Within the scorecard holder which sits in my back pocket every time I play golf is a piece of paper. On that piece of paper are 13 different numbers, one for each club in my bag. It’s been there since last year, after I went through a relatively painstaking process of hitting 20 shots with each club, on a launch monitor, and averaging out the distances for every club in my bag (minus my putter, of course).

I’ve come to depend on it. I’d probably surrender half the clubs in my bag before that piece of paper. Knowing my exact yardages with every club has legitimately helped me — until last week.

Sneaking in a few rounds in the neighbouring links courses around Royal Liverpool with some fellow Golf Digest staffers (we call these “research rounds”), it immediately became clear how worthless that piece of paper was on those courses. For the first time since I jotted those numbers down, I played golf never bothering to consider it.

So much golf, from the PGA Tour et al. is a game of execution. Picking a spot, and trying to hit it to that number. Like throwing a dart at the centre of a dartboard, your success or failure starts and ends with you alone.

Links golf is different. A certain wind will send a driver across a fairway, rather than down it. Or float it high and away into nowhere. Links courses can turn a 9-iron into a 5-iron, and a 5-iron into the best sand wedge in your bag.

Mastering most golf courses means imposing your will as a golfer on to the layout. Links golf requires a meshing with what’s in front of you, in that current moment. Sometimes that means putting the driver away for good, as Tiger Woods did when he won at Royal Liverpool in 2006. Other times, it may mean calling upon a shot you may have never played before. Never does it require scribbling numbers on to a piece of paper.

“There are several different options to play each golf hole,” Brian Harman said of Royal Liverpool. “If you’re into the wind you can hit way more club and send it up in the air to try to stop it, or you can try to finesse something lower. I enjoy the variety of shots you have to hit.”

There’s a famous quote from the legendary British golf writer, Bernard Darwin, that the elements at Hoylake make Royal Liverpool a “breeder of great champions”. The history certainly backs it up, from Walter Hagan to Bobby Jones, to Peter Thompson, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

Brian Harman isn’t the name you’d expect to follow on that list. But standing in the rain as the 36 year-old hoisted the claret jug, Hoylake had done it again. Brian Harman was the man who forsook the formulas and mastered his feel instead. It’s the only way to conquer the elements of links golf. And in doing so Harman proved he is, undoubtedly, a great champion.

1. Good putting is boring putting

There was a lot of talk about putting at Royal Liverpool. Scottie Scheffler couldn’t make putts. Neither could Rory McIlroy, or Tommy Fleetwood. Brian Harman could, so he won.
Harman was, indeed, a tremendous putter at Royal Liverpool. But what, exactly, does that mean?
When most of us think about “good putting”, we think of draining long putts, and walking in 20-footers for birdie. Harman’s stats tell a different story. He gained 11.57 strokes on the green last week, but the longest putt he dropped all week was just over 30 feet. Rory McIlroy dropped two putts longer than that over those same 72 holes. So did Scheffler, and 29 other players.
Harman’s elite putting performance instead was predicated on making the boring, extraordinary. He didn’t have a three putt. He missed just one putt inside 10 feet, and none inside of five feet. When you do that, no one else can stand a chance.
“I expect to make those putts,” he said.
The problem the rest of us have is that we expect to make the wrong putts. Sure, it’s fun to drop 15 and 20 footers, but missing those doesn’t really matter, in the scheme of things. Making more of those putts five and 10 feet. Missing those are the killer of good rounds, and the key to avoiding bad ones.
Good putting doesn’t mean dropping bombs. It means making lots of little ones.

Travis Smyth. The Open Twitter

2. Know how to ditch spin in a hurry

Every time a golfer hits a ball, it flies into the air with backspin. It’s backspin that keeps the ball in the air. Of course, that’s not what you want when the wind starts gusting, as it did early during Open Championship week.
Killing lots of spin in a hurry strikes me as a pretty essential skill, for all golfers. This week, most pros I talked to said they generally settle on a combination of taking more club, swinging softer, and teeing the ball slightly higher (the ball being propped up in the rough has the same effect).
“When you’re trying to hit a low one, you are coming in quite steep. It’s easier off a tee, so you’re not catching the ground instantly at impact, which will create spin, which into the wind you don’t want to do,” said Travis Smyth after his hole-in-one on the 17th hole. “I took an extra club and chipped it.”
Simple enough, and something to keep in mind the next time you find yourself facing a stiff breeze.

3. Distance varies way more than you think

Of course, reducing your spin only mitigates the effects of an into wind shot. Ultimately, if you’re into wind, the ball is going to go shorter. Same with if it’s raining. Watching the pros slog it out on Sunday made me realise that the rest of us have a woeful under-appreciation for how much the rain, or wind, will affect our shots.
The reality is a player could be capable of hitting it 320 yards one day, but put that same player in certain elements, and they may struggle to crack 250 yards — as Rory McIlroy proved.

Rory's drive on the first hole in calm weather yesterday:

316 yards, 132 yards in

Rory's drive on the first hole in pouring rain today:

250 yards, 208 yards in pic.twitter.com/WMeOLASphr

— LKD (@LukeKerrDineen) July 23, 2023

“If it’s raining a little heavier, an iron could easily go 20 yards shorter,” Sepp Straka, who finished T-2.
Sure, into the wind, the rest of us will take an extra club. Maybe two. Really, there should be time when we take five extra clubs, or expect a 70-yard decrease on a given drive. It’s uncomfortable to think about, but it’s half the battle when playing in the elements. And it’s something pros don’t think twice about.

4. It’s the external factors that kill you

If you’ve noticed so far, a lot of the things I learnt have to do with external factors. All the stuff that’s out there. There are lots of things out there, especially during Opens, and it’s easy to let them screw us up.
Even for pros.
For Emiliano Grillo, it was the wind on the driving range. It was blowing left-to-right most days. Perfect to counteract his draw. Then he stands up on the second hole, and for the first time, finds the wind blowing right-to-left toward out of bounds. That baby draw which was flying straight on the range is about to turn into a hook.
“It’s so hard to make the switch,” he said. “Standing on the second hole, I bailed out right both days. I probably hit my ball 100 yards right.”
For Max Homa, it was the hassle of moving everything around in the rain.
“The umbrella to the glove to the yardage book to the umbrella, it just gets tiring holding the dang thing and shuffling it around,” he said after I asked him the most difficult part of playing in the rain. “You just feel very out of sorts. It takes a few holes to get going.”
Yet both those players had their best Open Championship finish ever. As did Ben An, who says it was always unlucky bounces that would often send his rounds into a mental, downhill spiral. He said things only started to change recently, when he accepted those will happen and there’s nothing he’ll be able to do about it. The central skill in golf isn’t avoiding them altogether, but sucking them up and moving on when they do happen.
“I realised I usually get beaten by the golf course, not by other players,” he says. “I still have to work very hard on it, but I don’t lose my mind as much as I did before … It’s not perfect, but you have to learn to let it go, like what are you going to do next.”

5. Go short or long of trouble, but never around

The third hole is a quirky layout where an old racetrack used to be. A wall signifying out of bounds cuts in from the right at about 250 yards. During the previous two Opens at Royal Liverpool, players would hit a no-brainer iron miles short of it. This year, for the first time, players had introduced a third strategy: Sending a driver over the out of bounds, over the fairway, into the rough. Amateur Christo Lamprecht, who won the silver medal for low amateur after leading through 18 hole, opted for that strategy on day one. He birdied the hole.

 

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“It makes sense,” Bryson DeChambeau says. “You can take the OB out of play every time that way.”
While some players opted for ‘over it’ strategy the first two days, they abandoned it once the weekend rain came. But this was an interesting insight how they think about avoiding absolute, no-go areas like out of bounds: When trying to avoid a hazard, you need to either hit something short that has no chance of going into the hazard long, or something so long that it has no chance of catching the hazard short. Don’t flirt with it, and don’t try going around it.
On a slightly separate note, many proponents of a golf ball rollback would point to something like this as evidence the golf ball does need to get rolled back. I’m not unconvinced by that argument, but in this case, I’m just not sure that would tell the entire story.
Being able to go over everything does give this hole different shot options, which is the guiding principle for so much of the rollback debate. And because that ‘go for it’ option only requires a carry of about 260 yards, it’s a feat most long hitters could accomplish even with a persimmon driver — especially with the right wind.
Rather, this strategy exists now and not before because golfers in 2023 understand the statistical value of being in the rough, if it means being closer to the hole.
“There is typically something bad in play, constantly, so you might as well get it as close to the hole as you can,” says Scott Fawcett, the founder of Decade Golf. “Especially in major championship golf.”
Intentionally trying to hit your ball in the rough is simply not an idea which made sense until we had data that proved why it can. Wherever you may land on the rollback debate, that genie isn’t going back in the bottle.

6. Fully commit to a feeling that works

As often happens with these articles, I’m quickly approaching my word limit, so a quick note on how much I love that Adrian Otegui put this rehearsal practice backswing move into play because he liked the feeling of it in a practice round. He noticed his backswing getting too short. This helped him commit to the feeling of a full turn, in the final seconds it was time to swing.

Instead of waggles, Adrián Otaegui makes a full backswing while he’s over the ball. Then stops, resets, and swings.

“It’s new. It’s a feeling I had in practice rounds. I quite like the feeling, used it on the driving range, then introduced it into my routine.”

Practice vs real pic.twitter.com/QEBWIDHnLd

— LKD (@LukeKerrDineen) July 21, 2023

A good reminder, that it doesn’t matter how something looks if it helps your swing feels.

7. Trust the process

I find it increasingly weird how, whenever Rory McIlroy gets into major contention and doesn’t win, pundits immediately reach for some mental platitude. It’s always some variation of Rory not being able to handle the pressure, or wanting it too much, or not wanting it enough, or lacking the killer instinct.
But what, exactly, does that mean?
Rory isn’t standing over a golf ball, thinking about how much making this putt would mean to him. None of these guys are, and they shouldn’t be, either. They may feel nervous, but that’s natural and normal. Even when they feel the nerves, they’re not trying to do anything different. “Process” was the word Rory McIlroy kept returning to during his Hoylake victory in 2014. It’s the same process he’s focusing on in 2023.
The truth is, the whole ‘he can’t handle the heat’ mental stuff is just a thing that people say who don’t want to look at the real reasons, so they make up catchy ones instead.
As far as I can see it, in Rory’s case, he’s a very, very good player (obviously). The key reason McIlroy is so good is because of his golf swing. He’s not the biggest guy, but he can hit his ball enormous distances because of how dynamic his golf swing is. But that dynamism also leads to occasional streaky ball-striking patches, especially off the tee. That’s what we saw during the early part of this season. That’s why to some outsiders, Rory can run hot and cold from round to round. It’s worth the trade.
Other times, he’ll struggle with consistent contact on his putting — that’s what happened on Saturday. Every player has different tendencies which pop up from time to time. This is Rory’s.

 

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Occasionally Rory also has a tendency, I think, to play too safe at certain times. Some variation of all of the above can explain most of McIlroy’s recent major near-misses.
The only way to win majors in the modern era is to fire on all cylinders. The fields are just too deep not to, as Brian Harman proved this week. Rory is one of the few exceptions: A player good enough to get himself into contention, even when he’s not firing on all cylinders. Just as Jack Nicklaus did, whose record doesn’t just include 18 major wins, but 19 other major top threes.
It’s not a bad thing, so save the mental game platitudes about Rory. Any minute now things will align, and Rory will get his major. Then many more after that.

The post Seven things learnt from players at the 2023 Open Championship appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

We’ll tell you who liked the conditions, however: the players themselves. The overall scoring average on Day 1 at Hoylake was a tidy 73.250 on the par-71 layout, with 31 golfers posting under-par scores. That’s fewer than the 54 in the opening round at St Andrews a year ago, but a pretty healthy number for the Open overall.

As they say in England, though, if don’t like the weather, just wait 15 minutes. Or in this case a day or so. According to the official forecast from the R&A, the next three rounds at Royal Liverpool don’t include a lot of that sun stuff.

If nothing else on Friday, we can expect stronger winds during the day, which could make hitting the tiny green on the par-3 17th hole trickier as well as bring more into play the internal out of bounds that lurks on the third and 18th holes.

And then there’s the weekend forecast:

Here’s where the rain appears to be kicking in, turning “more persistent and briefly heavier for a time during the afternoon.” That make you golf sickos a little more happy?

And Sunday’s forecast begins with the always concerning “low confidence in detail” before suggesting that “rain may become prolonged” and the winds gusting up to 30 mph.

Long story short: It’s unlikely we’ll be getting another full day of clear skies for the rest of this major.

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A warning has been issued on the eve of the 2023 Open Championship by one of golf’s greatest coaches.

Peter Cowen, who currently works with five-time major champ Brooks Koepka among others — and has previously worked with the likes of former World No. 1s Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood — was asked about Royal Liverpool’s new hole, the par-3 17th. And he did not hold back.

“I hate it,” Cowen told bunkered.co.uk. “I haven’t heard a player say a good thing about it. They’ll just deal with it.”

Listed as 136 yards, No. 17 with its elevated green and deep surrounding bunkers will play as the shortest hole on the course. But the par 3 named “Little Eye” is expected to be a big challenge for players this week. A potentially unfair challenge, according to Cowen.

“It could ruin somebody’s career if the wind goes in the wrong direction all of a sudden or there is bad luck rolling down from the wrong place,” Cowen added. “Why would you make a 120-130 yard par-3 impossible? It’s called an infinity green and that could be it. They could be playing infinitely backwards and forwards across the green.”

As for takes from the players? Well, Matt Fitzpatrick called the hole “interesting”. And Jordan Spieth said it could produce some “carnage”. So, yeah, better buckle up for this one.

The 17th hole replaced the par-3 15th that was in play when McIlroy captured the claret jug the last time Hoylake hosted in 2014.

The post The Open Championship 2023: Cowen warns Royal Liverpool’s new hole ‘could ruin somebody’s career’ appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Bunkers are never easy, but at the Open Championship, they’re hazards in the truest sense of the word.

And so are the rakes.

The subject of bunker rakes may seem like a small, largely inconsequential detail, because it usually is. But players pay extra attention to small, inconsequential details during major weeks. And early in the week at Royal Liverpool, everyone is stressing out about the rakes.

“They’re the kind of rakes you’d use in a garden,” one coach said.

“It looks like we’re raking sand dunes,” added another.

The rakes aren’t the ones Royal Liverpool Golf Club usually uses, according to one member of the club. They’ve been put into play especially for Open week, and the issue specifically is that they have wide teeth.

Conventional bunker rakes have the prongs very close together — designed to quickly clean up the mess players leave behind.

But with wide-tooth rakes, you can’t get the same level of detail. Once a player has been in a bunker and his footprints have been raked away, it’s still obvious he was in there. Here’s an example from Royal Liverpool’s second hole. The right side is the untouched side; the left side is what it looks like after being raked.

The wide-tooth rakes succeed in levelling the sand, but that’s about it. The prongs are so far apart that they leave behind messy little ridges that the ball will inevitably roll into.

“The ball rolls down to the crevice,” says PGA Tour player Michael Kim. “It’s not plugged but it’s definitely not a good lie.”

It’s the bunker equivalent of hitting your ball into a divot, or some other bad lie. Once a player’s ball rolls into one of those crevices, they might struggle to generate enough spin to get the ball to stop on the green. Once it lands, it simply won’t stop rolling. That five-foot putt rolls to eight, or 12 feet. From an easy par to an easy bogey.

It’s a small but clever way of making these pot bunkers a little more penal. Late in the day, after a few different players have raked away their mess, bunker shots will be particularly difficult. Avoiding those nasty pot bunkers is a key to every Open Championship. And with these rakes, that’ll be especially true this week.

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UC Berkeley can lay claim to producing plenty of brilliant minds, but we’re most thankful to the school for churning out arguably the two best characters on Golf Twitter. Max Homa, of course, is the undisputed king in those parts, but former college teammate Michael Kim has emerged as a must-follow in recent years as well.

The 2013 Haskins Award winner as the US’s top golfer during his time as a Golden Bear, it hasn’t always been a smooth career on the PGA Tour. But no player consistently lets fans know what it’s like to be a pro golfer like the 2018 John Deere Classic champ.

Which leads us to the purpose of this post. Kim has made a habit of sharing course scouting reports ahead of tournaments. And his assessment ahead of the 2023 Open Championship is the most informative and thorough thing we’ve read about Royal Liverpool yet. See for yourself — and definitely click on the “Show more”:

My thoughts on front nine at Royal Liverpool and overall:

-I was watching highlights of 06 and 14 yesterday and it was amazing how brown it was in 06 so I’d thought I’d try and show the comparison on the 4th hole tee shot between 06, 14, 23. Right now it’s def closer to 14 and… pic.twitter.com/Sp02SDOjip

— Michael S. Kim (@Mike_kim714) July 18, 2023

Glad to see someone is getting their money’s worth with a Twitter Blue subscription. That’s 506 words!

But seriously, there’s a lot of great info packed into that tweet. Most notably, this ain’t the Royal Liverpool we saw at the 2006 Open, where Tiger Woods famously won by hitting his driver only one time all week. The course is soft and getting softer by the minute, which won’t upset the 2014 champ and pre-tournament favourite Rory McIlroy.

It’s good to know that guys can “get on a run” with some of the early holes on the easier front nine. And it’s interesting to get Kim’s thoughts on Hoylake’s much-discussed internal out of bounds.

It’s not great to hear that we probably won’t see the “firm links golf” that only comes into play on the PGA Tour a couple weeks a year. But it is good to hear that Kim doesn’t believe there will be a “huge difference” between the morning and afternoon waves due to weather.

Of course, that last part could change in an instant. And Kim’s dispatch from the UK doesn’t tell us who is going to actually lift the claret jug come Sunday evening. But we’ll take all the help we can get. Thanks, Michael.

The post The Open Championship 2023: PGA Tour winner Kim offers his most detailed course scouting report yet for Royal Liverpool appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Players and caddies at Royal Liverpool have been warned about Just Stop Oil, a collection of demonstrators attempting to force the British government to end fossil fuel licensing and production. The group has been targeting sporting and entertainment venues to protest, including at Wimbledon, the World Snooker Championship and rugby union’s Premiership final in recent weeks. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently said the “eco-zealots” are “not content with disrupting our summer and cherished sporting events, they are essentially leading us into an energy surrender”.

Sunak and his administration have given police greater latitude in their powers to quell the movement. That includes at Open, where many believe Royal Liverpool will be the next target of activism.

In response, the R&A and local authorities have increased security presence at Hoylake, including a number of plain-clothed officers. The Merseyside police issued a statement on the matter, saying “contingency plans are in place to allow visitors enjoy the Open with minimal disruption.”

Should the protesters emerge during the competition, players have been told not to tackle the demonstrators and instead allow police and security to handle the situation. This is in response to England’s Jonny Bairstow recently carrying a protester off the field during the Ashes.

Hoylake is not a stranger to protests. At the 2006 Open protesters threw dye on the 18th green as Tiger Woods approached at the end of the championship.

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More prescriptively pejorative than an Australian golf club’s sock length requirements, and nearly as inscrutable, out-of-bounds rules may be as insulting as golf’s guidelines get. One foot inside those infernal white stakes, and you are as perfect as the centre of the fairway. One foot on the other side — nay, one millimetre — and despite the fact that you may be able to not only easily find your slightly misplayed shot but in many cases can take a decent hack at it, you are instead irrevocably damned. Because unlike a regular hazard, a ball out of bounds is penalised twice, forcing the player to replay the shot from the spot where he just struck it poorly. The so-called stroke-and-distance penalty refers to adding two shots to the score, but it also could just as well reference the physical reaction to a ball that trickles OB: apoplexy.

How close is the OB right all the way up 18?

This close. pic.twitter.com/CpreXZWk7j

— Adam Kirk (@DGBetting_) July 17, 2023

This is where we find ourselves this week at the Open Championship at Hoylake, a venue known perhaps as much for its legacy of world-class winners as it is for its historically insidious holes where OB plays a somewhat outsized role. What makes Hoylake’s out-of-bounds problem so boundless may be the fact that while the demarcation line between good and dead is a kind of gravediggers mound that stretches for hundreds of yards, what’s out of bounds is exactly well within the property of the golf club itself. In non-Open weeks, the area that’s surrounded by three different holes is normally the club’s practice area and is declared out of bounds. During the Open this week, that area around the third, eight and 18th holes is reserved for the hospitality and merchandise tents and even means a shot into the grandstand right of the closing hole now forces a reload.

Some call this situation “interior out of bounds”, but to be fair, it’s not something contrived by Royal Liverpool for a major championship. The area used to be a horse racing track that was part of the club at its founding more than a century-and-a-half ago, and it’s always been played as out of bounds. But just as cruelly, it’s also been defined only by that low mound, or so-called “cops”, so a mis-hit ball might just as easily stop rolling before it gets to the white stakes as it might just barely bound over that line.The allure and the nausea of Hoylake’s OB, and really most OB, is that it stares at you like that police car you just passed doing 80. As Golf Club Atlas once spoke of Hoylake’s out-of-bounds area: “The golfer is afforded absolutely perfect visuals. Like a car wreck, he seems unable to tear his eyes away from the trouble.”

Of course, that sentiment is also the fearsome strength of OB, particularly internal OB. One of Royal Liverpool’s original architects Tom Simpson once suggested that no course could be considered great if it didn’t have out of bounds. Hoylake not only has out of bounds, it’s been fortified for this year’s Open on the final hole by having the cops jut further out into the fairway, 20 yards further than the last time the Open was played here. Add in that the hole’s been lengthened by 50 yards, and you could have a player limping home with a double-bogey 7 more often than an eagle 3. Martin Ebert, the veteran architect with multiple Open Championship venue tweaks to his credit, is eager to see how the OB might influence both tee shots and second shots this week, given the particular circumstances of a closing hole.

“I think that the out-of-bounds at both the 3rd and the 18th at Hoylake makes them great holes,” he said when I emailed him last week. “It will be interesting to see how the players take on the third and 18th. I asked one of the marshals at the third tee in 2014 how many golfers hit a driver over the corner [of the out-of-bounds], and was told only two, Darren Clarke and Tom Watson [both not coincidentally obviously former Open champions]. Are the golfers of today more aggressive? With the 18th, it will be so easy for a tee shot to end up out of bounds. Will a good proportion of the players not hit driver on a hole which is over 600 yards?”

Ebert is legitimately wondering, of course, but a more malevolent architect might be cackling at the prospect of how out-of-bounds is the next great defence against distance at the elite level. We’ve already seen this year where a parallel fairway at Oak Hill at the PGA Championship was suddenly declared out of bounds, and similar, severely internal, parallel fairway out-of-bounds has been used at the Open Championships at Royal Birkdale at Royal Portrush. Of course, at Portrush McIlroy also hit his opening tee shot out of bounds after a slight left miss landed in a perfectly fine patch of grass that was played as a stroke and distance penalty for the simple reason that the club had always done so because they originally did not own that particular piece of land. The fact that they now did and didn’t change the out-of-bounds penalty simply made the penalty more infernal.

There’s even some suggestion that venerable Oakmont should employ internal out-of-bounds when it next is home to the US Open in 2025. When it held the US Amateur in 2021, players played adjacent fairways on as many as six holes to more efficiently approach the green.

But OB rules have long been a hallmark of links in the UK where land wasn’t as plentiful as in America, and nearby houses, walls, roads and railway lines cut close to club boundaries. Never mind that the penalties have changed several times over the last 250 years. At one time it was only a stroke, and while the stroke and distance penalty was officially codified by the USGA and R&A in 1952, just seven years later, the Southern California Golf Association broke ranks and adopted a local rule reducing the “unfair penalty stroke in connection with ball out of bounds”.

Even today in order to speed up play, the ruling bodies now allow recreational golfers to take a drop with just a stroke penalty near the point where the ball left the property. But that’s not how the rules for tournament play read. The rule book even suggests internal out of bounds might be ideal for safety purposes, or mostly to avoid cutting a corner. “For example, on a dogleg hole, an internal out of bounds may be used to prevent a player from cutting the dogleg by playing a ball to the fairway of another hole,” reads model local rule A-4.

Of course, bizarre local rules are nothing new. Reservation Golf Club has been a nine-hole course by Eel Pond and Mattapoisett Harbor in Massachusetts since 1895 but when a road split the course in half, new local rules had to be adopted. Notable is the guidance for the ninth and 18th holes, which define out of bounds as the white line parallel to the hole on the right, then to the white diagonal line in the road, then to the white line on the left side of the road. Other holes use a low rock wall separating them as defining internal out of bounds for the parallel fairways.

While damaging passing cars might be the motivation at some clubs, damaging the golfer himself might be the primary motivation for unique local rules at other spots. As Cliff Schrock discovered in a Golf Digest article from 2016, some courses even invoke special rules to prevent animal attacks: “At Lake Powell National Golf Course in Page, Arizona, a ‘casual rattlesnake rule’ is used if your ball is within the vicinity of a rattler. You can gather your ball, drop without penalty — then presumably swing fast and run like hell.” Other local rules involve elephant stampedes, manure, volcanic rock and pretend water hazards.

Meanwhile, even though it’s specifically against the rules, a couple of other courses even ban players from flying their shots over a particular OB area, even if the ball doesn’t land or even stay in the area. The course’s rules cite safety, but forcing a particular ball flight seems the height of anxiety for all but the most sure golfers.

Similar OB anxiety will be on the menu at Hoylake this year, particularly at the closing hole, which might be the most claustrophobic 600-plus yard hole this side of Golden Tee. Just ask Phil Mickelson, who went for the par-5 green in two in 2014 only to hit his approach into the right-side grandstands and discover the fans weren’t home to a free drop but a stroke-and-distance penalty. What seems particularly ironic for an Open Championship, of course, is that such “internal” out of bounds isn’t how the Open’s most famous venue plays its string of holes with parallel fairway and shared greens. That inconsistency isn’t lost on Hoylake’s consulting architect.

“It could be argued that playing to different fairways is fine at St Andrews, so should be elsewhere,” Ebert said. “But it once again illustrates that the Old Course is one of a kind.”

Then again, so, too, can it be said of Royal Liverpool.

The post The Open Championship 2023: The quirky feature behind Hoylake’s greatest holes appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

As a preview of the 2023 Open Championship, we have ranked our top 100 golfers in the field:

100-86

Tiger Christensen, Davis Riley, Pádraig Harrington, Stewart Cink, Chris Kirk, Danny Willett, Ockie Strydom, Antoine Rozner, Alex Fitzpatrick, Ewen Ferguson, Zack Fischer, Kazuki Higa, Oliver Wilson, Bio Kim, Thriston Lawrence

Valerio Pennicino

After a promising rookie season, Riley is in a bit of a sophomore slump. However, he played well in the opening round of the Scottish Open, and his no-frills game is built for links dominance. … The time might not come at Hoylake, but Alex Fitzpatrick (above) is very, very close to no longer being known as Matt Fitzpatrick’s brother. … (Whispers) Paddy Harrington has real ‘09 Tom Watson potential.

85-76

Michael Kim, Lee Hodges, Matt Wallace, Matthew Southgate, Joost Luiten, Jazz Janewattananond, Shubhankar Sharma, Connor Syme, Brendan Todd, Adam Schenk

Schenk is having a breakout season at 31, entering the Scottish ranked 45th in the world and 22nd in the FedEx Cup standings. He’s making just his fifth major start, however, so be careful riding him too hard as a longshot. … Todd woke up from a year-long slumber at the John Deere Classic. He’s not a “sexy” pick, but at fourth in sg/around-the-green and 21st in putting he’s an interesting gamble. … Since winning the Corales Puntacana Championship, Wallace has failed to post a top-25. And yet, he’s so creative around the green (13th in that strokes gained category) that he has our interest.

75-66

Scott Stallings, Branden Grace, Laurie Canter, Charl Schwartzel, Nick Taylor, Yannik Paul, Guido Migliozzi, Tom Hoge, K.H. Lee, J.T. Poston

There’s always one Euro player who’s introduced to American audiences during the Open. That will be Paul this year, who’s currently holding down at automatic qualifier spot for the European Ryder Cup team. … Taylor won the RBC Canadian Open but otherwise he’s been stone cold, missing the cut in four of his past five starts. … Also cold: Hoge. Since finishing third at the Players he hasn’t better than T-43.

65-56

Lucas Herbert, Alex Noren, Emiliano Grillo, Richie Ramsay, Victor Perez, Rasmus Hojgaard, Billy Horschel, Abraham Ancer, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Francesco Molinari

Octavio Passos

Molinari’s on the list for his 2018 win, but despite his struggles since 2019 he’s remained formidable at the Open with T-11 and T-15 finishes since. … For those looking for a deep, deep sleeper, Ramsey owns three T-7 or better finishes in his last five starts on the DP World Tour. … Last year Noren withdrew from the Open to fly halfway across the world and play in the Barracuda. It proved to be a good decision, as he finished in second; still, he could have play the Old Course during the Open!

55-46

Pablo Larrazabal, Sepp Straka, Harris English, Thomas Pieters, Russell Henley, Thomas Detry, Kurt Kitayama, Jordan Smith, Thorbjorn Olesen, Ryan Fox

Could Straka parlay his John Deere Classic success into something special at Hoylake? He’s far from a consistent performer, but when the getting is good, Straka has a ceiling that few possess. … English’s game seems fit for an Open, but his last top 40 finish game almost 10 years ago. … After starting the season strong, Detry’s had just one top-25 finish since March.

MORE: Why the 2006 Open at Hoylake was the most emotional moment of Tiger’s career

45-41

Seamus Power, Si Woo Kim, Adrian Meronk, Gary Woodland, Phil Mickelson

Ross Parker – SNS Group

Power is starting to lose his chance at the Ryder Cup. A top-15 finish at Hoylake could go ways in turning that tide. … Scotland gave Mickelson the stone-cold silent treatment last year at St. Andrews. Without that intimacy and connection with the crowd, Mickelson floated like a ghost, knowing he was no longer of this world yet equally unable to leave it. It will be interesting to see if the crowds down south in England are more hospitable, especially with the developments in professional golf over the past month. … Woodland is having a nice little comeback season, ranking 11th on tour in SG/off-the-tee and ninth in approach. Don’t think that will lead to the claret jug, but as a top-20 play the former US Open winner is worth a look.

40-36

Sahith Theegala, Robert MacIntyre, Keegan Bradley, Brian Harman, Denny McCarthy

McCarthy is 13th in strokes gained over the past three months, with three top-seven finishes in his last four starts. We said it ahead of LACC and it’s worth repeating: ​​If Team Europe sets up the Ryder Cup venue in Rome anything like they did Paris—where accuracy and short game are paramount to power—McCarthy and his lights-out putting merit consideration for the US club. … MacIntyre hasn’t made the jump Old World circuit backers thought he would after his breakthrough at Portrush in 2019. However, the Scotsman is still in his 20s and had the breakthrough victory many think is coming ripped from his hands at the Scottish Open by Rory McIlroy. That’s after a T-4 in his previous DP World Tour start. … Theegala has been stuck in neutral for the past three months, playing consistently OK but far from great golf. However, should he make a run at the Scottish, he’s worth investing as a second-tier fantasy option.

35-31

Adam Scott, Joaquin Niemann, Talor Gooch, Min Woo Lee, Corey Conners

Octavio Passos

Scott is a tempting play for your fantasy lineup, finishing T-5 at the 2014 Open at Hoylake. He also has just one top-five finish in his last 32 major starts, with his last top-10 coming in 2019. … Does Gooch’s three wins on LIV merit Ryder Cup consideration? No, not really, yet his continued performance does warrant consideration as an Open flyer. … Conners continues to be a second-shot savant (11th in approach) and has five finishes of T-12 or better in the last three months. He’s struggled in majors outside of Augusta, but that iron work could pay dividends in Hoylake.

30-26

Justin Rose, Tom Kim, Sam Burns, Louis Oosthuizen, Patrick Reed

Kim had a T-8 at the US Open, largely off a lights-out Saturday front nine. He was in the mix until late on Sunday at the Scottish Open, which bodes well considering he missed the cut in three of his last five starts and statistically has been a bit of a mess for three months now. … Burns has been extremely hit-or-miss since his WGC-Dell Match Play win. Given his lack of track record at majors—he’s yet to finish better than T-20—Burns is a risky gamble. … Reed hasn’t done much at the Open, but he’s been playing well at LIV, making him a viable dark horse pick.

25-21

Jason Day, Hideki Matsuyama, Sungjae Im, Bryson DeChambeau, Max Homa

Day was one of the hottest players in the game six weeks ago, culminating in a win at the AT&T Byron Nelson. Since the W he’s missed three of four cuts, and the three were biggies in the PGA Championship, Memorial and US Open. Aside from a run at the 2015 Open, Day doesn’t have much of a track record at the British. So why is he this high? Because in that heater earlier this year Day showed he could be the player he once was, and that glimpse doesn’t disappear that quickly … DeChambeau’s sneakily regained the form that once made him an elite player, entering Hoylake off a T-4 at the PGA and T-20 at the US Open. He may not seem like a good pick for the Open Championship, but he did finish T-8 at St. Andrews last summer. … Matsuyama finished T-6 in his Open debut in 2013, but has not had a top-10 finish since.

20. Cameron Young

Richard Heathcote/R&A

World Ranking: 18 Open Championship starts: 2 Best finish: 2nd, 2022

This is an odd thing to say but we’re going to say it: The John Deere Classic, where Young finished T-6, maybe what turns around his season. The Bronx Bomber had not finished in the top 30 in his previous seven events, and over the last three months was outside the top 70 in true strokes gained. Calling it a sophomore slump is unfair, but Young hasn’t taken the leap many believed he would in 2023. Yet he finished runner-up at last year’s Open, and his performance last week spurs belief his struggles may be coming to an end.

19. Wyndham Clark

Ezra Shaw

World Ranking: 11 Open Championship starts: 1 Best finish: T-76, 2022

In the immediate aftermath, Clark’s US Open win seemed to be viewed as one of the times where a good player gets on a heater and achieves immortality. Personally, that take is myopic, if not misinformed, because Clark actually might be a killer, the type of player with the ceiling that begs questions of where he may ultimately go. There don’t seem to be any holes in his game, ranking inside the top 45 in every strokes-gained category, and he boasts an old-school finesse—particularly around the greens—that correlates to links success. The Open is historically not kind to the inexperienced, so it’s probably unfair to expect too much out of Clark in his second career Open start. But make no mistake, this is a name you’ll be hearing from for some time.

MORE: It’s time for the PGA Tour to host a month-long European swing

18. Justin Thomas

Jared C. Tilton

World Ranking: 20 Open Championship starts: 6 Best finish: T-11, 2019

Both things can be true: 1) Statistically, Thomas isn’t that far off from his usual production and still ranks among the tour’s best birdie producers. 2) Thomas hasn’t looked right in months, missing three of his last four cuts. He’s also historically struggled at the Open, just one finish better than T-40, odd given his shotmaking and creativity should serve him well on links golf. This is especially true at Hoylake, which allows for some breathing room off the tee and puts a premium on ingenuity in approaches. But majors are not the most conducive environments for reversals.

17. Tony Finau

Hector Vivas

World Ranking: 14 Open Championship starts: 6 Best finish: 3rd, 2019

Finau has won four times in the calendar year. He’s also failed to finish in the top 10 in his last nine major starts, with zero top-25s in the first three majors of 2023. With Finau turning 34 in the fall, the runway to make his mark in the tournaments that matter the most is getting short. If this Open turns out to be more of a shootout than Opens of the past, Finau (sixth in birdie average) may be the beneficiary.

16. Dustin Johnson

Richard Heathcote

World Ranking: 77 Open Championship starts: 13 Best finish: T-2, 2011

Has finished T-8 and T-6 in his last two Opens and was a respectable T-12 at Hoylake in 2014. Coming off a good performance at LACC (T-10). And because we have nothing else to add, nothing was more poetically apropos than DJ—a man undisturbed by his surroundings, beholden to an inner command only known to him—doing backflips off a yacht during golf’s Congressional hearing.

15. Tyrrell Hatton

Andy Lyons

World Ranking: 16 Open Championship starts: 7 Best finish: T-6, 2019

Has been sneaky good for the last six months, ranking eighth in true strokes gained over that span, and ranks third overall in strokes gained on the tour season. He also seems to play well in tougher conditions, which theoretically should bode well for weeks like this. And yet, Hatton has been a non-factor at majors, finishing outside the top 10 in his last 14 starts. Still, his best two major performances have come at the Open, and Hatton is too good to stay out of the major mix for this long.

14. Matt Fitzpatrick

Vaughn Ridley

World Ranking: 9 Open Championship starts: 7 Best finish: T-20, 2019

Has played steady golf over the past three months since winning the RBC Heritage. Hasn’t done much of note in his previous seven Open outings, although hasn’t been far off either, finishing better than T-30 in his last three Open starts. Links golf asks a lot of questions out of a golfer, but each question is baked in strategy and gumption. As Fitzpatrick showed at Brookline last summer, he does not fall short on any of those prerequisites.

13. Tommy Fleetwood

Ross Kinnaird

World Ranking: 22 Open Championship starts: 8 Best finish: 2nd, 2019

Fleetwood allowed Nick Taylor to win the Canadian Open in hopes providence would be delivered at “his” national championship. That is our theory and we’re sticking to it … For Fleetwood to stick around into the weekend he’ll need to get off to a better start than he has been this year, ranking 70th in first-round scoring average. Luckily, those averages improve as the tournament goes on. Ranking outside the top 50 in birdie average, Fleetwood’s best chance at the claret jug is seemingly if the course plays mean. Conversely, he also finished T-4 at last year’s birdie-fest Open. Coupled with a good showing at LACC, this may be the time for TommyLad.

12. Patrick Cantlay

Ben Jared

World Ranking: 4 Open Championship starts: 4 Best finish: T-8, 2022

For all that’s been made about Cantlay’s performance—or perceived lack thereof—at majors, the man has finished T-14 or better in three straight major starts, including a T-9 two months ago at the PGA and a T-8 at last year’s Open at St. Andrews. He entered the Scottish ranked fifth in strokes gained on the season and fourth in SG/off-the-tee, although he also missed the cut. If he can hold it together around the green, Cantlay may finally get the major monkey off his back.

11. Rickie Fowler

Cliff Hawkins

World Ranking: 21 Open Championship starts: 11 Best finish: T-2, 2014

We had Fowler as high as No. 5 in our preliminary rankings and as low as No. 15. Why buy the hype: Fowler’s sixth in true strokes gained over the last six months, has four top-10s in his last five starts (including a win in Detroit and contending at the US Open) and finished runner-up the last time the Open visited Hoylake. The worry: That heater may have crescendoed with his victory two weeks back. And for gambling purposes, Fowler’s price has risen dramatically, and that value, while fair, is far from good. But if the setup is there for the taking or there to break the field’s spirit, Fowler has the ability to contend in both, making him one of our favourites.

10. Viktor Hovland

Andy Lyons

World Ranking: 5 Open Championship starts: 2 Best finish: T-4, 2022

Last year’s Open—where Hovland played in the final pairing, only to be just one of two players in the top 14 who failed to break 70—was an important step for Hovland. He ejected hard at St. Andrews that Sunday, but competing at majors is a bit like riding a bike in that you have to fall off to figure out how to stay on. That experience was on display at this year’s PGA, where he finished runner-up, and at the Masters, where he finished T-7. The important thing is to make sure those experiences don’t create too much scar tissue. The short game remains a work in progress, but the ball striking is so good (10th in tee-to-green) it can combat those deficiencies.

9: Collin Morikawa

Oisin Keniry

World Ranking: 19 Open Championship starts: 2 Best finish: Win, 2021

Morikawa is in danger of falling outside the World Top 20. He’s also ranked ninth in true strokes gained over the last six months and finished T-2 in Detroit. He made this ridiculously hard game look ridiculously easy this time two years ago at Royal St. George’s, and Hoylake will give him the opportunity to duplicate those feats. One thing to keep an eye on: Morikawa has been one of the best Round 2 players on tour this season, his scoring average sixth-best among tour players on Fridays. Should his wave avoid the bad weather in Round 1, don’t be surprised to see his name among the leaders heading into the weekend.

8. Shane Lowry

Mark Runnacles

World Ranking: 30 Open Championship starts: 10 Best finish: Win, 2019

Royal Portrush was not an Open aberration. Along with his victory in 2019, Lowry has finished inside the top 25 in the Open since 2017. Lowry’s game is a bit like Jordan Spieth’s in that it may have fared consistently better in an era, yet this is one of the few tournaments where that game can not just compete but outshine his competition. Moreover, after a bit of a slump, Lowry has started to signs of coming out of hibernation, finishing in the top 20 in four of his past five starts—including the PGA Championship and US Open.

7. Jordan Spieth

AFP/Getty Images

World Ranking: 10 Open Championship starts: 9 Best finish: Win, 2017

Has missed three of his past five cuts, including at the US Open. So what; if Augusta National is his fantasyland, links golf is Spieth’s playground. He’s finished T-9 or better in four of his last six Open starts, capped by a win in 2017. The game over there speaks to his cunning and inventiveness, allows him to be a bit more loose off the tee and doesn’t require the power of most PGA Tour sites. Just as importantly the greens, due to their relative slowness, tend to equalize the field in putting, with a slight favouritism to aggressiveness. Similar to the Masters, it may seem like Spieth should have more than one Open victory.

6. Xander Schauffele

Sean M. Haffey

World Ranking: 6 Open Championship starts: 5 Best finish: T-2, 2018

A T-2 in 2018 at Carnoustie is his only top-10 at the Open. No matter, only Scottie Scheffler, Brooks Koepka and Fowler have better true strokes gained figures over the last three months than X-Man. Schauffele knows he is the best player in golf without a major and that people think it’s well past time to shed that label, but he’s still in his 20s and his game should age well. Owning one of the best ball striking/short-game combos (fourth in approach, sixth in putting), Schauffele should be in the mix no matter what Hoylake throws at the field.

5. Cameron Smith

Harry How

World Ranking: 7 Open Championship starts: 5 Best finish: Win, 2022

If there was one player to worry about competitive atrophy jumping to LIV, it was the reigning Open Championship winner. After a quiet start in 2023, Smith has shown he’s still very much the player who won the Players and Open last year, finishing T-9 at the PGA and fourth at last month’s US Open and winning a LIV event last week. Though last year’s breakthrough at the Old Course is Smith’s only finish of note at the Open, the Aussie’s short-game dexterity is the perfect asset for links golf. Expect a strong title defense.

4. Scottie Scheffler

Harry How

World Ranking: 1 Open Championship starts: 2 Best finish: T-8, 2021

The only thing that stopped Scheffler at St. Andrews was, um, well, just trust us. He owns the best true strokes gained figure over the last three, six and 12 months in professional golf and comes to Hoylake finishing no worse than T-5 in his last seven starts. (Reread that sentence again.) His last finish outside the top 12 was last fall. In short, the dude is balling. That we have the World No. 1 at No. 4 on his list is no indictment on Scheffler or his odds this week, but rather how loaded golf’s front-line of stars is this season. Plus, his heater has to eventually cool off, right? … (Silence) … Right?

3. Jon Rahm

Ross Kinnaird

World Ranking: 2 Open Championship starts: 6 Best finish: T-3, 2021

He contended for the 2021 Open, ultimately finishing in a tie for third. However, that is the lone top-10 in Rahm’s still nascent career at the Open (although he did finish T-11 in 2019). His game is too round and his mind too creative to allow that track record to continue, and past wins at the Irish Open underline Rahm knows how to play links golf. Will be heading into the Open Championship looking to get right after a missed cut at the Travelers Championship, although that is the aberration in 2023, boasting four wins since January alone, including his Masters triumph. He’s also second to just Scheffler in true strokes gained over the last six months. You could make the case he should be No. 1 on the list, and you won’t get much of a counter.

2. Rory McIlroy

Dom Furore

World Ranking: 3 Open Championship starts: 13 Best finish: Win, 2014

The golf gods do not pay their debts and have no stomach for karma, for if they did McIlroy would have emerged victorious at St. Andrews last summer. But while McIlroy, winner on Sunday at the Scottish Open, will again be the sentimental pick for the claret jug his game needs no extra love, ranking seventh in strokes gained over the past three months, according to DataGolf, highlighted by a runner-up finish at the US Open. And to state the obvious, the last time the Open was contested at Hoylake the Ulsterman left as its champ. It’s hard to bet against McIlroy, and we certainly won’t, although there’s one player whose chances we slightly favour…

1. Brooks Koepka

Ramsey Cardy

World Ranking: 12 Open Championship starts: 8 Best finish: T-4, 2019

He’s calling out LIV teammates. He’s posing on Instagram with Bryson. He’s doing Lord knows what with the Wanamaker. Koepka is a fusion of swagger and swashbuckler, and it’s clear—after seemingly running on E last year—his confidence tank has been refilled. Koepka’s been sneaky good at the Open with four top 10s in his last six starts. The reason Koepka is so good at majors is he brings his best when the course is at its worst. If Hoylake plays mean, and it should, the winner will be golf’s baddest man.

Is it the Open Championship or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilise both names in its coverage.

The post Open Championship 2023: The top 100 players competing at Royal Liverpool, ranked appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Do you remember that old Tiger Woods Nike poster with the caption “The eyes have it”? Actually, the more appropriate question to golf fans of a certain age is if they remember where they put theirs. The photo showed a crouching Tiger lining up a putt with that unmistakable steely look that helped make him one of the greatest competitors of all time. It also had to be one of the best-selling posters of all time. (And for the record, mine is in the basement.)

It made sense for Tiger to have that unwavering aura. After all, he was trained to be tough by a military father since he was in diapers. Earl Woods, who served two tours in Vietnam, wanted his son to be just as prepared for pressure and opponents as he was for any golf shot. And Tiger has said that Earl’s psychological tests would take him “Right up to the breaking point.” You can argue with those methods, but you can’t argue with Woods’ on-course success as he won a record-tying 82 PGA Tour titles (and counting), including 15 majors.

RELATED: A super-scientific top-10 ranking of Tiger’s all-time best celebrations

We’ve seen a kinder, gentler Tiger in recent years. Having kids, being humbled by scandals and being broken down by injuries will do that to you. But you can still count on one hand how many times Tiger has cried on a golf course. And you can still need only your index finger to point to the one time the tears flowed like no other.

On May 3, 2006, Earl Woods died at age 74, and Tiger Woods lost his father, mentor and best friend. Six weeks later, Tiger teed it up in his first tournament since his dad’s death, the 2006 U.S. Open, and shot a pair of 76s at Winged Foot to miss the cut at a major for the first time(!) in his professional career.

But in his next start the following month at the Western Open, Woods showed some of that trademark resiliency he had been taught by Earl, finishing T-2. And two weeks later, starting with the 2006 Open Championship at Royal Liverpool—the site of next week’s championship—Woods would embark on arguably the greatest stretch of his career.

RELATED: We rewatched the final round of the 2006 Open Championship

The performance at Hoylake turned out to be particularly notable, though, for a couple reasons. For one, Tiger used his driver only one time over four rounds. For another, his reaction to winning his 11th major was much different than any other. After tapping in on the 72nd hole for a two-shot victory over Chris DiMarco, Woods triumphantly raised his arms like we’ve seen countless times, but then—clearly, with Earl on his mind—he gave caddie Steve Williams a 15-second bear hug and started sobbing.

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Williams, who would be fired by Woods five years later, pointed to the heavens and did his best to console his boss. But Tiger continued to cry as the two made their way off the green:

Ross Kinnaird

“Stevie said to me as we were coming up the last, ‘this one is for dad’,” a then 30-year-old Woods said that day. “And then, after the putt, all these emotions just poured out of me. They have been locked in there.

“I just miss my dad so much. I wish he could have been here to witness this,” Woods added. “He enjoyed watching me grind out major wins, and this would have brought a smile to his face.”

Winning golfers cry all the time, but not this winning golfer. At least, not until he won major No. 1 without his dad.

That being said, we’ve seen more emotion from an elder Woods. Tiger said he held back tears when he ended his long winless drought at the 2018 Tour Championship, but he cried a bit after embracing his kids at the 2019 Masters (Who wasn’t crying at that point?). He also shed some tears as he missed the cut at last year’s Open Championship, which could be his final appearance at St. Andrews.

But again, nothing like the outburst we saw from Tiger following his victory at the 2006 Open Championship, which kicked off a historic seven-tournament winning streak on the PGA Tour, only trailing Byron Nelson’s 11 consecutive wins in 1945. Tiger let those emotions pour out on that 72nd hole and then immediately went back to beating the pants off everyone with the drier, intimidating eyes we’re more used to seeing. That would have brought a smile to Earl’s face as well.

David Cannon

RELATED: Our handy guide to all of Tiger Woods’ 82 career PGA Tour titles

• • •

Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilise both names in its coverage.

The post Open Championship 2023: A look back at the most emotional moment of Tiger Woods’ career appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

EDITOR’S NOTE — This story first ran ahead of the 2014 Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, won by Rory McIlroy.

You remember the 2006 Open at Royal Liverpool, right? The one where Tiger Woods hit one driver the entire week and cried more in one minute than he probably had in his entire life? But there was more to that memorable final round. We re-watched it and made some observations.

• Tiger Woods was AMAZING. We have to start with that. He was so good he had even Nick Faldo gushing with compliments:

“This has been a master class of tactitional golf. It’s really been fantastic to watch.”

Later, Faldo described Woods’ ball striking as “sheer perfection.” Woods didn’t hit a driver the final three days and still finished 18 under to win his third claret jug and 11th professional major.

• Paul Azinger also liked Woods’ conservative game plan. “Who knows, maybe Tiger Woods will change his strategy from now until the rest of time and rein it in a little bit.” Hmm. It didn’t exactly happen like that, but there were times with Woods applied prudence over aggression.

Stuart Franklin

• Of course, course conditions had something to do with Woods’ strategy. There are firm and fast golf courses and then there was Hoylake.

• Chris DiMarco played incredibly, duelling with Woods at a major for the second year in a row. He took Tiger to a playoff at the 2005 Masters, but losing by two to Tiger at the top of his game was just as impressive. We talk a lot about big names hurt by playing in the Tiger Woods era, but was anyone as singularly affected as DiMarco? Chris DiMarco, two-time major champion has a nice ring to it.

Warren Little

• On the other hand, Sergio Garcia, who was in the final pairing with Woods, played terribly. He shot a front-nine 39 (four over) to lose any chance of catching Tiger. It was the start of a series of unfortunate finishes at the Open for the Spaniard.

• When Woods was challenged, he played even better. DiMarco cut the lead to one, but Tiger made birdies on 14, 15, and 16. Game, set, match.

• Woods was relatively reserved in his reactions throughout the day. This is him holing a putt for eagle on No. 5. Ho-hum:

Andrew Redington

• To make up for his lack of celebrating, Tiger twirled his club on almost every shot. He gives his first really good one as he hits his approach shot on No. 2. Watch a compilation of his round here. You can count the non-perfect shots Woods hit on one hand:

• Speaking of fashion, Garcia looked preposterous dressed as a human banana.

Andrew Redington

• Not that Jim Furyk’s shirt was any better. Are those supposed to look like suspenders? Yeah, we’re making a similar face right now.

Stuart Franklin

• It looked weird seeing Adam Scott putting with a normal putter. We’ll spare you a picture because it wasn’t pretty.

• There was a delay on No. 18 due to protesters dumping purple paint on the green. Luckily, the tournament had all but been decided.

Ross Kinnaird

• And finally, there was the special moment of victory, where Woods—whose father, Earl, passed away two months before—shared an emotional embrace with caddie Steve Williams. It was all very moving, but you have to wonder: What do those two guys think when they see these images now?

STRINGER

The post I re-watched the final round of the 2006 Open Championship and saw ‘sheer perfection’ from Tiger Woods appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.