and things like that. So Campbell took Jerry outside into the hallway and gave him a lecture. It was like a father-son meeting. Jerry was told to moderate his language and a whole host of other things too. We all thought that was very funny.”

Still, it should be noted that Pate’s high opinion of his own worth was shared by others in his team. Giles, for one, was a fan.

“I thought Pate was the best of them,” says the two-time US Amateur champion. “Had he not been hurt later, he would have been in the Hall of Fame. Curtis was comparable. His record speaks to that and he proved to be the best. But Pate was every bit as good. He was cocky as hell and had that ‘it’ factor. He wasn’t scared of anything. But he was a heavy load at St Andrews.”

Jerry Pate struggled during the week at St Andrews, finishing 0-4 while the US won 15 1/2-8 1/2. Peter Dazeley

Pate’s play didn’t necessarily live up to his own hype, losing all four of his matches. One week later, Pate would lose in the first round of the Amateur Championship, thereby completing a miserable trip across the Atlantic. “Pate was a great ball-striker, but I’m not sure links golf suited him,” says GB&I’s Ian Hutcheon, who defeated him in singles, 3&2. “He hit the ball high and didn’t get the ball on the ground quick enough.”

Which is not to say Pate was down for long, although his play did maintain a level of inconsistency unusual in such a fine player. One month after the Walker Cup, the Georgian was low amateur in the US Open, which he eventually won in 1976 en route to being the PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year.

While the visitors were weathering their various self-induced storms, the home team was readying itself like, well, amateurs. In slight mitigation, however, luck was not on their side. Originally selected to play on Day 1, Englishman Peter Hedges was hit by a revolving door at the team hotel, needed stitches in a head wound and ended up being withdrawn from the first two series. And the May 28-29 date meant the emerging talent that was then 17-year-old Nick Faldo would miss out. The future six-time major champion won a number of events that summer, including the English Amateur championship, but his run of form came too late for the Walker Cup.

“I don’t think we were nearly well enough prepared,” concludes Hutcheon, who would go on to win the individual title at the 1976 World Amateur. “Certainly not when you compare it to today. There wasn’t much thought put into the partnerships or order in which we were sent out. There was no sitting down for a team talk, no discussion about what ball we should use. And there was no sign of any psychologists. I don’t recall any expectation other than that we thought we might just win. But that was normal. Back then it was always a daunting task to face the Americans. We were a lot less familiar with them.”

Captains David Marsh (GB&I) and Ed Updegraff (US) speak to the press. Notice a young Renton Laidlaw listening in at the left. Peter Dazeley

Stuart, too, was struggling. The then-31-year-old arrived in St Andrews with his game a mess. Just three months before on the advice of swing coach John Jacobs he had made drastic changes to his address position.

“I couldn’t hit the bloody ball,” says Stuart who, like his fellow Scots, would emerge pointless from the two-day contest. “We had a weekend get together at St Andrews in April. The press were all there. I was hitting one shot 50 yards left, the next one 50 yards right. They thought I was mucking about. But I wasn’t. I cried in the car going home that night. But I went to the Walker Cup still persevering with that new address.”

For all his struggles, Stuart did at least influence the destination of one point. Playing with Green against Burns and Stadler, the Scots noticed that, on every green, the Americans would ask to change their ball, claiming it was “damaged.”

“We didn’t realise exactly what they were doing until we talked at lunch,” Stuart says. “They were changing from the wee ball to the big ball to putt, which was legal at that time. But we raised the issue. John Davies was playing Burns in the afternoon. On the first hole, Burns found the green with his approach. When he marked he shouted over that he was taking the ball out of play. Davies went over and told him it wasn’t damaged. So Burns had to putt with a small ball. And Davies beat him. The captain of the R&A referred to what they were doing at dinner that night. It caused a wee bit of a ripple.”

Amid all of these on- and off-course shenanigans, it was clear that the visiting side was, with something to spare, the superior team. The final score of 15.5-8.5 is a pretty fair reflection of the strengths on both sides, but it could have been worse for the home players. The Americans strode to convincing victory while “carrying” Pate, much to the amusement of his teammates. Even now, they never fail to remind him of his lack of success. And one shot in particular — the opening blow on the opening hole on the opening day — stands out.

“I had played the Old Course in all kinds of wind,” Pate says. “So I should have known better. Siderowf was telling me not to hit driver off the first tee in the first match. He knew it was too much club. But I went ahead and did it anyway. Sure enough, the ball finished in the burn near the Swilcan Bridge. So Dick’s first shot was taking a drop. My dad was there shaking his head. Needless to say, we lost that hole.”

It was, however, a false dawn for the home team. By the end of the next day, the US side had won three of the four series of matches and halved the other. It was a dominant performance by a stellar team packed with past, present and future stars, one “better than most” as Koch might say.

But the final word must go to Giles.

“You can look at more modern teams, but I still think the 1975 side has to be at least one of the strongest we’ve ever had,” says the now-80-year-old. “Today, if you were putting together that team, Campbell probably wouldn’t make it. He was still a heck of a player, but he was as much a leader as a player. So some hot-shot college player would get his spot now. But if someone was to say that side is still the strongest ever, I would not disagree.”

Not many would.

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Course expert reveals little-known facts about the famous Road Hole at St Andrews’ Old Course

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 04:38:47 +0000

The Road Hole at St Andrews. Golf Digest

The Old Course at St Andrews in Scotland rests on sand, not rock, but it might as well have been chiselled from rock, as little as the layout has changed in the course of the past 150 years. That would seem especially true of its 17th hole, the Road Hole, the long par 4 with a blind tee shot over buildings and an awkward approach to a diagonal perched green guarded by a piece of Tarmac and a wall on one side and a black-hole-looking bunker on the other.

Visually, there’s virtually no change between the hole as it existed in 1910 and as it exists today. But as we point out, subtle but significant changes to the Road Hole have occurred in the past century. Par dropped from 5 to 4 while its length increased. The blind tee shot was eliminated, then restored. Out of bounds stakes were established, but none anywhere near the road.

Watch the video below for all the facts.

Keep in mind a curious fact not mentioned. In 1948, the St Andrews Town Council passed a resolution to plant a row of Douglas firs along the 17th hole to obscure what they felt was an unsightly entrance to the railway yards. After a vigorous protest from local golfers, the idea was dropped, but just imagine how different the Road Hole would look today with a row of pine trees along its perimeter.

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WATCH: We’re pretty sure Tommy Fleetwood just pulled off a first at the Old Course (involving two golf balls)

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 07:28:13 +0000

By Alex Myers
As the Home of Golf, St Andrews has seen a lot of things through the years. Classic battles, historic performances and not one, but two golfers with a mullet hoisting the Claret Jug. But it’s possible Tommy Fleetwood did something there on Wednesday that’s never been seen in all the centuries the Old Course has been in existence.

During a practice round for this week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, Fleetwood found himself in a familiar — but uncomfortable — position over the back of the green on the famed Road Hole. But not only did Fleetwood manage to hole his pitch shot, he somehow knocked a second golf ball into the hole for a result you have to see to believe:

St Andrews is a magical place!! pic.twitter.com/uJI2w7BxcU

— Tommy Fleetwood (@TommyFleetwood1) September 28, 2022

“St Andrews is a magical place!!” Tommy tweeted with the video. No arguments here. That is pure sorcery right there, and one of the best unintentional trick shots we’ve ever seen.

Of course, there are people pointing to a possible backstopping violation here because that other ball near the hole wasn’t marked. But again, this isn’t the real tournament — and can’t we just enjoy something without picking it apart anymore?

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The stars are back at St Andrews. So what’s different about the Old Course they’ll face now compared to The Open in July?

Matt Smith — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 07:38:07 +0000

By John Huggan
A little more than three months on from the 150th Open Championship, the ever-moving caravan that is professional golf is back at the Old Course in St Andrews. But don’t expect this week’s Dunhill Links Championship to look anything like the game’s oldest major. Quite apart from the fact that the event is modelled on the PGA Tour’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and also involves rounds over Carnoustie and Kingsbarns, conditions overhead and underfoot will bear little resemblance to those Cameron Smith handled better than anyone else earlier this year.

For one thing, the weather is likely going to contrast more than a little. Enduring the remnants of Hurricane Ian, temperatures in Scotland have plummeted over the last few days. Gone are the shorts and T-shirts seen during the warmn July afternoons the R&A was blessed with, replaced by woolly hats and hoodies. If the forecast is to be believed — never a sure thing in Caledonia — the Dunhill field is likely to be buffeted by strong breezes over the coming days, as well suffering through a series of heavy showers.

Given all of that on top of the natural cooling that comes with autumn’s arrival, the Old Course will be a lot greener and softer than it was in July. So it will play a little longer for a strong field that contains Rory McIlroy, Matt Fitzpatrick, Shane Lowry, Billy Horschel, Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, Francesco Molinari, Danny Willett and just about every other leading member of the DP World Tour. Also in the field are Louis Oosthuizen, Talor Gooch and nine other LIV Golf members after a late scratch from Patrick Reed.

But length, as the world knows by now, is hardly the most fearsome aspect of the game for those at the sharp end of the sport. Still, although the course may be softer than it was in the summer, landing the ball short and running it up will still be a useful shot to own. Which will keep watching purists happy. The flighting of the shot and the bounce and roll of the ball after landing will remain the extra dimensions that makes links golf the most interesting form of the game.

Besides, when the wind is up, pure yardage means next to nothing. Into the wind, a 130-yard shot can become a 3-iron punch. Downwind, a 250-yard shot can be as little as a 7-iron. Look for some ‘interesting’ clubbing that will owe more to instinct, feel and visualisation than to exactly how much ground lies between ball and target. In the conditions likely to prevail this week, the yardage will be reduced to a mere starting point, before the real discussion and decision-making begins.

As for the scoring, as long as the weather isn’t too severe, the numbers are likely to be lower than we saw at the Open — where fears of course records were numerous. Eight-under-par 64s by Smith and runner-up Cameron Young turned out to be the best scores that week. But previous Dunhill Links Championships have been marked by some startling numbers. Most notably, former Ryder Cup player Ross Fisher shot a course-record 61 in 2017, a round that included a three-putt par on the 18th hole.

Again though, the vulnerability of a softened Old Course has more to do with the format of this week’s tournament than anything else. Play over the first three days is notoriously slow, each professional paired with an amateur partner. Rounds typically take up to six hours to complete. But it could be worse. Were the DP World Tour officials to employ the sorts of severe pin positions we saw at the Open, those times would likely creep towards seven hours. So it is that the flags will invariably flutter in the middle of the vast putting surfaces, at least for the first three days.

That sort of thing hasn’t always gone down well with the better players, of course. Benevolent course set-ups do tend to multiply the number of potential winners. You might recall McIlroy sounding off about this in the wake of his T-26 finish in the 2019 Dunhill.

“I’m honestly sick of coming back to Europe and shooting 15-under par and finishing about 30th,” said the Northern Irishman, who partnered his father, Gerry, in the team event (as he will again this week). “I don’t think the courses are set up hard enough. There’s no penalty for bad shots. It’s tough when you come back and it’s like that. I don’t feel like good golf is as well regarded as it should be.”

While McIlroy’s point might well have some validity, practicality and the lack of expertise inherent in the amateurs leaves the Old Course a little more susceptible to lower scoring than usual. If the wind abates even a little, Fisher’s record could well be in jeopardy.

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Look: The Open Championship then and now — compare and contrast

Matt Smith — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 12:27:10 +0000

By Matt Smith
They say the more things change, the more they stay the same — and that adage could not be more applicable to the Open Championship last week as golf’s oldest major celebrated its 150th outing.

The PGA Tour posted an intriguing image of the 18th green at St Andrews back in 1937 alongside one from Sunday on the Old Course.

The contrast is stark, with the 2022 colour image catching the eye with looming grandstands, garish sports gear cladding the players and fans alike, and a sea of mobile phones capturing the moment on the green.

But then the similarities creep in. Those traditional similarities that give this ancient tournament its resonance. The playing surface in both the black-and-white and colour images looks almost identical; the throng of spectators, while dressed differently, look on in deferential silence; and that famous clubhouse takes centre stage, hardly looking a day older despite the 85 years between the two snaps.

Technology, fashions and equipment may be ever-changing and advancing in golf, but some things stand the test of time to remind us where it all began.

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Open Championship 2022: How the 36-hole cut is determined at St Andrews

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 11:52:25 +0000

By Ryan Herrington
Cut day at the Open Championship brings with it plenty of stress and anxiety as players well down the leaderboard are still keeping a close eye on the scores to figure out where they stand, and whether the numbers they’re posting will be low enough to play on the weekend. Surprisingly, perhaps, at the Old Course, those numbers historically need to be pretty low.

The rules for who makes the cut at the Open are similar to those at the PGA Championship: low 70 players and ties advance to play all four rounds. This differs from the US Open, which makes the cut at low 60 and ties, and the Masters, which keeps the low 50 and ties around on the weekend. And there is no “10-stroke rule” in effect to help determine the British Open cut.

All this is, of course, particularly relevant for handful of the game’s more familiar names: Brooks Koepka (73), Tony Finau (73), Will Zalatoris (73), Jon Rahm (73), Sergio Garcia (75) and Tiger Woods (78). What are their chances of making Open Championship 36-hole cut and playing the weekend? Well if the cut was made after just 18 holes, you needed to shoot even-par 72 or better to be inside the top 70 and ties. With 54 players posting under-par scores in the first round, the projected cutline most likely even-par 144, with a possibility of a swing to one-under or even one-over depending on the second-reound scores. So all five in this group would have to shoot sub-par scores on Friday, with Woods needing at least 66.

As a point of reference, here’s what the Open Championship 36-hole cut line has been for the last 10 Opens:
2021: 141 (+1), Royal St George’s
2019: 143 (+1), Royal Portrush
2018: 145 (+3), Carnoustie
2017: 145 (+5), Royal Birkdale
2016: 146 (+4), Royal Troon
2015: 144 (E), St Andrews
2014: 146 (+2), Royal Liverpool
2013: 150 (+8), Muirfield
2012: 143 (+3), Royal Lytham & St Annes
2011: 143 (+3), Royal St. George’s

And here is the cut for the last five Opens at St Andrews:
2015: 144 (E)
2010: 146 (+2)
2005: 145 (+1)
2000: 144 (E)
1995: 148 (+4)

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WATCH: Ian Poulter’s record shot at the Open Championship — longest ever televised putt

Matt Smith — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 11:07:26 +0000

By Matt Smith
While LIV Golfer Ian Poulter got off to a rocky start during the opening round of the 150th Open at St Andrews — he was met with a smattering of boos on the first tee before almost shaking his first tee shot out of bounds on the widest fairway in golf — it was the Ryder Cup star who was soaking up the cheers by the time he reached the ninth hole.

On his way to a satisfactory three-under 69 — he saved par on the first — the Ryder Cup hero made a bit of history by holing the longest putt in televised professional golf on the tricky par 4, with a roar from the crowd showing how he had won them over.

Take a look:

Over 160ft?#The150thOpen pic.twitter.com/ZakuMSVB09

— The Open (@TheOpen) July 14, 2022

His eagle measured over 160ft, and even managed to garner a smirk from the famously uppity Englishman, who held a hand to his visor as if to illustrate how far the ball had travelled.

We will see if he is still smiling come Sunday.

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Open Championship 2022: WATCH — Haotong Li gets ridiculously good break, proceeds to make triple anyway

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 10:21:37 +0000

By Joel Beall

All things considered, it was a good break. Haotong Li still looked like he needed a hug.

A day after Tiger Woods’ approach shot fell into the Swilcan Burn, it appeared Li’s second shot at the Old Course’s first hole would suffer the same fate. But rather than sink into a watery grave, Li’s ball struck the burn’s wall … and ricocheted some 80 yards back in Li’s direction.

Off the stones in the burn and almost all the way back to him.

Haotong Li's reaction says it all. ? #TheOpen
?: @peacockTV pic.twitter.com/PisoTFZfEQ

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) July 15, 2022

“That’s just not playing fair is it,” crooned a Sky Sports announcer.

Which, hey, is better than taking a penalty drop! Li, however, gave a look like he had been betrayed, or maybe the better word is bamboozled.

And perhaps Li was still battling those feelings of duplicity, because rather than focus on the providence he received he proceeded to hit his third shot into the burn.

The final damage: a triple-bogey 7, a number that put Li far outside the cutline and a number he hasn’t been able to recover from.

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Open Championship 2022: The one painful part about playing an Open at St Andrews

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 07:48:08 +0000

Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa hang tight as they wait during their opening round at St Andrews. Stuart Franklin/R&A

By Dan Rapaport
To a man, the players are stoked to be here. The 150th Open Championship, at the Old Course, the Home of Golf. It’s storybook stuff. Something to tell your grandkids you played in. As good as it gets.

There is, however, one small drawback to playing a golf tournament on this most famous links. The golf itself takes a really, really long time. Threesomes on the PGA Tour average somewhere around 4 hours and 40 minutes, and while it’s almost always longer in majors — harder courses, bigger fields — Thursday at St Andrews was particularly slow. The threesome of Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa teed off at 9.58am local time, midway through the morning wave. The trio did not finish until 3.40pm, a full 5 hours and 42 minutes later.

Their first prolonged wait came on the par-5 fifth tee, when the threesome ahead (Jason Kokrak, Nicolai Hojgaard and Sihwan Kim) was still waiting to hit their tee shots as McIlroy, Schauffele and Morikawa finished out on 4. Instead of crowding the box further, they waited off to the right side of 4 and watched Justin Thomas, Viktor Hovland and Shane Lowry putt out behind them.

“I figured it would be slow, but I didn’t know it would be this slow,” said Morikawa, who putted poorly en route to an even-par 72. “We were waiting on groups at tees, waiting on fairways. Xander and I talked about it, we’re watching more golf than we ever have. You stay in the fairway, and you’re watching two other groups play golf.”

The reason behind the slowness is endemic to the Old Course, especially when it’s firm. Balls are rolling out so far on the baked turf this week that a number of par 4s are drivable, and both par 5s are reachable for virtually the entire field. The routing also doesn’t help either; the course always has holes running parallel to each other in opposite directions, with no trees to serve as barriers. Wayward shots on one hole inevitably find their way to another, which often leads to delays.

“I was not expecting it to wait on pretty much every hole on the back nine,” Schauffele said after a three-under 69. “I thought we handled those holes fairly well, considering the long wait there. But yeah, I guess when it’s firm and the ball’s rolling out to 400 yards, everyone’s going to wait.”

It will get better on the weekend, when half the field will have been weeded out and the rest are playing in twosomes. But it was even worse on Thursday afternoon — Tiger Woods, Max Homa and Matt Fitzpatrick’s round clocked in at 6 hours, 9 minutes.

“It’s just a joke, isn’t it?” Fitzpatrick said. “This just shouldn’t be happening ever in golf.”

Homa looked downright delirious after his one-over 73, dumbfounded at how long it took to play 18 holes.

“I felt like I needed to call my PT back and get him to stretch me back out. Yeah, it was … I felt like everything was like choppy, and it wasn’t easy to get into a rhythm. Fortunately, honestly, we all talked a lot, talked to [caddie] Joe [Greiner] a lot. Everybody was pretty chatty. Obviously we had to talk a lot. Yeah, I guess we are used to waiting. It was just an insane amount of waiting. But I don’t know, just catch up. I know what Matt’s doing for vacation or holiday, as he says. I guess I learned a lot about that.”

Apart from the first hour or so of tee times, everyone in the field dealt with the same predicament, and Shane Lowry wasn’t about to use the pace of play as an excuse for his 72.

“I’ve been doing this long enough to deal with days like today,” Lowry said. “If you’re standing there trying to make excuses for your bad day for being too long on the course, well, don’t come here and play, because it’s The Open at St Andrews, and it’s going to take six hours to play a round around here, and that’s just the way it is.”

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Open Championship 2022: How Rory McIlroy squeezed everything out of his opening round

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 05:42:03 +0000

By John Huggan
Nothing is for sure, of course. Not in golf. Not in the Open Championship. And certainly not at St Andrews, a place Rory McIlroy feels is the “fiddliest” course on the Open rota when things get hard and fast.

Fair enough. The Old Course is surely the quirkiest of that elite bunch. But no matter. Despite admitting that “fiddly” has not always been a forte of his, the four-time major champion was sounding an awful lot like someone who thinks he’ll never have a better chance of adding a fifth to his collection. Which is hardly surprising in the wake of an opening six-under-par 66 that has McIlroy nicely tucked-in behind early leader Cameron Young.

The Northern Irishman went as far as saying he feels like he has regained “ownership” of his swing and his game in the wake of what will perhaps be seen in hindsight as a little too much searching for something different and better. That’s all parts of his game, including the little shots and moments that make the difference between so-so and good, good and great.

“Just what you hope will happen when you’re starting off your week,” was McIlroy’s opening verdict on a round that contained seven 3s. “I did everything that you’re supposed to do around St Andrews. I birdied the holes that are birdieable. I made pars at the holes where you’re looking to make a par and move to the next tee. And I didn’t really put myself out of position too much. Overall, I’m really pleased. It’s another good start at a major. Three in a row for me now. So looking forward to the next few days.”

Indeed, McIlroy is an impressive 12-under par for first rounds in majors in 2022. That’s compared to 3-over from 2015-21.

Rory McIlroy tees off on the sixth hole on Thursday. Ross Kinnaird

Specifically, McIlroy emerged from each of those tricky, round-making shots he mentioned, partly because, when he did miss his spot he did so in the right place. As golfers have known for centuries now, position is everything on the Old Course and never more so than when the ball is running as far as it is this week. Yardages are relatively meaningless. And the lies are often so bare that even elite players sometimes fear the worst.

An example: Left with only a lob wedge to the formerly fearsome Road Hole green, even McIlroy’s mind wandered.

“On that second shot to 17, I had a full lob wedge in there,” he said. “But if I didn’t get it quite right, then I could have thinned the thing into the middle of the crowd. You’re up there leading the Open Championship and you’re worried about hitting a lob wedge out-of-bounds because of a bare lie on the fairway. So it never feels easy.”

That wasn’t the only instance of doubt either.

“There are pivotal moments in every round, little part of the round that just test you,” McIlroy went on. “I hit a good putt for birdie on the eighth hole, but hit it three feet by. I wasn’t really comfortable with the second putt, but I stepped up there and committed to it. It was a nice putt to hole.

“Every time the round did that to me today, I was able to come through,” he continued. “The two-putt from 60 feet for bogey on 13. The up-and-down for birdie on 14. And the two-putt on 17. Those show you where you’re at with everything, mentally and physically. I came through all those little tests today unscathed, and I’m really proud of that. So it might have looked easy, but there were certain parts of the round that were challenging.”

As for what comes next, that is perhaps the most interesting aspect of McIlroy’s challenge to win a second Open title. Those strong starts to majors he mentioned did not lead to eventual victory. So the challenge for Day 2 is simple.

“I just have to go out and play the same golf that I’ve played today, the same golf that I’ve played over the last few weeks,” McIlroy said. “I’ve been playing well. I’ve been swinging the club well. I’m pretty good at this game. I think I know what I’m doing. I just needed to take ownership of it all again. Which is where the freedom comes from. It’s better if I don’t think about it too much. I need to just go out and play golf and try to shoot some good scores on one of my favourite golf courses in the world.”

On the evidence of Thursday, you get the feeling he might just do that.

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