Champion Golfer 2022 edition

OFFICIAL LICENSED MAGAZINE

Champion Golfer

The Open celebrates a historic milestone with its 150th staging

10-17 July 2022 9 772398 410013

22

ISSN 2398−4104

£10.00

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The definitive guide to The Open, The AIG Women’s Open and The Senior Open Championship presented by Rolex 24/06/2022 14:08

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World Class Greens.

Innovative Machines.

Golfers are not the only champions at St. Andrews Links for The 150th Open Championship, it takes a talented team to maintain one of the most historic courses in the world. Toro supplies the latest in electric equipment technology and precision irrigation to help these professionals perform at their best while caring for the course and the environment. Toro is proud to be a Partner of the Home of Golf.

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The Leader in Golf visit www.toro.com ©2022 The Toro Company. All rights reserved.

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PARTNER CONTENT – by Monte Rei

Discover Portugal’s Premier Golf Resort Welcome to a truly unique golfing experience, as special as the area of outstanding beauty that inspired Jack Nicklaus to create his only Signature course in Portugal

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onte Rei Golf & Country Club is a private estate, spanning over 1,000 acres of glorious eastern Algarve countryside. For many years it has been considered one of the finest golf resorts in Europe with the golf legend Jack Nicklaus designing the awarded North Course, ranked as #1 in Portugal for more than a decade.

This stunning Signature golf course is the centrepiece of the resort - always in pristine condition and offering a sense of privacy throughout your round, each hole a challenging oasis seemingly far removed from other golfers.

Located a short 10-minute drive from some of the glorious beaches of the Eastern Algarve, Monte Rei is much more than just a golf course. Facilities for the whole family include heated swimming pools, gym and tennis courts, a

multilingual concierge team and access to a host of local experts from Yoga and fitness instructors to mountain and road bike rides.

DINING AT MONTE REI Gastronomy is taken very seriously at Monte Rei with our fine-dining restaurant, Vistas Rui Silvestre, being awarded its first Michelin Star in 2019, offering a complete gourmet experience. The dining offer is completed by Monte Rei’s other two restaurants offering a more casual all-day dining options: post-round drinks, a leisurely lunch or casual evening meal on one of our terraces overlooking the fairways. We also offer a convenient in-residence dining service so guests can fully unwind in the comfort of their own home.

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PARTNER CONTENT – by Monte Rei

APARTMENTS AND VILLAS Monte Rei offers a unique collection of property for family holidays, golf escapes and investment opportunities. From our three - bedroom Miradouro Linked Villas - suitable for any family or golfing getaway to our contemporary Clubhouse Residences (Golden Visa eligible) - a collection of modern two and three-bedroom apartments and penthouses with private wrap-around terraces and gardens with stunning views of the 18th hole. Our property collection starts from €895.000 with a guaranteed return of up to 5% on selected properties.

E: info@monterei.com W: www.monte-rei.com T: 00351 281 950 950 7

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RO C C O FORTE HOTELS

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PARTNER CONTENT – by The B almoral

The Balmoral – An Icon of Edinburgh This Rocco Forte hotel offers golfers luxury in abundance

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any hotels claim to have landmarks on their doorstep; few can say their doorstep is a landmark. Set in the heart of Edinburgh, The Balmoral is the perfect city base for a golf break in Scotland. This 5 star Rocco Forte hotel is an icon of the city with its majestic clock tower playing an important role in the historic Edinburgh skyline.

In close proximity to Scotland’s Golf Coast, The Balmoral offers the height of luxury with some of the best championship links golf courses less than an hour’s drive or a short train ride away.

Beyond Edinburgh, the courses of historic St Andrews are in close proximity for a day trip offering access to the Home of Golf a mere hour and a half by car.

The Balmoral is the ideal base for a Scottish golf vacation where you can access the courses by day and the buzz of the city by night. The Balmoral’s position at the east end of Princes Street is perfectly placed for a meander around the designer stores of Multrees Walk and the newest retail and lifestyle district, the St James Quarter. If architecture and culture pique your interest, the hotel is surrounded by galleries and a myriad of historic streets to explore.

Take advantage of the hotel’s unparalleled accommodation offering suites which are generous in size and decadent in spirit. Designed with a colour palette of the Scottish landscape offering comfort and style while marrying contemporary

and heritage accents with ease.

Book a Castle View Suite for incredible vistas of Edinburgh Castle, the Scott Monument and the rich greenery of Princes Street Gardens.

When it comes to dining, The Balmoral offers an abundance of choice. Settle in for a dram in Scotch, the hotel’s world-class whisky bar. With over 500 unique varieties of Scottish whisky from the Highlands, Lowlands, Islands, Islay and Speyside - it’s one of the largest collections available to the public in Scotland. Scotch’s passionate and friendly Whisky Ambassadors can help you make your choice from the ever-changing selection, with its compelling big-hitter bottles, as well as rare and limited editions.

Contemporary fine-dining is offered at Number One, where the award-winning team offers modern dining coupled with world-class Scottish hospitality. When it comes to a relaxed meal, the hotel’s Brasserie Prince marries classic French cuisine with sublime Scottish produce and Bar Prince offers a buzzy atmosphere with live music throughout the year. The hotel’s famous Afternoon Tea is served daily in the decadent surroundings of Palm Court or guests can opt to dine in the comfort of their suite with an extensive in room dining menu.

Discover more about The Balmoral at www.roccofortehotels.com 9

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W O O D. M E T A L W O O D . C A R B O N W O O D. I N T R O DUCI NG ST EA LT H. WITH A 60 LAYER C ARBON FAC E F O R BET T ER ENER GY T R AN SFER AN D M ORE BALLSPEED.

WELCOME TO THE CARBONWOOD AGE.

© 2022 TAYLOR MADE GOLF LIMITED. BALL SPEED CLAIM BASED ON PLAYER TESTING OF STEALTH VS. SIM2 DRIVERS AT 106 MPH AVERAGE SWING SPEED.

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P L AY W I T H S T Y L E LUXURY GOLF SHOES FOR MEN & WOMEN

A L B A R T R OSS .CO M

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Contents

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068

Foreword

From David Meacher Chairman, Open Championships Committee, The R&A

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060 Tiger Woods

The winner of 15 Major titles will be determined to make an impact at the Home of Golf

068 Players to watch

Foreword

From 18-time Major Champion Jack Nicklaus

023 Foreword

From The Open Champion, Collin Morikawa

024 Old Course, St Andrews

Your guide to the Old Course, St Andrews, venue for The 150th Open Championship

034 Collin Morikawa

Can the reigning Open Champion rediscover his winning formula to make history on the Old Course?

040 The Open 2021

The sun shone, the sea sparkled and Royal St George’s did what it

does so well; delivered an Open Championship where the competition was intense and sporting history was made

048 Louis Oosthuizen

Open Champion in 2010, the South African was on excellent form at the Majors last year

052 Rory McIlroy

The Northern Irishman is back playing close to his best. Can he add that elusive fifth Major title at St Andrews this year?

056 Justin Rose

A Major and Olympic champion, Justin Rose has an impressive record. Should we hope for more?

078 Greatest moments

Three Sky Sports commentators reflect on their most enduring memories of The Open

084 The Open 1984

Seve Ballesteros was at his mercurial best to defeat Tom Watson at St Andrews

088 The Open 1970

Jack Nicklaus sealed the deal after Doug Sanders came within a whisker of the Claret Jug

092 The Open 1927

Bobby Jones ensured his place in the history of St Andrews with a brilliant six-shot victory

Cover: Getty

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Bryson DeChambeau Matt Fitzpatrick Jon Rahm Scottie Scheffler Cameron Smith Will Zalatoris

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096 The Great Triumvirate

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Anna Nordqvist

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The AIG Women’s Open 2021

James Braid, JH Taylor and Harry Vardon dominated the game for two decades prior to 1914

Unsung heroes

We pay tribute to some of those who produced the performance of a lifetime to win The Open

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Champion at Carnoustie in 2021, the Swede is someone whose can-do attitude works wonders

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Carnoustie provided a typically challenging venue for a thrilling clash between the world’s best

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Distance off the tee

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Innovators

The women’s game is witnessing an explosion in driving distance, but will the ability to bomb it off the tee be enough at Muirfield?

Widening golf’s appeal among women and girls of all abilities has become the quest of Jasmine, the Jazzy Golfer

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Annika Sörenstam

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Players to watch

Perhaps nobody has done more to pave the way to Muirfield this year than the Swedish great

Nasa Hataoka Jennifer Kupcho Minjee Lee Leona Maguire Atthaya Thitikul

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Foreword

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Muirfield

From the AIG Women’s Open Champion, Anna Nordqvist

Your guide to the course that will host the AIG Women’s Open for the first time in its history 15

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Contents

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158 Gleneagles 2022

Published under license to R&A Championships Ltd by

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150

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Foreword

From the Senior Open Champion, Stephen Dodd

Gleneagles

Your guide to the historic course that this year hosts The Senior Open presented by Rolex

Publisher: Alan White Editor: Dan Hayes R&A Content Editor: Chris Devine R&A Project Manager: Connor Wells Art Director: Joanna Duncombe-Legge

The Senior Open Championship 2021

There were household names aplenty in the running at Sunningdale last year, but none of them could match Wales’ Stephen Dodd

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HPM Consultants Ltd London House 77 High Street, Sevenoaks Kent, TN13 1LD Tel: +44 (0)1732 761 277 www.hpmconsultants.co.uk

R&A Design Team: Kelly Laskiewicz, Marie Morrison Digital Content Partner: Peter Wilkinson White peter@outsourcedigitalmedia.com Production Partner: Stewart Hyde stewart@de5ign.co.uk Magazine Newsstand Partner: Adam Glasier-Creed adam@newsstand.co.uk

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Players to Watch Steven Alker Alex Čejka Ernie Els Padraig Harrington

Contributors: Mike Aitken, Mark Alexander, Tony Dear, Bill Elliott, Andy Farrell, Tim Griffiths, Eric Hepworth, Keith Jackson, Brian Keogh, Angus MacDonald, Lewine Mair, Rob McGarr, Owen Pye, Alistair Tait, Robert Verkaik

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Publishing Director: Lindsay White Creative Consultant: Zak Brand Advertising: alan@hpmconsultants.co.uk Printed by The Manson Group © HPM Consultants Ltd 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any way without written consent of the publisher.

Views expressed within this magazine are not necessarily those of the publisher. Although every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this publication, the publisher cannot accept responsibility for any errors, omissions or misinformation. The publisher accepts no liability for any loss or damage caused by any person relying on any statement or omission.

All information is correct at time of going to press.

This publication has been produced under official license from The R&A, organisers of The Open, The AIG Women’s Open and The Senior Open presented by Rolex. The R&A holds the operating rights for those Championship events, along with The European Tour for the operating rights in The Senior Open.

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The Open, The Senior Open, The AIG Women’s Open, Champion Golfer, the Claret Jug and R&A are trade marks of The R&A and its licensors. Use of those trade marks is only permitted with the express written consent of The R&A. The marketing of products and services bearing these trade marks is strictly reserved for The R&A Group Companies and its licensees.

Preview 2023

Scotland passes the golfing baton to England and Wales next year – as the UK’s premier golf Championships head to three compelling venues

This publication has been produced by HPM Consultants Ltd and The R&A is not responsible for its content.

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P L AY W I T H S T Y L E LUXU RY G O L F S H O E S & ACC E SS O R I E S A L B A R T R OSS .CO M

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SPIRIT OF THE OPEN Loch Lomond Whiskies would like to invite you to explore the Spirit of the Open at the Loch Lomond Whiskies Bar in the Spectator Village.

A chance to relax and catch up on the daily action whilst enjoying an award-winning dram, whisky cocktail, a glass of Champagne Piaff or a Ben Lomond Gin and Tonic.

ST ANDREWS, SCOTLAND

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Foreword

The coming weeks are set to be hugely exciting as we prepare to enjoy The 150th Open, the AIG Women’s Open and the Senior Open presented by Rolex.

From our headquarters in St Andrews, everyone at The R&A is looking forward to the contest for the coveted Claret Jug at the Home of Golf. The Open is golf’s original Major Championship, first staged in 1860, and this week offers a once-in-a-lifetime chance to celebrate a landmark occasion for one of sport’s most iconic events.

After Collin Morikawa’s incredible victory on his debut in the Championship at Royal St George’s last year, 2022 marks the first time The Open has been held in St Andrews since Zach Johnson won in a play-off in 2015 – and the 30th time in total.

We have enjoyed many great Championships at St Andrews down the years – with Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Sir Nick Faldo, John Daly, Tiger Woods and Louis Oosthuizen among past winners – and we are sure to be thrilled once more by the world’s best male golfers in pursuit of a famous success.

Golf is at the heart of society in St Andrews and I am sure

you are looking forward as eagerly as I am to what will be a Championship to savour in the historic town.

The AIG Women’s Open will also be played at an iconic venue, as Muirfield stages the Championship for the first time.

Last year’s AIG Women’s Open at Carnoustie, which was won so superbly by Anna Nordqvist, delivered outstanding drama and we cannot wait to see who comes out on top this year at another magnificent links course, as the most international Major in women’s golf goes from strength to strength.

Meantime, in the week that follows The 150th Open, a host of Champion Golfers will be among those competing for glory at Gleneagles in the Senior Open presented by Rolex. The likes of Padraig Harrington, Ernie Els and Darren Clarke are sure to draw plenty of attention, while Bernhard Langer is seeking a remarkable fifth Senior Open title.

Regardless of who prevails in each of the three Championships, there are sure to be countless moments to enjoy. I hope this publication whets your appetite for a special few weeks.

David C. Meacher Chairman, Open Championships Committee 19

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PORTUGAL’S MOST EXCLUSIVE GOLF DESTINATION

Exceptional Investment Opportunities – Golden Visa Eligible TOP PORTUGAL COURSES 2021 MONTE REI

Rental Guarantees of up to 5% for 5 years on select properties With a variety of exclusive accommodation, dining options and properties starting from €900,000, Monte Rei is one of Europe’s ultimate golf destinations.

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2022

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Foreword

Getty

We all agree that the game of golf has a rich and storied past, but few can claim a place in history so special as The Open Championship. And now the contest is taking place for the 150th time!

I have said on many occasions that The Open might be the most enjoyable Major championship I played over my career. It was so uniquely special and different from any championship we played in the USA. There is and was the rota of courses, including seaside links layouts that offered subtle and not-so-subtle nuances, as if they had their own personalities. The weather was always a factor and became its own inherent challenge in The Open. Then there are the crowds – the loud, boisterous, appreciative fans who lined every fairway and surrounded every green. They all have a knowledge, respect and deep-rooted love for the game, and playing in front of them was an honour.

The Open was the final Major I needed to win to complete the career Grand Slam. So, when I hoisted the famed Claret Jug at Muirfield in 1966, the emotions that overwhelmed me were real and perhaps said everything about how special this championship is to me.

To hear your name announced as the Champion Golfer of the Year is an unbelievable feeling and provides a memory I will embrace for the rest of my life. I am incredibly proud to have been part of this great championship’s long history, and honoured to have my name engraved alongside so many other champions on the Claret Jug. The 150th Open is truly a milestone worth celebrating, and gives all of us who love this great game an opportunity to reflect on the drama, emotion and elation that are part of the magic and mystique of golf’s original Championship.

Here’s to 150 runnings of The Open, and to the next 150!

Jack Nicklaus 21

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The Open Champion 2021

Getty

Winning The Open at Royal St George’s was something I will always remember. It was my first visit to The Open as a competitor so to come away with the Claret Jug really was a dream come true – and to do it in front of tens of thousands of fans made it all the better.

Coming to St Andrews as the defending Champion for the 150th Open is an extraordinary privilege and I’m looking forward to the contest enormously. St Andrews is the Home of Golf and a place where so many all-time greats of the game have produced exceptional performances to seal victory.

I’ll be working really hard to follow in their footsteps and to defend my title this year. There is a huge sense of history to the Championship this year and I’m sure it will be one that people are still talking about for many, many years to come.

Collin Morikawa 23

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Course guide

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The Open Championship Old Course, St Andrews 10-17 July 2022 Words: Andy Farrell The 150th Open could have had no other venue than the Old Course at St Andrews. Golf has been played in this corner of Fife since at least the mid-16th century and to this day it remains the sport’s most iconic venue. The Old Course hosted its first Open in 1873 (the first 12 editions of the Championship were held at Prestwick) and has some of the most famous holes in the world, while those who have raised the Claret Jug at St Andrews include many of the most famous golfers in history: from Bobby Jones and Sam Snead, to Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.

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Course guide

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Course guide

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Looking towards the green on the second

Hole 1

16th coming back the other way. A pronounced diagonal ridge is the main feature of the right-hand portion for the second. Two bunkers that lie short right of the green were brought closer for the 2015 Open.

Name: Burn Yardage: 375 Par: 4 Even the top professionals taking part in the Open Championship have been known to go out of bounds both on the left and the right at one of the widest fairways in golf.

In truth, though, this is a simple opening tee shot if sent leftcentre on line with the small gorse bush by the edge of the Swilcan Burn, the only water feature on the course. Then, of course, the approach needs to fly the burn in front of the green.

It ranked as the 13th most difficult hole in the 2015 Open.

Hole 3

This hole illustrates the risk-reward nature of the Old Course beautifully. Flirt with the series of pot bunkers on the right of the fairway and the route to the green opens up. Take the safer line off the tee over the Principal’s Nose bunkers on the left and then the approach is over the mighty, crescent-shaped Cartgate bunker in front of the green.

This hefty sand trap is distinguished by a high, revetted face and any player who is unlucky enough to find their ball directly under that imposing surface will find that progressing in a forwards direction is not on the cards.

The further left off the tee you go, the more Cartgate comes into play. Meanwhile, a number of ridges divide the 50-yarddeep green into smaller sections.

Hole 2 Name: Dyke Yardage: 452 Par: 4

A spot alongside Cheape’s bunker on the left of the fairway is ideal. It was Sir James Cheape who bought the land on which the course was created from rabbit farmers in 1821. It was later sold to The R&A and then to the town of St Andrews. This is the first of seven huge double greens, the second sharing with the

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Name: Cartgate (Out) Yardage: 398 Par: 4

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Hole 4

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Course guide

The drive must avoid the Seven Sisters, the cluster of bunkers on the right, but if they are on the fairway most players will be taking aim at the green in two. The Spectacles bunkers 60 yards short of the green will only be a factor for those laying up.

The green is 99 yards deep so getting the right yardage to the hole is crucial. There are also three bunkers to the left of the first part of the putting surface.

Name: Ginger Beer Yardage: 480 Par: 4 Whins (gorse) on the right of the fairway were cleared for the 2010 Open to encourage more players to head right (and improve pace of play on the double fairway). Attacking the narrow fairway is still risky when there is a large plateau on the left which gives a good view of the green. But the mounding and a few bunkers short of the green need to be negotiated from this angle, while the large bunker slicing into the green on the left of the fourth portion is a no-go area. The hole takes its name from the ginger beer stall that was once a feature of the course. It was at one stage operated by “Auld Daw” Anderson, whose son, Jamie, was Open Champion in 1877, 1878 and 1879.

Hole 6

Name: Heathery (Out) Yardage: 414 Par: 4 There is no margin for error off the tee here, with bunkers situated both to the right (although these are in the rough) and left. The latter are the Coffins and these, as the name suggests, can provide a considerable headache.

There is no sand around the green, although the undulating surrounds will test the short game of anyone not finding the putting surface – with the gully in front of the green catching any approach which is even slightly under-hit.

China’s Liang Wen-Chong holed his second shot here in 2015, but still missed the cut.

Hole 5

Name: Hole O’Cross Yardage: 570 Par: 5 This is the easier of the two par fives on the Old Course and it was the easiest hole on the course in 2015.

The fifth: easiest hole on the course in 2015, but not without its defences

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Course guide

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Visions of sea, sky and sand at the seventh hole

Hole 7

players might use anything from a long iron to a nine or even a wedge. The tee shot needs to avoid the two bunkers short of the green, but the green tilts towards the back so is difficult to hold.

Jordan Spieth took four putts here in 2015.

Name: High (Out) Yardage: 371 Par: 4 This marks the start of the “Loop”, with the hole sweeping around to the right. The tee shot can be aimed at the left-hand flag on the green, which is for the 11th. The absolutely huge bunker is called Shell and appears to be out of play although it can be a bit of a magnet for balls. Tiger Woods, who famously did not find a bunker in 2000, drove into Shell in 2005 but still got up and down for a birdie. The seventh played well under its par in 2015 with an average of 3.799.

Hole 9 This is one of an increasing number of short par-four holes on the Old Course which, for the world’s best players, is driveable in most wind conditions.

The tee shot must avoid, and be placed preferably just to the left of, Boase’s bunker and End Hole bunker in the middle of a fairway that is shared with the 10th. The large, circular green is relatively flat and protected by just one bunker which sits to the left, next to gorse bushes. Putting from a position short of the green is recommended.

Those taking part in The Open Championship may well come to this hole feeling the pressure to complete the front nine with a birdie (with the outward half averaging two shots lower than the inward in 2015).

Hole 8 Name: Short Yardage: 187 Par: 3

Lengthened by 13 yards since 2015, the hole now features a grandstand that will wrap around the tee and the seventh green providing a superb vantage point for views to the Eden Estuary.

The course turns back on itself so the tee shot heads southeast. Depending on the strength and direction of the wind,

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Name: End Yardage: 352 Par: 4

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Hole 10

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Course guide

front and it is vital that players leave themselves with an uphill putt. The hole is also known to some as the shortest par five in Scotland. Although parts of the green were softened for 2015, Saturday’s gale meant the hole (at the most exposed part of the course) was unplayable, and the long suspension pushed the final round into Monday.

Name: Bobby Jones Yardage: 386 Par: 4 The hole is named after the great American amateur who won both The Open (1927) and The Amateur Championship (1930) at St Andrews. It is another shorter par four, but the fairway narrows at around 280 yards with mounding on the left and the Kruger bunkers on the right.

The approach must be carefully controlled due to undulations in front of the green and a putting surface that tilts from front to back. It represents another good birdie chance and played as the third-easiest hole in 2015 with three eagles, but also with three double bogeys and one “other”.

Hole 12

Name: Heathery (In) Yardage: 351 Par: 4 This hole represents the final turn back towards the town. From the tee it may appear to be a relatively simple par four, but a number of hidden bunkers await whatever the wind conditions.

One of them, Stroke, is so named because going into it means losing at least one stroke. Heading left off the tee is the safest line, but overdo it and a thicket of gorse bushes awaits. The twotier green is one of the shallowest on the course and has some severe slopes so a pitch-and-run approach must be judged perfectly. A four here will not lose anything to the field.

Paul Casey’s hopes sank at this hole in 2010 as he took a triplebogey seven following a wayward drive to the left.

Hole 11

Name: High (In) Yardage: 174 Par: 3 A dramatic short hole that definitely puts some bite into the Loop. The front of the green is protected by Hill and Strath bunkers, but the putting surface itself is severely sloped at the The 11th: where Hill and Strath bunkers lie in wait

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Course guide

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Hell Bunker provides the main threat on the 14th

Hole 13

be threaded between the out of bounds on the right and the Beardies bunkers on the left and finish in the Elysian Fields.

The second shot must avoid Hell, but also, nearer the green, Grave bunker. Then there is the “table-top” green itself to be negotiated. This is a par five that averaged 5.008 in 2015.

Name: Hole O’Cross (In) Yardage: 465 Par: 4 The tee shot must take on the Coffins at 277 yards in the rightcentre of the fairway, while there is no prospect of running up an approach – with mounding, gorse and bunkers such as Cat’s Trap, Wilkinshaw’s Grave and Lion’s Mouth in the way – so the second must fly all the way onto the green.

Unlike most of the double greens this one has flags front (13th) and back (fifth) rather than left and right. The Hole O’Cross bunker guards the front right of the green.

The 13th averaged the third most difficult hole in 2015.

Hole 15

Heading for the widest part of the fairway means skirting past Sutherland, a tricky pot bunker that squats at 260 yards, but hitting a driver is likely to mean heading for the narrowest segment of the fairway.

The main threat here can be the green itself, which appears deceptively close and large, but slopes both left to right and front to back. Distance control is the key, plus avoiding bunkers front and back.

Australia’s Marc Leishman, who topped the putting statistics at The Open in 2015, was leading when he holed a good parsaving putt here, although he eventually lost in the play-off won

by Zach Johnson.

Hole 14 Name: Long Yardage: 614 Par: 5

Welcome to Hell. The bunker of that name is over 300 square yards in area and between seven and 10 feet deep. It is definitely to be avoided – even Jack Nicklaus came off badly from an encounter with it. But before getting there the drive needs to

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Name: Cartgate (In) Yardage: 455 Par: 4

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Hole 16

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Course guide

doubles and 11 “others”. The blind drive, over the old sheds and grounds of the hotel, will have to fade to find the narrow fairway and avoid running into thick rough on the left.

The approach, of course, then has to avoid the Road Hole bunker, the famous pot hazard that eats into the left front side of the green and the ruin of many a contender.

Name: Corner of the Dyke Yardage: 418 Par: 4 The tee shot can only be described as treacherous with out of bounds on the right and the Principal’s Nose cluster of bunkers at 270 yards on the left.

The rough has been grown up on the left to eliminate an easy bailout so the only other option is to lay up short. Deacon Slime is the pot bunker 30 yards past the Principal’s Nose.

A drive short and left leaves the approach to take on two greenside bunkers, Grant’s and Wig. This was the second hardest hole in 2015, but Spieth holed a 50-footer here to tie for the lead before bogeying 17.

Hole 18

Name: Tom Morris Yardage: 356 Par: 4 The line off the tee is the clock on The R&A clubhouse to avoid the out of bounds on the right. Competitors will hopefully enjoy the view from the Swilcan Bridge – there is no better scene in golf at the conclusion of an Open – but if a three is required for the Claret Jug there will still be plenty of work to do.

Distance off the tee is not the issue, but playing a delicate second with the pressure on most certainly is. The approach must clear the Valley of Sin, the seemingly magnetic hollow in front of the green, to find a pin that is never far from this danger.

In 1995 Costantino Rocca went from despair to delight here when he rolled in a 65-foot birdie putt to force a play-off.

Hole 17 Name: Road Yardage: 495 Par: 4

The hole maintained its reputation for difficulty when the tee was moved back 45 yards for 2015. There were only nine birdies all week and the hole averaged 4.655. There were 217 bogeys, 32 The 16th tee: where accuracy is vital to avoid a host of hazards

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PARTNER CONTENT – by Toro

Preparing the Home of Golf for the 150th Open Championship To commemorate The Open Championship returning to the Home of Golf for its 150th celebration, we sat down with Sandy Reid, the Director of Greenkeeping at the St Andrews Links Trust, to find out what it takes to prepare The Old Course for such a momentous event.

A Historic Anniversary This will be the 30th time that The Open has been held at St Andrews on the historic links of The Old Course — but it will be the biggest celebration yet. “I go to The Open every year and I see how the level of infrastructure involved has grown,” said Reid. “And with this being the 150th this year, it’s going to get even bigger.”

Ready to take on this massive task is Reid’s team of experienced greenkeepers and a few Toro volunteer greenkeepers from Australia and New Zealand. All in all, the crew will top out at more than 50 members — who will be very much needed for the work ahead.

Getting to Work To prepare the course for The Open, Reid and his team have a busy schedule slated. “As a greenkeeper, preparing for The Open is the highlight of your career,” stated Reid. “And we want to maintain things at a higher level.”

This past winter they rebuilt 76 bunkers, which is a huge undertaking considering the crew normally rebuilds 20 to 30 each year. As the growing season approaches, Reid says that they’ll work backward from the date of The Open to plan out the ideal fertilization, topdressing and moisture programs.

Ball speed is also top of mind, and a carefully planned mowing routine will be needed to ensure the green is not too fast. To 32

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PARTNER CONTENT – by Toro

achieve the required speeds and ensure the highest quality of cut, the greens will be cut using an electric Toro® Greensmaster® eTriFlex™ mower — which helps the greens crew accomplish the task with time to spare for a double cut, if needed.

To provide a little extra firmness for playing, Reid also plans on drying out the course a week or two before the tournament — weather permitting. Typically, The Old Course is maintained at a 20% soil moisture level for most of the growing season. To dry it out, the new target moisture will be set slightly below that.

The trick, however, is to make sure the course isn’t dried out too soon — which could result in an inconsistent playing surface.

With the Toro Lynx® GAC irrigation system – recently upgraded

– Reid’s team have all the information they need to drive the soil moisture level to the point they want it to be.

Caring for a Heritage Course Reid and his crew are always looking for new technologies or products that may help make greenkeeping more efficient with respect to the heritage of St Andrews. “People look to us as a leader,” said Reid. “We want to be considered an innovator of new ideas that make life as a greenkeeper easier.” From adopting high-tech monitoring systems to implementing environmentally sustainable practices, only the best goes into the care of the oldest and most iconic golf course in the world.

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Champion focus

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Morikawa on his way to victory at Royal St George’s last year

Living

It is quite the accolade to tee off at The 150th Open as defending Champion…

Can Collin Morikawa rediscover his winning formula to make history on the Old Course?

the dream

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Words: Andy Farrell

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hen you are Collin Morikawa, you get to dream big. “Being the defending champion at The 150th Open at St Andrews, you can’t script it any better,” said the Californian, before adding with just a hint of sassiness, “other than being the defending champion at The 151st Open.”

Morikawa, who has never been to St Andrews, will tee it up for the first time on the Old Course on the Monday of Open week and knows he will be competing against players who know the course like the back of their hand.

But, he adds: “I’m going to go out there and do everything it takes to be ready by Thursday and hopefully come out on top. It’s always a clean slate in professional golf. It’s always starting new.”

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Champion focus

Who would put it past the 25-year-old from Los Angeles winning at golf’s biggest week of 2022, the special anniversary of the game’s oldest Major Championship?

After all, things were heavily stacked against him at Royal St George’s in 2021. “If you just look at how I played at the Scottish Open, no one would ever look at me to even contend at The Open,” he admitted.

“First time being out here, first time links golf, but in my mind I felt like my game was there, I just needed to make a couple of tweaks. Being able to close another Major, close it at a place and a location where I’ve really not had a lot of experience, gave me a lot of confidence.”

Morikawa had finished 71st at the Scottish Open and then admits to taking a risk in tweaking his irons for the

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Champion focus

Giant steps: not since the great Bobby Jones has a player won two of his first eight Majors

Morikawa’s 15-under-par total of 265 was the second lowest for the Open Championship behind only Henrik Stenson’s 264 at Royal Troon in 2016

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following week in Kent. Yet it paid off as his approach play with the irons was back to its supreme best as he defeated fellow American Jordan Spieth by two strokes, with Louis Oosthuizen and Jon Rahm four behind.

The eloquent young business graduate from the University of California at Berkeley also impressed in his speech after receiving the Claret Jug, although it was probably the first time being announced as the “Champion Golfer of the Year” was described with one word: “Chills!”

Not one, he admits, for the history of the game, Morikawa is too busy making it. He became the first male golfer to win two Major Championships on his debut in each of them, having won the US PGA Championship in 2020 and then becoming only the 10th player — others include Ben Hogan, Tony Lema and Tom Watson — to win The Open at his first attempt. Not since the great amateur Bobby Jones a century earlier had a player won two of his first eight Majors — Morikawa only turned professional in the summer of 2019 after graduating from college.

His 15-under-par total of 265, helped by largely benign weather conditions which he concedes may not always be the case at The Open, was the second lowest for the Championship behind only Henrik Stenson’s 264 at Royal Morikawa on the 16th during the final round of the 2020 US PGA. He would go on to win by two shots from Paul Casey and Dustin Johnson 37

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Champion focus

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Rory McIlroy and Morikawa celebrate their bunker escape skills on the final hole at the Masters this year (left). The pair finished second and fifth respectively. Considering the lie of the land alongside caddie JJ Jakovac on the 15th during day four of The Open at Royal St George’s (below)

“It was a little hurdle we had to get over, that little awkward tension between us, which we’ve really never had. We got it off our chests and finished up Saturday on a good note. It was one of the most pivotal moments that will be underappreciated by anyone else because they don’t know that kind of stress you get going into a weekend near the lead.”

Morikawa did not drop another shot for the final 31 holes of the weekend.

In the first Major of this year, Morikawa finished fifth at the Masters, holing a bunker shot at the final hole just moments after Rory McIlroy had done the same thing. “That was one of the coolest experiences I’ve had as a professional so far,” he

Troon in 2016. “Coming over to play my first Open, it was to experience what links golf was like,” he said. “I think I did a pretty good job figuring it out for my first try around.”

For 2022, Morikawa will again play in the Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club, one of the new links-style courses, but will not have a sneak peak at the Old at St Andrews, whose nuances golfers have been pondering as long as it has been in existence.

“I’m looking forward to the St Andrews experience, how the love of the game breathes through the town, so I’ll be embracing that, but I need to do my normal prep Monday to Wednesday. I can’t play it like people have played it in the past.

We don’t know what the weather is going to be like. Having the experience of a year ago, I’m going to be able to adjust a little quicker and I’ll be ready to figure out how to dissect the golf course in front of us to the best of my abilities.”

One thing Morikawa, and his caddie JJ Jakovac, learned in 2021 was not to judge a shot until it has stopped rolling on a links. At the fifth hole on Saturday, Morikawa’s tee shot looked good in the air and Jakovac said: “Great shot.” It landed in the fairway, took a hop to the left and ended up on top of the lip of a bunker. With an awkward stance, Morikawa almost hit his next out of bounds and bogeyed the hole to go two over par for the day.

The ensuing altercation surprised both men, since their relationship before, and ever since, had been cordial. “I just said, look, no more calling out any shots before they actually stop moving. But then he’s like: ‘Look, I’m doing my best, you’re doing your best, that’s all we can do.’

said. There’s no other way to walk off the 18th green in a final round other than doing what we did and hearing those fans.”

Morikawa is looking forward to using the energy of a record 290,000 crowd for The 150th Open, but don’t bother asking how much the prize money will be.

“I could not tell you what I made last year,” he said. “At the end of the day, the memories I have are of holding the Claret Jug, and showing it to people, bringing it around town and showing it to family. The coolest thing is just seeing the reaction on people’s faces, picking up the Claret Jug, witnessing the history of the game. I think it’ll never get old.”

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“The coolest thing is just seeing the reaction on people’s faces, picking up the Claret Jug, witnessing the history of the game. I think it’ll never get old.”

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The Open 2021

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Ice and fire

Collin Morikawa made history at a sun-drenched Royal St George’s last year, winning The Open Championship at the first attempt after holding off a last-ditch charge from Jordan Spieth Words: Dan Hayes

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The Open 2021

Moment to savour: Collin Morikawa became only the second player (after Tiger Woods) to win the US PGA and The Open before their 25th birthday

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he crowds were back, the sun shone, Pegwell Bay sparkled and Royal St George’s did what it does so well – delivered an Open Championship that will be remembered for a very long time.

That was down at least in part to the eventual winner, Collin Morikawa, who became the first player ever to secure two Major titles at the first attempt; adding The Open to the US PGA trophy he had won at Harding Park, San Francisco, in August 2020.

It was also memorable for a barnstorming start by Jordan Spieth, Open Champion of 2017, who rolled in four consecutive birdies on the first nine holes on his way to a five-under 65 and a share of second place on day one.

The early leader, though, was South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen, who began serenely with seven pars before a trio of birdies round the turn and a crucial par-saving putt on 18 helped him to six-under for the day.

Hopes of a home victory were also very much alive, with a cluster of Englishmen, including Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose and Danny Willett tucked in on three-under. News was less good, however, for Phil Mickelson who, having seemingly defied the ageing process to triumph at the US PGA a few weeks previously, endured a torrid time – finishing back on 10over and in a tie for last place.

Day two once again saw Oosthuizen setting the pace, a five-under 65 taking him to a 36-hole Championship record and a two-shot lead over his nearest rival, Morikawa, while a bogey on the 15th pushed Spieth back into third spot.

Also making headlines was Jonathan Thomson, all 6’9” of him, who had already become the tallest man to play at The Open. Standing on the 16th tee at one-over and seemingly minutes away from missing the cut, he holed in one, following the feat with a birdie on 17 to ensure his participation in the weekend’s entertainment.

“I just couldn’t seem to get anything going properly then that happened and it was just awesome,” Thomson said. “What an experience. You dream about playing in The Open as a kid and then you come here, have a hole in one and make the cut, and it’s just like, ‘wow’.”

Prospects for a grandstand finish grew throughout Saturday as both Spieth and Morikawa mounted challenges to Oosthuizen’s lead.

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The Open 2021

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“I’m glad I look calm because the nerves are definitely up there. Especially at those last nine holes coming in... I had to worry about every shot.”

Turning point: Oosthuizen considers his sand-trapped ball on the seventh

By the time the final pairing reached the 15th there was a three-way tie at the top of the leaderboard, but then the South African birdied 16 to edge ahead once again while Spieth dropped shots on 17 and 18 to slip back to third. Spain’s Jon Rahm, meanwhile, fresh from US Open victory, was beginning to hit his stride, birdies on 12, 14 and 17 giving him a two-under 68 for the day.

And so, around 32,000 people arrived on the Kent coast on a scorching Sunday with baited breath to witness what promised to be a gripping denouement.

They were not to be a disappointed. A dropped shot on the fourth meant Oosthuizen and Morikawa were soon neck-andneck and things would shortly get worse for the South African as he found sand twice on the seventh on his way to a bogey six, while his rival was bang on target with his birdie putt.

The American consolidated his position by gaining shots at the eighth and ninth and suddenly his lead looked, if not impregnable, then certainly impressive. Spieth, though, was not finished yet. Having followed a shaky start with an eagle at the seventh, he notched up birdies of his own at nine, 10, 13 and 14 to keep the crowds riveted to the action.

Knowing a player of Spieth’s pedigree was breathing down his neck did not appear to faze Morikawa, though, as he too birdied the 14th before saving par from a tricky position on 15.

Reaching the par-4 18th knowing five shots would bring him the title, he duly finished with a calm and collected par to sign for 15 under and take victory by two shots from Spieth, with Oosthuizen and Rahm, who produced four straight birdies on the back nine, a further two shots back tied for third.

Morikawa became only the second player (after Tiger Woods) to win the US PGA and The Open before their 25th birthday and played like a man who had far more experience of golf at the very highest level.

“I’m glad I look calm because the nerves are definitely up there,” he said. “Especially at those last nine holes coming in.

Jordan was making birdies; I think Rahm was pushing; Louis had a birdie on 11, an amazing birdie. You can’t worry about the score. I had to worry about every shot.

“When you make history, it’s hard to grasp. At 24 years old, it’s so hard to look back at the two short years that I have been a pro and see what I’ve done because I want more. I enjoy these moments and I love it, and I want to teach myself to embrace it a little more, maybe spend a few extra days and sit back and drink out of [the Claret Jug]. I just want more.

“The seventh hole was definitely the turning point,” he added. “[Oosthuizen] just had an unlucky break on seven. We were 43

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The Open 2021

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You had to feel for Oosthuizen, a man who has finished runner-up in Major Championships six times in the middle of the fairway and he makes bogey. These are the first few times I played with Louis, and [he] is an outright amazing player and person. It’s nice to see another guy just stripe it down the middle. When I watch him play and hit his drives, I’m like, ‘Wow, I want to hit it like that.’

“Louis is consistent, he really is. He’s going to keep knocking at these doors [at Majors], and I’m sure he’s going to knock a few more down. He’s just too good.”

For all Morikawa’s praise, though, you had to feel for Oosthuizen, a man who has finished as runner-up in Major Championships six times, including both the US PGA Championship and US Open in 2021. He became the first player to lead in the first three rounds of an Open and not win the Championship since Sergio Garcia in 2007 at Carnoustie.

Spieth, meanwhile, recognised that his short game had let him down at crucial moments.

“My putting is not where I want to be at all. It’s progressing

Job done: Morikawa putts on the 18th to take the Championship (above) Jordan Spieth shows impressive suppleness in the closing stages (below)

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in the right direction, but it’s not where it has been,” he said.

“I’m proud of going six-under in the last 12… And putting some pressure on Collin. I did all I could. So I’m upset because I really felt like I played well enough to win and made a couple of really dumb mistakes – like just stepping in and missing on 18 [on the Saturday evening].”

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PARTNER CONTENT – by Loch Lomond Whiskies

The Spirit of The Open

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This summer the world’s oldest and most prestigious major championship in golf will return to St Andrews for The 150th Open.

t is one of most anticipated and highly sought-after sporting events on the globe this year which will see a record breaking 290,000 fans descend upon the ‘Home of Golf’ for the milestone celebrations. Those lucky enough to attend will have plenty to enjoy on, and off, the course during the eight-day event.

Due to be held on the prestigious Old Course, the most historic golf course in the world, a number of golf’s greats, including the likes of Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas, are all expected to tee-off this summer.

Scotland’s national drink, whisky, goes hand-in-hand with

its number one sporting export, and The Open will have an exceptional selection of single malts to sample, brought to spectators by Loch Lomond Whiskies, the Official Spirit of The Open.

Loch Lomond Whiskies is an award-winning scotch whisky distiller from the Highlands of Scotland, sitting in the shadow of the iconic Ben Lomond. Fuelled by an eternal spirit of exploration, the whisky making team spend their days looking into the endless possibilities of Scotch, crafting unique flavours that appeal to a wide range of whisky aficionados and new fans alike.

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PARTNER CONTENT – by Loch Lomond Whiskies

Loch Lomond’s partnership with The R&A is now in its fifth year, having commenced in 2018. Over the course of Loch Lomond Whiskies’ time as the Official Spirit of The Open, a number of special edition single malt whiskies have been released to commemorate the partnership, working in collaboration with some of the most renowned names in golf. Colin Montgomerie was the first official signing as a Loch Lomond Whiskies Brand Ambassador in 2018, working with the distiller to promote the full product range worldwide, including the multiple limited-edition whiskies which carry his name.

Through partnerships with some of golf’s most well know golfers such as Paul Lawrie, Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood, Louis Oosthuizen and golf presenter Iona Stephen, Loch Lomond Whiskies has proudly hosted exclusive events both at The Open and events across the globe.

To celebrate the prestigious 150th Championship, Loch Lomond Whiskies’ Master Blender Michael Henry has crafted three limited single malts to help tell the story of this extraordinary sporting tournament, including: Loch Lomond The Open Special Edition 2022 (£45, ABV 46%) crafted in partnership with legendary golfer Colin Montgomerie, who worked closely with Master Blender Michael Hendry to create a whisky worthy of The Open’s historic anniversary.

Loch Lomond The Open Course Edition 2022 (£225, 48.2%), a rich and elegant single malt whisky which pays homage to all the golf courses where The Open has taken place, from the first ever championship in Prestwick in 1860 to St Andrews in the present day.

Loch Lomond Mizunara Cask (£1,500, ABV 52.8%) is available to purchase from Loch Lomond Whiskies’ pavilion at The Open, providing a unique memento of this significant milestone in golfing history.

At The Open, Loch Lomond Whiskies will have a spectacular two-tier marquee located in the heart of the Spectators Village. Here, fans will be able to enjoy a remarkable range of single malts and cocktails, while sitting back and watching the tournament unfold across a number of large TV screens.

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Louis O osthuizen

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ou search online for a video of Louis Oosthuizen swinging a golf club and inevitably get sucked in.

After watching mesmerised for five minutes or more, you ponder one of golf’s great conundrums – how could so simple, unhurried and just plain calm a swing propel the ball quite so far? Harry Vardon may have been the first to possess such elegant power. Bobby Jones had it. Sam Snead possibly had more of it (whatever “it” is) than anyone. And then came players such as Tom Weiskopf, Tom Purtzer, Payne Stewart, Fred Couples, Steve Elkington and Ernie Els. Oosthuizen is not a big man by any means. His PGA and DP World Tour profiles put him at 5ft 10in and 12.9st (80kg). He does not appear to exert much effort and yet he has averaged 300 yards or thereabouts off the tee every year since first playing a full schedule on the European Tour in 2004.

Despite owning one of the game’s sweetest swings, however, the South African, then 27, was still winless at the start of 2010, his seventh year on tour. He finally broke through at the end of March, winning the Open de Andalucía de Golf with a 17-under-par total of 263.

Given the promise he had shown for years, it was not really a surprise. And the fact he won again four months later was not a shock either. He had broken into the top 50 in the world, was becoming a regular at the Majors and WGC events and had clearly developed into a world-class player. What was a little unexpected, though, was the Championship he won, the venue where he won it and the manner in which he did so.

At The 139th Open, played on the Old Course at St Andrews, Oosthuizen shot rounds of 65, 67, 69 and 71 to finish 72 holes on 16-under 272 and seven shots clear of the player in second, Lee Westwood. In the game’s greatest Championship and on its most famous course Oosthuizen had left the others trailing.

Twelve years on, Oosthuizen has many happy memories of the week but, surprisingly perhaps, none more vivid than how he got to the course every day. “For some reason, I really remember driving there and the feeling I had in the car,” he says now. “It was very different to what I feel arriving for the Dunhill Links Championship. Anytime you play at the Old Course it’s special, but I remember being especially excited back in 2010. Driving into town each day really lifted me.”

Naturally, he can’t wait to get back. “You just want to experience it,” he says. “Any opportunity you get to play there you just take it. I’ll have my family [wife Nel-Mare and three daughters] with me so it will be very special.”

He does not do it very often these days, but Oosthuizen recently watched the 24-minute video of the 2010 Open that shows every shot from his fourth round. As well as being able to re-live the exhilaration of winning, Oosthuizen was immediately aware of how differently he plays at a links, in particular at a windy St Andrews.

Open Champion at the Old Course back in 2010, South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen enjoyed an outstanding run of form at the Majors last year Words: Tony Dear

Maestro of Mossel

Bay

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Louis O osthuizen

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Louis Oosthuizen tees off on the 18th hole during the final round of the 139th Open Championship

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The Old Course, he says, is a place for shot-makers and requires a different set of tools, both mental and physical, to what he typically employs year-round. “It’s just a different kind of golf,” he says. “On the video, I noticed how much lower I flight the ball. I play so much in America now where you typically hit the ball much higher.”

Making the adjustment does not concern Oosthuizen, though. He does not have “specific St Andrews shots” necessarily and finds it easy getting back into St Andrews mode. “I grew up on the coast at Mossel Bay in South Africa and have always been used to playing in the wind,” he says.

“I’m comfortable adapting to the conditions and hitting the shots the course demands. By midweek, you’re hitting shots on the trajectory you need and are ready to go.”

It makes perfect sense, then, that Oosthuizen wants the wind to blow this year. “I’d like it to come from all directions,” he adds. “But I’d rather there wasn’t any rain.”

In 2015, the last time The Open was played at St Andrews, heavy rain during Friday’s second round caused play to be suspended, meaning the round had to be completed the next morning when strong winds caused more problems. On the 13th green in his second round, Oosthuizen had a three-foot par putt, but a gust then moved his ball a further five feet from the cup. If that was not sufficiently frustrating, the horn then sounded and he was not able to resume until 6pm.

It was an exasperating 48 hours, but a determined Oosthuizen led after 54 holes and was in a great position to repeat his 2010 win when the wind tried derailing him once more. “It happened at the 13th again,” he remembers. “The wind just turned.” His bogey put him a shot behind American Zach Johnson and two behind Australian Marc Leishman.

“I had to make the necessary changes very quickly,” Oosthuizen says. “And I did. I played 14, 15, 16 and 17 very solidly then made a good birdie at the 18th to get myself into the play-off.”

He was really pleased with how he had played down the stretch and was confident going into extra holes. “I honestly thought no one could beat me,” he says. “I was proud to get in that play-off and felt really good.” But Johnson played one shot better and claimed his second Major to go with his 2007 Masters win.

“That really stung, to be honest,” says Oosthuizen, usually a placid, level-headed individual who has always been good at compartmentalising the various elements of his life and of whom Ken Brown once said: “He almost plays with a smile on his face, always a cheery look.”

“When I get home, golf is done,” says Oosthuizen, who finished 2021 in 10th spot on the world rankings. “My girls don’t care if I shoot 90 or 60. They ground me pretty quickly. But I must admit I reflected on what happened in 2015 just a little more than usual.”

“My girls don’t care if I shoot 90 or 60.

They ground me pretty quickly.”

Oosthuizen had a remarkable run in the Majors last year, finishing in the top three at the US PGA, US Open and Open Championship (at Royal St George’s), where he led going into the final round but shot a disappointing 71 (+1) that saw him finish in third place, four behind winner Collin Morikawa.

“I just struggled that day,” he says, “and I did get a little down on myself.”

His most recent memory of The Open Championship may not be so cheery and his last Open at St Andrews was rather deflating. Plus his play so far in 2022 has not exactly set the world alight. So he will need to dig deep if he is to revive a cache of more pleasant memories from his Open triumph.

It is nothing another watch of that video from 2010 cannot achieve, though. Ally that with his affection for St Andrews and the arresting swing we love so much and Oosthuizen is sure to contend again.

Oosthuizen is also a brand ambassador for Loch Lomond whisky

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SCANDINAVIAN EXCELLENCE

To experience The Scandinavian contact us at +45 48 17 40 20 or contact@thescandinavian.dk

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Rory McIlroy

Rory McIlroy on the 12th at Southern Hills, Oklahoma, during this year’s US PGA

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n this side of the Atlantic at least, we seldom allow a golfer to rest on his laurels. If he wins one Major, we want to know when he will win a second. And, in the case of the now 33-year-old Rory McIlroy, who had four Majors under his belt ahead of the US Open and The Open, everyone has been crying out for him to make it five.

Hopes were raised when he had that 64 in the last round of the Masters to steal a second-place finish. They were raised again when he opened at the US PGA at Southern Hills with a 65, the low score of the day. The par-threes proved his undoing in the third round but, typically, he fought back for a finishing 68 and eighth place.

Nonetheless, it was a silent McIlroy who left Southern Hills on the Sunday night as Shane Lowry ventured the view that too much was being asked of his colleague.

“The armchair golfer doesn’t realise how hard it is out here,” said the 2019 Open Champion. “I saw a quote from Rory last week about how he hasn’t won a Major since 2014. But he has pretty much done everything else you have to do in the world of golf, like winning 20 times on the US tour, so it’s not as if he’s in a slump.”

When McIlroy won The Open and the PGA Championships of 2014, it seemed that there was no stopping him. Especially when he was up there with two of the greats of the game – Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods – in having won his four Majors by the age of 25.

Yet as early as the summer of 2017, questions were mounting as to why he was failing to add to his haul, and you could sense that the player himself was starting to worry about his legacy. What seemed to be irking him was the thought that people might one day focus less on what he had achieved and more on what else he could have done. That much became apparent at the British Masters at Slaley Hall when he was asked to comment on Tiger Woods’ reference to how his career was probably drawing to a close.

In his answer, McIlroy made no mention of Woods’ muchreported troubles. Instead, he made the heartfelt request: “People should applaud the career he’s had.” As everyone knows, Woods came back to win the 2019 Masters.

Many of the questions McIlroy has had to face in the first half of this season have put the emphasis on what has been holding him back on the Major front. Some hit on the idea that he had been distracted by his marriage to Erica and the birth of their daughter, Poppy, others seized on his decision to become a player-director on the US PGA Policy Board.

McIlroy, whose honesty in his dealings with the media knows no bounds, was the first to admit that his priorities had changed. At the 2019 HSBC in Shenzhen, for instance, he told

An impressive showing at the US PGA suggests the Northern Irishman is back playing close to his best. Can he add that elusive fifth Major title at St Andrews?

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Words: Lewine Mair

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Rory McIlroy

Hopes and

expectations

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A victory hug for his mum, Rosie, after winning the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool in 2014

has since failed to take the final step with any one of the eight close Major calls he has had since. At last year’s Open, such questioning contributed to a cauldron of negativity which could hardly have done much for his confidence, even if he did contrive to finish the week in third place.

On paper, McIlroy’s history of Opens at St Andrews is not exactly dripping with promise. He missed the 2015 version after fracturing his ankle while playing football with friends. In revisiting that accident in a recent interview with the BBC, he homed in on how he had won as many as three times ahead of that Open and had a top10 finish in the US Open. “The injury,” he said, “halted the momentum.”

His 63, 80 start in the Open of 2010 would have been still harder to take. One day he had played the finest golf of his life and the next he was out in the worst of the squalls. Harold Riley, the famous golf artist who shared in those hideous elements, said in the note he penned beneath his picture of McIlroy that play should have been called off.

So does he have a chance this time around? Of course he does. Going back to his last-round 64 at the Masters and his opening 65 at the PGA, surely they simply confirmed what the player himself has said?

“I know that if I play my best, I can still win.”

me that the best thing he ever did was to add to his family with a wife who, having worked for the PGA, could understand him and his career: “Professional golf is such a lonely pursuit.

I’ve always been able to share what I’ve done with my parents, but now I’ve got Erica as well. She makes the good days better and the bad days not so bad.”

As for his role on the Policy Board, he would have known of the former board-member-cum-player who had advised golfers like him “to stay off boards, stay out of charities and play golf and make history.”

However, he had no problem in explaining why he had gone down this path. More than once, he talked of how there had come a point where he wanted to stretch himself after spending his school years wishing he was on the golf course.

“I know a little about a lot of things,” is how he put it. Today, he is revelling in learning more. “I feel like I’ve been on tour long enough now that I sort of know the ins and outs of dayto-day tour life and the business of the tour, and I have some pretty good ideas.”

McIlroy threw in a few of his own thoughts on his eight Majorless years. Sometimes he had played well and lost to a better player, sometimes he had played badly, and sometimes, such as when he had that opening 79 in front of a home crowd in The Open of 2019, nerves had come into play.

Earlier this year he and Brooks Koepka, the American who won four Majors between 2017 and 2019, had fallen into discussion on the subject and Koepka mentioned how the feeling of invincibility which had fuelled his play across that three-year stretch had paled.

Another who could have been in on that conversation was Louis Oosthuizen. He won the 2010 Open at St Andrews, but nowadays gets quizzed, sometimes mercilessly, on how he

“[Erica] makes the good days better and the bad days not so bad.”

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Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth and McIlroy on the 18th green during the second round of the 2022 US PGA

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J ust in Rose

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Rose: finding form at the right moment?

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J ust in Rose

What dreams are made of A Major and Olympic champion, Ryder Cup star and winner of 24 titles. Justin Rose has an impressive record... But should we hope for more?

Words: Keith Jackson

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hen you are barely old enough to drive and you finish tied for fourth at The Open, it is understandable that expectations will head skywards. And it was not just the result for a fresh-faced 17-year-old Justin Rose on that final day at Royal Birkdale in 1998; it was all about the finish.

The showreels of him holing out from the rough for the unlikeliest of birdies at the 18th are played out on an annual basis whenever The Open coverage gets into its stride, and it was a shot that resulted in the player being tipped as perhaps England’s greatest hope of significant Major success since Sir Nick Faldo.

Yet a few months and no fewer than 21 consecutive missed cuts later, those lofty hopes were not only put on hold, they were all but extinguished.

Undeterred, Rose ploughed on, retaining an immense belief in his abilities, and while he may not have fulfilled the expectations placed on his shoulders moments after that perfect waft with a wedge at Birkdale, he has certainly achieved more than most in the professional ranks.

Major champion, Olympic champion, winner of 24 titles worldwide, world number one, and a Ryder Cup force to be reckoned with; it is certainly an impressive CV to talk his grandchildren through in the future, but one which many feel should have had some more accolades, particularly in the Major count.

Rose’s one Major victory, at the 2013 US Open at Merion, showed what he was made of. And, like his finish at Birkdale 15 years previously, it was his performance on the 72nd hole that garnered the most plaudits. A ridiculously tough par four measuring over 500 yards, uphill, with not a single birdie witnessed by the packed grandstands around the green over the entire weekend; it is a closing hole that would be far from the top of the list to play when protecting a one-shot lead in a US Open.

Hats off: Rose savours the moment as he sinks that famous birdie chip at the 18th hole during the final round of The Open Championship in 1998

Rose embraced the challenge rather than letting himself be overwhelmed by the scale of the difficulty, striping the best drive of his career. That was followed by the best four-iron of his career, followed by a delightful third from the rear fringe with a fairway wood that came closest of anyone to breaking the weekend birdie drought. And when frequent US Open runner-up Phil Mickelson was unable to force a play-off, Rose was crowned Major champion having survived one of the toughest tests in professional sport, let alone golf.

But what about his record in his home Major?

After his top-four finish as a teenager, surely it would be a matter of when, not if, he would have his name etched on the Claret Jug by a grateful engraver appreciative of having only 10 characters to negotiate. Rose has played in The Open 18 57

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Joining the Major club: Rose victorious at the US Open in 2013

Despite this near-miss, Rose was in mint form and edging closer to the title of the best golfer on the planet, a landmark he achieved thanks to two further runner-up finishes during the FedExCup Playoffs, the second of which (after extra holes against Keegan Bradley) left him contemplating some conflicting emotions.

“To get to world number one is unbelievable and I can say now in my career I’ve been the best player in the world,” said Rose afterwards. “I’ve been to the top of the game, and that’s definitely some consolation. I just wish I could have enjoyed the moment maybe, and this just slightly dampens it. But tomorrow or the next day, or the week after, I’ll look back at this and think it was an amazing moment in my career.

“It’s boyhood dreams, it’s a dream that we’ve all thought about at some point in our lives or as young aspiring golfers thinking about it. I turned pro at 18 and it took me 20-odd years to get to world number one, but my advice would be to just dedicate yourself to improving, to learning, to trying to get better. That’s what excites me, but the quest to get better is why I wake up in the morning.”

Rose enjoyed five separate spells at the top of the world rankings as he jostled for No 1 status with Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, but more recently he has been dealing with breaking back into the world’s top 50, having gone close to three and a half years without collecting any silverware.

A missed cut at the Masters was his third in four events in the early part of 2022, and another followed at the Charles

times since then, and has bettered his debut only once. His record in The Open perhaps reflects his career as a whole; full of peaks and troughs that drive every professional golfer to distraction, and beyond.

It took 13 appearances spread over 16 years to register his first top-10 as a professional in golf’s oldest Major, a tie for sixth at St Andrews, but he did manage a runner-up finish three years later – a result that had looked out of the question when he stood over a slippery 12-footer for birdie on the 18th green at Carnoustie on Friday afternoon, no doubt aware it was a putt that needed to drop to avoid a weekend off.

Rose would go on to record the rare feat of making birdie on Carnoustie’s fearsome 18th hole on each of the four Championship days, the fourth of which closed out a 69 and earned him a tie for second with Ryder Cup team-mate Rory McIlroy, two shots behind Francesco Molinari.

Schwab Challenge before Rose showed, once again, that the old adage “form is temporary, class is permanent” could have been penned for him personally, just missing out on a closing 59 in Canada before watching McIlroy storm to another PGA Tour triumph.

The lift he needed ahead of another tilt at the US Open in Boston was secured, and he will head to the Home of Golf in July very much in the conversation of potential winners rather than languishing among the “sleeper” picks.

He has got previous on the Old Course, he has got previous in Major Championships. The pedigree is undoubted and although he is now the other side of 40, those lofty ambitions and expectations that date back 24 years have suddenly been reinvigorated.

Justin Rose, Champion Golfer of the Year at The 150th Open, that surely has a nice ring to it?

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He will head to the Home of Golf very much in the conversation of potential winners rather than languishing among the “sleeper” picks

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Tiger Woods

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Twice an Open Champion at St Andrews, all-conquering in his pomp and the winner of 15 Major titles, Tiger Woods will be determined to make an impact at the Home of Golf this year

The legend

returns

Red alert: Tiger Woods dons his trademark Sunday colour as he competes at the Masters in April

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Tiger Woods

Words: Bill Elliott

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y the summer of 2000 Eldrick “Tiger” Woods was universally recognised as something else when it came to talking about sportsmen who enjoyed extraordinary talent.

By then his outstanding amateur record – he won three straight US Amateur titles amid a posse of other victories – was but an interesting intro to a golfer who was in the process of rewriting the old game’s carefully assembled history.

And by the time he strode into St Andrews he had won his third Major, the US Open, just a few weeks earlier when he shredded the opposition at Pebble Beach to triumph by an audacious, ridiculous 15 shots from the jointly sprawling figures of second-placed Ernie Els and Miguel Ángel Jiménez. That Californian caper was Woods’ fourth win of a truly remarkable year that was only going to get better as time spilled into the spring of 2001.

At this 129th Championship, however, he was still a young man delighting in the thrill of unearthing his brand of oncourse genius. If Woods was having fun with it all, we certainly were too.

Nowhere that year had he enjoyed more fun than at Pebble Beach where his dominance was such that Els, until then clearly the world’s most effortlessly talented player, not long afterwards told me: “I’ve tried focusing on Tiger, I’ve tried ignoring him, I’ve tried everything to beat him, but I now accept that if I play really well and he does too then he wins.”

The others did not have to wait that long to come to the same weary, carefully considered conclusion.

What is certain is that Woods loves St Andrews and not just the history or the setting. He loves the course’s simplicity on top of its complexity, its subtlety and, possibly most of all, he relishes the fact that the crowds are kept to one side, to his right and on the perimeter. Yes, there is noise, of course there is, but for much of the time those fans are silent, appreciative and usually quite far away.

This is pleasing for a man whose favoured pastime used to be scuba diving because: “It’s quiet down there and the fish don’t ask for autographs.” When you spend your life in a public storm of one sort or another then tranquility becomes your most precious commodity.

Twenty-two years ago none of these observations were relevant. What was about to happen at St Andrews was further confirmation that, in Woods, the game of golf had an exceptional talent. He started with an almost effortless 67, placing him one shot behind, yes, Els, followed up with a 66, consolidated on the third day with a 67 and romped to victory with a closing 69. He won by eight shots from second-placed Thomas Bjørn alongside Els (who began to realise he may have been playing brilliantly in the wrong era).

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Tiger Woods

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Signing autographs for the next generation of golfers

The way we were: Woods enjoys his victory at St Andrews in 2000; he would go on to hold all four Major titles by the following spring

It was a magnificent display of both chutzpah and skill by Woods. At this point and over the next several months he touched, for many of us, the highest plateau ever reached by a golfer since the game began, eclipsing even Jack Nicklaus.

There are 112 malevolent bunkers at St Andrews, but during this Open journey Woods did not enter any of them. Of course that meant he had some luck, his ball skittering a few inches away from a bunker on several occasions, but then no-one has ever achieved the highest prizes without good fortune grinning towards them now and then.

We knew before this Open began that he was terrific. Now, with four Majors to his credit at just 24 years of age, we understood he was perhaps even more than this. A month later he won the US PGA Championship and the following spring he triumphed at Augusta National to add the Masters.

The purist will tell you that was not a Grand Slam, that these four glittering prizes need to be grasped in a single calendar year for that to be so. Such people are welcome to their opinion, but when a man may place those four trophies on his mantelpiece at the same time, as Tiger did, then that is the grandest of slams in my house.

Five years later he arrived back in Scotland and St Andrews, by now with nine Majors in his back pocket. He had already won another Masters that year and was the most applauded and financially rewarded athlete in the world. No-one since Muhammad Ali in his prime had captured the interest of such 63

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a wide and diverse public around the world as Woods by then.

Phenomenon does not quite capture it.

At this Open Woods’ fun year was about to get even better.

It was coincidental but, with hindsight, wonderfully apposite that Nicklaus, for many the greatest-ever player, had chosen this special place as the site of his official retirement, his appreciation of the Old Course’s storied history allowing him this final indulgence, The R&A rubber stamping his request for one last goodbye at the game’s ceremonial birthplace.

It was, as expected, a poignant departure, not a dry eye in the house as he missed the cut but still birdied his last competitive hole.

We knew, however, that as Nicklaus left, the new king had arrived already. Shakespeare surely would have loved to have written about this Open for that fact alone. Maybe not quite King Lear, but still.

Woods eloquently acknowledged the great man’s abiding legacy, not least the 18 Majors he had stowed away in his locker and the benchmark of quality that remains unequalled to this day. Then he got on with winning his second Open.

This time he led from the start and never let go. There was a brief threat from Colin Montgomerie on the final day, but this soon petered out leaving Woods to saunter down the last

hole acknowledging the crowds while nursing a five-shot lead, Montgomerie in second place. Els at least had the dubious consolation of being on his way home before the climax after tying for 34th.

So now Woods returns for another tilt at winning a third St Andrews Open. His presence at this 150th battle on the ancient jousting field adds much to the occasion. Can he win?

He can, of course, but regardless of how he fares it will be a joy simply to see the 15-time Major champion tee it up at the Old Course.

Just making it to St Andrews as a competitor is a considerable triumph for a man whose leg was almost lost in a car accident last year and who is lucky to be alive. His return to golf is both muted and trumpeted just as the strength of his mind and the stubborn determination generated remains one of the wonders of this or any sport.

Surely it is enough just to have him with us on this momentous occasion? If he crosses the Swilcan Bridge on Sunday and keeps going that, certainly, would be enough for me to applaud. And, I suspect, for Woods too. Of course, he will never admit that victory is beyond him beforehand.

Confounding naysayers is still his default position. We wish him a great week.

His presence at this 150th battle on the ancient jousting field adds much to the occasion

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Woods on the 18th green at St Andrews in 2005 64

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PARTNER CONTENT – by Old Course Hotel

Old Course Hotel, Golf Resort & Spa

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There’s Golf. And then there’s the Home of Golf

ituated in the town of St Andrews, steps away from the 17th fairway of the most historic golf course in the world, sits the Old Course Hotel, Golf Resort & Spa. The resort boasts panoramic views of the Old Course and has provided the backdrop to some of the most iconic moments in golfing history. Encompassing 175 rooms with a new Penthouse Suite, a world-class spa, six restaurants and bars, plus The Duke’s championship golf course, this luxury property offers all you would expect and more from a rural retreat, while still being within easy reach of St Andrews’ historic town centre.

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contemporary design, while paying homage to the property’s original architecture. One of the new room types on offer is their Old Course Double rooms which are perfect for a holiday with your golfing buddies. Each has two luxurious double beds, a spacious bathroom and stunning views out over the links courses towards the stunning Fife coastline. And with their delicious Full Scottish Breakfast to start your day, this is likely to be a trip you’ll never forget.

Another new addition is the Swilcan Loft restaurant which features floor-to-ceiling windows and an outdoor terrace that overlooks the 17th hole and one of golf’s most famous 66

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PARTNER CONTENT – by Old Course Hotel

landmarks, the Swilcan Bridge – from which the Swilcan Loft takes its name. It is helmed by the resort’s Executive Head Chef, Martin Hollis, who oversees all of the hotel’s restaurants including the 3 AA Rosettes rated Road Hole Restaurant. The menu is internationally inspired with a local twist and there is an extensive wine and bar list with feature signature cocktails.

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Owned by and in close proximity to the Old Course Hotel is The Duke’s Course, the only heathland golf course in St Andrews. It is carefully routed through an ancient Scottish country estate that perfectly showcases the stunning design of heroic, tactical and risk and reward holes. The Duke’s combines meticulous conditioning with breath-taking panoramic views over the Home of Golf.

West Sands Beach is only five minutes from the hotel and is perfect for refreshing walks. If you’re looking to explore more, you can continue through Fife’s beautiful coastline passing through historical and natural landscapes along the

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Old Course Hotel, Golf Resort & Spa is located within walking distance of the historic town of St Andrews, perfect for exploring during your stay. The hotel is also a less than two hours drive from Scotland’s wild wilderness and its most famous national parks, including The Cairngorms and Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park. www.oldcoursehotel.co.uk 67

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Players to watch

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Bryson DeChambeau

DeChambeau made his comeback at the Memorial Tournament, but missed the cut

USA

Age: 28 Professional wins: 10 Major victories: 1

A distinctive figure on course, “The Scientist” has struggled with injury this year; but could he emulate the 1995 heroics of another big hitter, John Daly?

Words: Owen Pye

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here were doubts whether the game-changing, big-hitting Californian would even be able to make it to The 150th Open this year. Recovering for several months with simultaneous hip and hand injuries, he rushed his return to give Augusta a whirl but missed the cut and instead spent the weekend in the crowd following Tiger Woods.

Since adding 40 pounds of driving muscle during the Covid pandemic, the player nicknamed “The Scientist” has very much adopted the approach-shot mantra of: “I’d rather be negotiating rough with a wedge from 60 yards, than standing in the fairway with an iron from 130.”

This risk/reward ratio of missing fairways may well work on US parkland courses, lined with pine straw and springy, supportive rough, but at the Old Course?

Well of all the Open Championship venues, it might suit him most actually, with wide, airy fairways (bar the Road Hole) and big greens, so smashing 340-yard drives into swirling winds is not necessarily asking for an uncomfortable lie between gorse bushes like it could elsewhere.

In 2019 DeChambeau missed the cut at Royal Portrush, shooting one worse over two rounds than he did a couple of months earlier at the US PGA at Bethpage. Last year he made it to the weekend at Royal St George’s, but had to be content with a tie for 33rd place (thanks to a classy 65 on the Sunday, rounding up a consistent run of 71-70-72).

With a protein-rich diet and coming off the back of an enforced lay-off period, DeChambeau would no doubt love

to get back on the tee box for the final Major of 2022. Despite little competitive golf this year, the rest may have been just what he needed. If ever there was a time to dial back the big stick, avoid the rough and focus on 100ft lag putts, this is it.

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Of all the Open Championship venues the Old Course, with its wide fairways and big greens, might suit him most

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Players to watch

Matt Fitzpatrick England

Age: 27 Professional wins: 8 Major victories: 1

The Yorkshireman will arrive at St Andrews buoyed by his superb victory at the US Open in June Words: Dan Hayes

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ith his victory at the US Open at Brookline in June Matt Fitzpatrick became a household name across the UK virtually overnight.

Ranked number 18 in the world before the Championship began, the 27-year-old had already proved his class by chalking up seven wins on the European Tour, not to mention winning the US Amateur title at the same venue back in 2013.

That puts him, incidentally, in exalted company; Jack Nicklaus also won the US Amateur (his second) and the US Open (his third) at the same course – in 1961 and 1972 at Pebble Beach.

Fitzpatrick’s victory was thoroughly impressive. Rounds of 68, 70, 68, 68 belying the winds that were a feature of the Championship. “That little golf ball is just getting thrown around all over the place,” Scottie Scheffler commented after his own rollercoaster ride on the Saturday.

Paired in the final showdown with Will Zalatoris, and with Scheffler a lurking threat, Fitzpatrick showed a remarkable coolness under pressure, typified by his escape from a bunker on the 18th which set up a brace of putts to secure his par and the title.

In the past 50 years only two Britons, Tony Jacklin and Justin Rose, have won the US Open and Fitzpatrick understandably was delighted. “It’s what you grow up dreaming of,” he said.

“It’s something I’ve worked so hard for such a long time. I’ve got to give myself credit: I had so much patience.”

Fitzpatrick celebrates his US Open win at Brookline

As a proud Yorkshireman and Sheffield United fan, he even allowed himself a comparison with the team he has followed since his youth.

“I’m the same deal – not expected to do well, not expected to succeed. I feel like I certainly work hard for it, and where I’ve grown up that’s the mentality of everyone around there… an underdog mentality. You work for what you get.”

You can guarantee that determination will be to the fore at St Andrews this year, with the reigning US Open champion focused on being among the leaders in the closing stages.

Fitzpatrick showed a remarkable coolness under pressure, personified by his escape from a bunker on the 18th 69

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Players to watch

Rahm in cheery mood at the US PGA Championship at Southern Hills in May

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Jon Rahm Spain

Age: 27 Professional wins: 14 Major victories: 1

With power, creativity and the ability to win at the highest level, Jon Rahm will be on many people’s shortlist for Open glory Words: Owen Pye

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panish powerhouse Jon Rahm ended 2021 as the best player in the world and, despite being usurped for the top spot by Scottie Scheffler earlier in the season, he has continued 2022 in fine form.

Rahm has bagged three top-three PGA Tour finishes, including victory at the Mexico Open, where he shot four consecutive rounds in the 60s, the second time he has achieved that feat this year.

Going back, Rahm has won at least one PGA Tour event every season since 2016/17.

leads the pack with 1.31 strokes per round gained off the tee this season, is now up to 120mph with his swing speed and has stretched his average driving distance to 316.7 yards.

Indeed, if things get windy, you may find several players reaching for their inner Rahm to deliver cut-swing stingers under the worst of it. Despite his physical talents, the Spaniard needs to control his occasionally explosive temperament to give himself the best chance on the Old Course, where bad breaks can frustrate even the calmest.

To pick up the Claret Jug you need to mix pure irons, wellexecuted creativity and a steady nerve with the short stick.

Rahm has all of this in abundance and one would expect if he can ride the bumps and berms with a smile, he will likely feature in the Sunday showdown.

Much has been written about the player’s club foot correction affecting his ability to take a full backswing, so it is of interest to note he has credited his success this year to the new shoes he is sporting.

Rahm is a big guy, with a large torso and wide hips, so grounding his mass in some footwear that supports a heavy transition is perhaps more important for him than most. His ball striking and club-head speed is sensational, made all the more impressive considering he is losing a chunk of potential energy at the top of his backswing. He drives his right elbow down early for maximum lag, allowing for a very efficient swing and a powerful contact.

The numbers speak for themselves – at time of writing he

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He is now up to 120mph with his swing speed and has stretched his average driving distance to 316.7 yards

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Players to watch

Scheffler: a winning temperament

Scottie Scheffler USA

Age: 25 Professional wins: 6 Major victories: 1

Masters champion, world number one... The University of Texas alumnus will be among the favourites at the Home of Golf Words: Owen Pye

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eigning world number one” is a phrase that Scottie Scheffler could not have had in his mind as he drove away from the US Open in July 2019. After a missed cut at Pebble Beach, his last PGA effort of the year, he entered a long summer of Korn Ferry Tour contemplation.

Undeterred, he stepped up that autumn and launched into a full year of PGA Tour events just as the Covid pandemic arrived, notching up no fewer than six top-five finishes. He has not looked back since.

Scheffler grew up learning how to cut the ball through the winds of east Texas; a useful grounding for all links golf, but especially perhaps St Andrews, where the elements can combine in particularly capricious ways.

He tied for eighth at Royal St George’s last year, averaging 68.25 across the four rounds, perhaps used to the familiar dry and gusty conditions. Since then, he has won three tour events, including the Masters, become world number one and finished second twice.

His demeanour as he casually strolled the final round on his way to a green jacket showed his ability to compartmentalise pressure. This is another helpful attribute at the Old Course, where one sideways gust mid-flight, or a cruel uneven fairway bounce, can easily play on your mind as you wend your way to the next tee box.

At the time of writing, Scheffler is averaging 69.7 strokes on tour this year, although he missed the cut at the PGA Championship in May, shooting an uncharacteristic 71-75…

Perhaps that represented the difficult second album.

He grew up learning how to cut the ball through the winds of east Texas; a useful grounding for all links golf Also noted was the way in which he smashed his driver into his bag after a loose slice led to a wet ball. Just as the average Joe took solace in the fact he was perhaps human after all, he knocked his dropped shot to 15ft and made par. As you were.

Scheffler will have low odds for The 150th Open, and you would be brave to bet against him.

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Players to watch

Smith: looking to build on a number of close finishes

Cameron Smith Australia

Age: 28 Professional wins: 7 Major victories: 0

A distinctive figure on course, the man from Brisbane is enjoying an impressive season; including a win at the Players Championship Words: Owen Pye

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he latest hot product from Down Under, 28-yearold Cameron Smith has actually been in the mix for several years, racking up a number of top-three finishes on the PGA Tour and six-figure pay-days.

His stock is high at the moment after an outstanding start to the year where he won two tournaments – including the tour’s flagship event and “unofficial fifth Major”, the Players Championship – and pushed world number one Scottie Scheffler all the way in the final round of the Masters.

It is perhaps a surprise Smith has not scored better in The Open Championship over the years, his best result being a tied 20th at Royal Portrush in 2019.

His Australian roots will afford him the experience of clipping irons off hard, tight lies and controlling his spin While not possessing a picture-perfect swing, Smith hits it very clean and has great control over the ball with his irons and wedges. That is crucial for links play and perhaps especially on the Old Course, where it pays to land it close to avoid threeputts on gigantic greens.

Having relocated to Florida he may now hone his game on lush, smooth courses, but his Australian roots will afford him the experience of clipping irons off hard, tight lies and controlling his spin on concrete.

It is more business at the front than party out the back for the mulleted Brisbane man, as his steely temperament has

led to – at the time of writing – an impressive 319 out of 319 putts from inside three feet this season. He did not even let hitting Aaron Wise (with a flyer to the head) in the second round of the US PGA faze him, finishing tied 13th.

A compact, tidy player, Smith has a developing habit of getting on the birdie train and with a growing number of incontention Sundays behind him this year, it would not come as a surprise to see him in a final pairing once again.

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Players to watch

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Reasons to be cheerful: Zalatoris at the US PGA in May

Will Zalatoris USA

Age: 25 Professional wins: 1 Major victories: 0

Will Zalatoris has an impressive record in recent Majors and is a player who performs at his best on the biggest occasions Words: Robert Verkaik

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ill Zalatoris has carved out an enviable reputation in Major Championships in the past couple of years.

Dubbed a “star of the future” by none other than the evergreen Bernhard Langer, the 25-year-old from Texas only turned professional in 2018, qualifying for the US Open in 2020 thanks to his high standing on the Korn Ferry Tour.

Zalatoris promptly announced himself to the crowd at Winged Foot with a hole-in-one on the par-three seventh and went on to finish tied for sixth.

He has barely looked back since. The following year saw him take second place at the Masters and the accolade of PGA Tour Rookie of the Year. Already in 2022 he has finished tiedsixth at Augusta, second at the US PGA (after losing out in a play-off with Justin Thomas) and second at the US Open behind Matt Fitzpatrick. He also missed out in a play-off with Luke List at the Farmers Insurance Open.

A back injury forced Zalatoris to withdraw early from The Open at Royal St George’s last year and he will be hoping for better luck at St Andrews. The PGA Tour statistics seem favourable. He ranks highly for driving distance (15th at time of writing) and approach play and his ability to roll in the short putts is impressive.

“With my ball-striking, if I hit good golf shots and put the ball in the right spots, I don’t have to work as hard,” Zalatoris said.

“The tougher the golf course, the better for me.”

His short-game coach, Josh Gregory, also gave his protégé a glowing reference: “He’s just so smart. He understands where to put the golf ball, so he rarely gets himself into a bad place.”

All of those attributes would appear to tick plenty of boxes for the Old Course. If the putts start rolling in and the weather does not misbehave too badly then something remarkable could be on the cards.

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“With my ball-striking, if I hit good golf shots and put the ball in the right spots, I don’t have to work as hard.”

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22/06/2022 10:26

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24/06/2022 13:40

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24/06/2022 13:40

Greatest moments

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Highlights from the archives

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We asked a trio of Sky Sports Golf broadcasters to share their favourite, most unforgettable, memories from many years of watching, and playing in, The Open Championship

obert Lee, Richard Boxall and Tim Barter all agree that the moment that stands out beyond all others was Seve Ballesteros’ celebration after his winning birdie putt in 1984 at St Andrews. So, to provide some variety, we also quizzed them on their own personal memories of the world’s oldest Major.

Lee’s personal favourite Open Championship moment actually begins before The Open of 1985 even started; at the Lawrence Batley International Golf Classic at The Belfry the week before.

“There were three places on offer for The Open at Royal St George’s. I was playing with David Frost in the final round, and I stood on the 18th tee knowing that a par would probably be enough to earn my Open debut. The problem was that

Words: Keith Jackson

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Robert Lee

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making par on the 18th at The Belfry, into the wind with a persimmon driver and a balata ball, was not exactly an easy prospect. It was a beast of a par four, and even beastlier with what was at stake for me.

“I hit a decent drive and still had a two-iron for my second, which cleared the water and missed the green to the right.

But I knocked a great chip to three feet and rattled in the putt for a 69 which was enough for me to finish inside the top 12, with most of those ahead of me on the leaderboard having already booked their Open places.

“It was a very special feeling to know that I would be off to Royal St George’s, and things only improved when I shot 68 in the opening round. I felt it couldn’t have gone any better and I couldn’t see anyone beating that, so quite how Christy O’Connor Jnr fired a 64 remains a bit of a mystery to me!

Although I couldn’t stay in contention over the remainder of

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Greatest moments

The 18th hole on the Old Course (left) during The Open Championship 1984: it was here that Seve Ballesteros would create so many lasting memories. Bernhard Langer at Royal St George’s in 1985 (above)

that Open, I did get to play alongside Bernhard Langer and I was happy to make the cut with plenty to spare and finish in the top 25 on Sunday evening.”

Lee on Ballesteros in 1984

“My favourite ‘non-me’ moment has to be Seve’s jubilant celebration in 1984.

“The birdie putt seemed to take an eternity to complete its journey and drop in the side of the hole, and the unbridled joy of both Seve and the crowd was pure entertainment, and pure Seve. That man could light up a room, and a golf course, like nobody else.”

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Richard Boxall

Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus and Ballesteros. At that point, if I could not find my ball, I reckon I would have walked back to the first tee and carried on walking, through the gangway and headed home!

“Luckily, my blushes were spared when my ball was found, I hacked out and eventually holed from 15 feet for one of the best bogeys of my career! I birdied three of the next six holes, I led the Championship and I thought: ‘Wow, this is a piece of cake. I’m going to do a Bobby Jones and win The Open!’ And then I watched the last two rounds on Grandstand!”

Boxall made the third of his 12 Open appearances at The Old Course in 1984, when Ballesteros won. But it is his debut four years earlier at Muirfield that he recalled as his favourite personal memory; not a shot or a great putt, but finding a lost ball on his very first hole!

“I was a 19-year-old amateur, I was grouped with John O’Leary and Christy O’Connor Jnr, and when we got to the first tee I could not even speak! The nerves were incredible and when I look back on it now, I just wanted my mum!

“Standing over the ball, all I wanted was to make contact without worrying too much about trying to hit a fairway which, if memory serves, was 19 paces wide. Watching my ball sail into the rough did not seem like a big deal at the time, because I had avoided a shank or an air shot. But there were not many spotters lining the fairways in those days and we were struggling to find my balata.

“As we waded through the long grass, I was informed by a marshal that I had only a minute left to locate my ball or I would have to head back to the tee. And when I looked back, it seemed that I could be facing the prospect of hitting my third shot in front of the next group – which appeared to be

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Greatest moments

Boxall on Ballesteros in 1984

“At The Open in 1984 I shot 71 and 74 to make the halfway cut for the first time, and a 73 also got me into the final round, when I had the privilege to play alongside Sandy Lyle. After I had signed my card, it occurred to me that I’d never seen an Open finale in person, so I decided to hang around and watch the closing stages. I witnessed Seve hole his winning birdie putt before sending the crowd wild with his celebratory fist-pumps. Even though I played in The Open a further nine times and have covered many more as a broadcaster, there still hasn’t been a moment to top that.”

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Greatest moments

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Jordan Spieth on his way to victory at Royal Birkdale

“The way Jordan Spieth fought back in 2017 and played the final five holes in five under was one of the best Major performances I’ve ever seen.”

Tim Barter

one behind Matt Kuchar with five holes to play, Spieth ran out a three-shot winner.

“I’ve always enjoyed a good relationship with Jordan, and when he turned up at the Sky Cart clutching the Claret Jug, we were literally laughing about the manner of his third Major victory. The extraordinary circumstances and situations he found himself in, four over for the day after 13 and looking like he was letting the title slip through his grasp. The way he fought back and played the final five holes in five under was one of the best Major performances I’ve ever seen.”

Unlike Lee and Boxall, Tim Barter does not have an Open playing memory to draw on, but he has found himself front and centre in Sky’s Open coverage since the broadcaster first won the rights to screen the Championship in 2016. It was a debut to remember at Royal Troon as the viewers were treated to a spectacular final-day showdown between Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson, the Swede coming out on top in record-shattering style following his Sunday 63.

As lead interviewer, going through the highlights of Stenson’s winning round almost necessitated the need for an extra programme, but it was the following year that Barter recalls as being extra special.

“Jordan Spieth’s performance on the back nine at Royal Birkdale on the final day in 2017 was just ridiculous! All the shenanigans over the 20-minute drop ruling on the range at the 13th, then he salvaged a miraculous bogey and almost took the pin out with his tee shot to the short 14th. Then he sank a huge eagle putt on 15, birdied the next two and, from

“Events on the Road Hole, not for the first time, effectively decided the tournament. Seve made his four and Watson went long and found himself up against the wall over the back of the green, dropping a shot moments before the Spaniard launched into his iconic celebration after his winning birdie putt dropped at 18. What a moment, what a celebration, what an iconic moment for The Open.”

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Barter on Ballesteros in 1984

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The Open 1984

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t was a Sunday afternoon in July 1984 and shortly before he was due to tee off in the penultimate pairing of the 113th Open Championship at St Andrews Severiano Ballesteros was putting a few balls, his eyes narrowed, his focus seeming to create a force-field around him that was almost visible.

I watched him for a few minutes until I caught his eye. He nodded, I wrung my hands, twirled my fingers and mouthed: “How are they today Seve, how do they feel?”

He rested his putter against his thigh and raised his hands to his mouth and kissed them. “Muy bien, amigo,” he said, “muy bien.” I threw back a thumbs-up and left him to it, left him to while away those final minutes before his entrance into the famed arena that is the Old Course.

Two days earlier as he battled to make his way into contention in this Open I had asked him if he ever knew when he was going to win? His reply was swift and serious: “No-one ever knows when they are going to win, you can hope but not know. In Spain we say don’t sell the bearskin before you catch the bear, but I do know when I am going to play well enough to win. I know this on the morning of the last day when I wake up. Then, if I have the feeling in my hands, in my fingers that is good then I know, then I feel ‘destino’.”

“Destino” as you may know or certainly guess, is Spanish for fate. When he had first opened his eyes that morning his hands, his fingers had told him that this Sunday could be his, that his destiny was to prevail. He really believed this, claimed later that he had never won anything anywhere without this feeling in his soul before battle commenced.

However he felt it that Sunday, Ballesteros knew that there was another man with more than a hint of destiny about him.

Tom Watson was on a bit of a roll. He had won three times in America already that season but, more importantly, he had won the previous two Opens at Royal Troon and Royal Birkdale, adding to the three previously won and was now desperate to become only the fifth man in history to pull off the small miracle of three successive Championships. He would also equal Harry Vardon’s record of six Open victories.

As far as Ballesteros was concerned that Sunday the fight was a show-down between himself and the American who, after initial disgruntlement, had swiftly learned not only to love links play but had taught himself the tricks of this particularly testing trade.

Of the four golfing Majors, The Open was, and is, special in testing not just a player’s nerve but his imagination and in Ballesteros and Watson we had the fun of watching two golfers with the ability not only to caress the unique problems often offered up by the great links but to imagine the answers to these challenges.

Others, too, had their dreams that day. Watson and young Australian Ian Baker-Finch led the way, tied for the lead and

two strokes ahead of Ballesteros and his playing companion, Bernhard Langer of Germany. The Spaniard respected them all, obviously, but he felt Langer was not quite ready for an Open win while Baker-Finch was too inexperienced to withstand the pressure of such a final round.

“Although Bernhard came very close in the end, it was Watson who stood between me and what I wanted. I expected that,” he said.

Baker-Finch, by now firmly established as a crowd favourite fell at the first fence, his ball dribbling into the Swilcan Burn at his first hole. His race was over almost before it had begun.

Watson, meanwhile, had his own problems over the opening nine holes, his putter suddenly cold, his approaches lacking the accuracy of his earlier play that week. Ballesteros, by contrast, was on a determined roll, manoeuvring his way to the turn beautifully to take a one-shot lead.

It was a lead that twisted this way and that over the back nine, the Spaniard and the American trading blows in one of the most fascinating final rounds in even the Open’s

A date

with destiny

Hard to believe, perhaps, but it is almost 40 years since the great Severiano Ballesteros produced one of the finest rounds in Open history to fend off Tom Watson at St Andrews Words: Bill Elliott

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The Open 1984

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Seve Ballesteros shows off the Claret Jug after one of the greatest-ever Open finales

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The Open 1984

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Tom Watson attempts to pull off something special at the Road Hole (left); Ballesteros’ never-to-be-forgotten victory celebrations (below)

Up ahead, Ballesteros knew his main challenger was in trouble and that if he could birdie the last then surely his destiny had been achieved. He did. Millions of us saw it, whether openmouthed at the scene or clutching a drink in front of a TV set, all watched as he made contact with the matador inside and celebrated so delightedly. I think it is the only time I have seen a man almost literally beside himself with joy.

He told us that it was “the happiest moment of my whole sporting life, my moment of glory, my most fantastic shot. I saw the ball drop in slow motion, saw it turn left to fall in while I feared it would miss. Perhaps it was forced in at that hole by my powers of mental suggestion. My desire was so strong that the ball had to drop.”

Not just the hands and the fingers then. A fantastic, unforgettable end to a wonderful Open featuring two of the most gifted, charismatic golfers ever to grace this historic sporting landscape. I doubt there will ever be better.

“[It was] the happiest moment of my whole sporting life, my moment of glory, my most fantastic shot.”

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flamboyant history of dogfights, Ballesteros peering back at his opponent, Watson anxiously looking ahead to see how his rival was doing although the roars or groans of the fans told each man more accurately what was happening.

In the end, as we all know and still savour, it came down to the last two holes. Ballesteros parred the 17th, a hole that so often offers more punishment than pleasure, while Watson came up with an uncharacteristic error that would prove hugely costly.

Ballesteros and Watson were tied at 11 under par. The American’s drive at the 17th was further right than he had intended so that for a nerve-shredding few minutes he suspected he might have hit it into the Old Course Hotel. It turned out that mishit had a brilliant ending, his ball sitting perfectly on the right side of the fairway and opening a rare window of opportunity.

Instead of seizing this moment, Watson shunned it, his twoiron approach swinging right and long and up against the wall that barricades the back of this green and from where he racked up a bogey five.

“I just hit a terrible shot,” Watson admitted afterwards.” I pushed it 30 yards right of where I was trying to hit it. I tried to hit the ball onto the green like an idiot from an uphill lie.

Sometimes you make the wrong decision and this was one of those times.”

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The Open 1970

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Jack Nicklaus secured the second of his three Open victories, but the Championship is perhaps best remembered for Doug Sanders and one of the most dramatic missed putts in history

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Words: Robert Verkaik

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hen asked about his work, pioneering French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson said his aim was to capture a “moment in time”. He would have surely nodded in approval of several of the images depicting Jack Nicklaus and Doug Sanders in the immediate aftermath of the fourth round of The Open Championship of 1970.

The pair look as though they could have been filming a scene for some classic TV series of the era (The Prisoner, The Avengers or The Man from U.N.C.L.E. perhaps). Nicklaus, blond, sideburned and resplendent in pale blue cardigan and turtle neck, looks to be commiserating with Sanders, clad in shades of pink and purple.

The latter’s expression, though, tells the real story here: capturing a gamut of disbelief, of shock, of horror even.

And it is understandable. Sanders had felt his hands metaphorically on the Claret Jug only to have it snatched away again as he pushed a three-foot putt wide and found himself facing a play-off with Nicklaus, in which he would ultimately (and perhaps inevitably) be vanquished.

The Championship that year had started rather inauspiciously: a severe thunderstorm lashing St Andrews and

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The Open 1970

causing play to be suspended with 38 players still scattered around the course.

England’s Neil Coles was the early leader, carding an impressive round of 65, with reigning champion and crowd favourite Tony Jacklin also off to a flyer (the man from Scunthorpe stood at eight under after the first 13 holes, but was then thwarted by the weather to finish on five-under 67).

Perhaps hoping to enjoy a little reflected glory, the then Prime Minister Ted Heath joined fellow Conservative politician (and captain of The R&A) William Whitelaw on the third day to show their support for the home-grown challengers.

Jacklin entered the final round, alongside Nicklaus and Sanders, at six under par, two shots behind leader Lee Trevino.

Coles and Peter Oosterhuis were a further shot adrift.

Nicklaus threatened early, two birdies in quick succession taking him briefly into the lead as Trevino, who never really got into gear until it was too late, dropped shots on the second and the sixth.

Sanders, meanwhile, looked like the man to beat and, when Nicklaus dropped a shot on the par-3 11th, it really began to feel as if this might be the day the player dubbed the Peacock of the Fairways won his first Major. That feeling was

So close, but no cigar

Doug Sanders watches in horror as the crucial putt rolls wide of the 18th hole (left). Jack Nicklaus celebrates with his wife Barbara (and the Claret Jug) following his victory in the play-off (far left) 89

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The Open 1970

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It was the second time Nicklaus had lifted the Claret Jug, having triumphed in 1966 at Muirfield, and he would go on to claim the trophy again in 1978

two shots clear – a lead that had doubled by the time the players stood on the 14th tee.

At this point Sanders seemed to remember why he was actually there – and it was not just to make up the numbers.

Birdies at 14 and 15 rapidly cut the deficit back to two and, when Nicklaus missed his par putt on the 16th reducing the lead to just one shot, it was the Golden Bear’s turn to feel the pressure building.

The Road Hole was played in regulation which brought the players to the final tee.

Sanders laid up just short of the green, but Nicklaus overshot, giving him a challenging lie from which he somehow managed to chip to around eight feet. His final putt was well measured, curving left to right before finally sinking to secure him the victory at St Andrews he craved.

It was the second time that Nicklaus had lifted the Claret Jug, having triumphed in 1966 at Muirfield, and he would go on to claim the trophy again in 1978; once more at the Home of Golf.

As for Sanders, for all of his 20 victories on the PGA Tour, he will perhaps be remembered primarily as the player who came so close to victory that July day 52 years ago. As he said when interviewed in 2000: “It doesn’t hurt much any more. These days I can go a full five minutes without thinking about it.”

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Sanders congratulates Nicklaus after the final act of the play-off

underlined when, having landed in the Road Hole bunker on 17, he escaped sublimely to within inches of the hole to save his par and apply pressure on his rival.

On 18, meanwhile, Nicklaus, having driven the green, thundered his second shot wide of the hole leaving a huge putt for birdie. He missed by a fraction and ended on five under, his hopes of winning The Open at St Andrews now looking decidedly slim.

The Golden Bear could only watch now as Sanders, on six under, middled his tee shot to within around 70 yards and then… Well, then the script began to be shredded.

What should have been a comparatively straightforward pitch was dramatically over-hit and suddenly Sanders faced a 35-foot putt for birdie. And, as we all know now, he did not manage it. Which left that nightmare of a three-footer to decide the Championship.

Watching from the commentary box Henry Longhurst said: “I knew it when he hit that second so far past. I knew that was what was happening. Everybody who plays here does.”

So Sanders and Nicklaus faced off before a relatively sparse crowd on a blustery Sunday morning over 18 holes. Sanders, his puce attire of the previous day swapped for shades of mustard yellow, had the air of a man who had spent much of the previous night visualising over and over again his ball drifting off to the right of the 18th hole.

By the time the pair reached the fifth, Nicklaus was already 90

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The Open 1927

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Bobby Jones ensured his place in the history of the Championship and the hearts of the people of St Andrews with a peerless victory

Jones hones his skills, watched by a group of enthusiasts, a few days before The Open of 1927

Words: Dan Hayes

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ew, if any, sportspeople have dominated their chosen milieu quite like Bobby Jones bestrode golf between 1922 and 1930. During those years this multi-talented amateur player from Atlanta, Georgia, won the US Open four times (and tied twice for top spot), took three Open Championship titles, five US Amateur crowns and triumphed at the Amateur Championship as well.

It was, as the American sports writer Grantland Rice wrote in the 1950s, “the greatest sweep in the history of the Ancient Green”.

For all his success, though, Jones did not have the ideal introduction to The Open Championship. Indeed, he arrived at St Andrews in 1921 as an outsider, a relatively unheralded 19-year-old whose career highlight to date had probably been making it to the final of the US Amateur Championship two years previously.

Not only that, he was also rather lacking in restraint. “Bobby was a short, round kid with the face of an angel and the temper of a timber wolf,” Rice wrote in 1940. “At a missed shot, his sunny smile could turn into a black storm cloud. Even at the age of 14 Bobby could not understand how anyone ever could miss any kind of golf shot.”

That irascibility was to surface during the third round on the Old Course that year.

Already well off the pace, Jones struggled to a double-bogey six at the 10th before finding Hill bunker on the 11th. Bogged down trying to escape its sandy clutches he called time on his Open debut then and there.

“My ball came out of the bunker in my pocket, and my scorecard found its way into the River Eden,” he later recalled.

It was not only an older, wiser Jones that returned to St Andrews in 1927, the player was at the height of his powers. He had already twice won the US Open and was the reigning Open Champion – having triumphed brilliantly at Royal Lytham & St Annes the previous year.

Not only that, a few weeks prior to raising the Claret Jug in Lancashire, he had enjoyed a much more successful encounter with the Old Course – as a member of the successful US Walker Cup team.

Jones had certainly banked that experience. His first-round 68 equalled the course record (set by Scotland’s George Duncan in 1922) and took him to an early three-shot lead. He barely looked back for the remainder of the Championship.

By the time he set out on his final round, clad in an understated grey pullover, he was four shots clear of his nearest rival, England’s Fred Robson, with the Australian Joe Kirkwood and Aubrey Boomer (a Jerseyman who won the French Open on five occasions) a further two shots adrift.

The crowds gradually zeroed in on the eventual champion. By the time he reached the final green perhaps as many as 12,000 people were in attendance, the crowd stretching from the green, past the Swilcan Burn, to the 18th tee.

Once Jones’ final putt dropped there was a brief hiatus while his playing partner, Mark Seymour, finished his round. Then, with a decidedly 1920s approach to 92

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The Open 1927

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The Open 1927

“The more I studied the Old Course, the more I loved it, and the more I loved it, the more I studied it.”

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health and safety, the crowd surged forward swamping the diminutive Jones, who shortly afterwards reappeared being carried away on sturdy shoulders – his famed putter, dubbed Calamity Jane, held aloft.

Spare a thought for those players who were still out on the course. They were, in the words of the Glasgow Herald, “largely left to themselves” to complete their rounds.

Later in the evening, once all the stragglers had returned, the presentation took place and Jones did something that perhaps ultimately guaranteed his special place in the heart of St Andreans.

“Nothing would make me happier than to take home your trophy,” he said, “but I cannot. It was played for here 30 years before I was born. Please honour me by allowing it to be kept here at the Royal and Ancient Club where it belongs.”

A few years later, in 1930, Jones would go on to achieve the Grand Slam of The Open Championship, the US Open, the Amateur Championship and the US Amateur in the same year. And, aged 28 and “with no more worlds to conquer” that largely brought down the curtain on his competitive golfing career, leaving him free to focus on his legal practice and the creation of the Augusta National course and the US Masters – which was first contested in March 1934 on the manicured greens and fairways of a former arboretum and indigo plantation. Jones would play in the event himself until 1948.

It was also a measure of the man that during World War II, and already in his forties, Jones volunteered as an officer in the US Army Air Force.

His superiors were keen for him to restrict himself to games of morale-boosting exhibition golf in the USA, but Jones was insistent on an overseas posting; serving as an intelligence officer in England with the Ninth Air Force, before landing in Normandy on 7 June 1944 and spending two months with a front-line unit as a prisoner of war interrogator.

He always retained an enormous affection for St Andrews, writing in his autobiography, Golf is My Game: “The more I studied the Old Course, the more I loved it, and the more I loved it, the more I studied it, so that I came to feel that it was for me the most favorite meeting ground possible for an important match.

“Truly, if I had to select one course upon which to play the match of my life, I should have selected the Old Course.”

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Jones at St Andrews following his victory in 1927. He requested that the Claret Jug should remain in Scotland and not accompany him home

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The Great Triumvirate

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he years between 1894 and 1914 were a time when three British players took the golfing world by storm. James Braid, John Henry (JH) Taylor and Harry Vardon between them won 16 out of a total of 21 Open Championships that were staged during that period. And, on the five occasions when another victor emerged, it was one of the Triumvirate who finished second. Their dominance both attracted spectators in their tens of thousands and also summed up the seemingly imperishable confidence of a nation at the zenith of its global influence.

Statistically, Vardon was the most successful of the three – winning The Open on six occasions to the others’ five. Born on Jersey, he began caddying at the Royal Jersey Golf Club at the age of eight, before leaving school at 12. Later, once he had established himself in the sport, he became the

Vardon, dominated golf in the 1900s to become inextricably linked with the development of the game Words: Dan Hayes

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Heroes of their time Three players, James T Braid, JH Taylor and Harry

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The Great Triumvirate

For all his many achievements, though, Vardon never raised the Claret Jug at St Andrews, though he did finish runner-up at the course in 1900.

The winner that year was Taylor, who had also been victorious at the Home of Golf five years previously in 1895. A thoughtful, even risk-averse player, Taylor said after that former win that “steadiness and a capacity for controlling your nerves” were the key skills in winning at the highest level.

The first of the Triumvirate to win The Open (in 1894 at Royal St George’s), Taylor left school at 11 and caddied at North Devon Golf Club before becoming a professional at Winchester, Royal Wimbledon and Royal Mid-Surrey in Richmond, where he stayed for almost 50 years.

His first St Andrews triumph came after Vardon had made the early running among a field of 73 golfers.

The Championship then crystallised into a showdown between Taylor and local hero Sandy Herd, who took a three-shot lead into the final round.

For all his local knowledge, however, Herd struggled with a bleak day of wind and rain and carded an 85 leaving the Devonian to stroll to a four-shot victory with a round of 78.

Taylor’s second win at the Home of Golf, and his third Open triumph, came in the landmark Championship of 1900. Old Tom Morris, four times an Open Champion in the 1860s, took the role of starter and a cut was enforced, with anyone more than 20 shots adrift of the leader after the opening day’s two rounds eliminated.

Taylor produced one of the more emphatic margins of victory ever seen at an Open Championship, defeating the second-placed Vardon by eight shots with Braid a further five behind in third.

The Scotsman, though, would get his own opportunity for glory at the Home of Golf with victory in the Open Championships of both 1905 and 1910.

Born on the Fife coast at Earlsferry in 1870, Braid worked as a carpenter and clubmaker before turning professional at the relatively mature age of 26, taking a job as the professional at Romford Golf Club in Essex.

He had already secured the Claret Jug once (in 1901, at Muirfield) when he arrived at St Andrews for The Open of 1905. For the second time the Championship was played over three days, with a mixture of high winds and fast greens contributing to a winning score that was nine strokes higher than Taylor’s five years previously.

At the time the railway line was not out of bounds and twice during the final round, at holes 15 and 16, Braid had to cross the railway fence to retrieve his ball. On the second occasion it lay on stones “between two sleepers”, yet he managed to rescue the situation successfully enough to secure a six

Interested bystanders observe James Braid taking part in a tournament at Walton Heath Golf Club, where he was the professional, in October 1913 (left); JH Taylor conducts a putting masterclass in August 1908 (above)

professional at Bury St Edmunds, Ganton (Yorkshire) and South Hertfordshire – in the prosperous north London suburb of Totteridge, where he tutored some of the leading financiers of the era.

Dubbed “the Stylist” by Old Tom Morris, the Channel Islander was not only blessed with a smooth, elegant swing but was also an innovator in terms of technique; famously pioneering the famous Vardon grip, with its interlocking fingers.

Indeed, had it not been for ill health, he might well have added further to his Open Championship tally. In 1903, shortly after winning The Open at Prestwick (one of two he won at the course), Vardon was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

Recovery was a slow process and left him with a twitch in his right hand – it is surely no coincidence that it was eight years before he was again triumphant at the Open.

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In a photo from 1921 JH Taylor, James Braid and Harry Vardon join Fred Herd (far right), who won the US Open in 1898. Fred’s brother, Sandy, was Open Champion in 1902 and finished second in 1895, 1910 and 1920

Braid, the first of the Triumvirate to chalk up five Open victories, began to reduce his competitive golfing activity a couple of years afterwards as he focused on his professional role at Walton Heath Golf Club in Surrey and his growing involvement in course design.

The latter has left his signature on some of the most iconic golfing venues in Britain: from Carnoustie, to Southport and Ainsdale, to the Queen’s and King’s courses at Gleneagles.

With the latter hosting the Senior Open this year, it is perhaps reassuring to know the influence of the Great Triumvirate continues to resonate long after the glory years of Edwardian golf they personified have passed into history.

before eventually going on to win by five shots from Taylor and Rowland Jones – the professional at Wimbledon Park Golf Club.

Braid returned to St Andrews in 1910 to take what would be his fifth Open victory at the 50th staging of the Championship.

His fellow Scot George Duncan had looked like the man to beat, but a final round 83 put paid to the Aberdonian’s hopes and Braid won by four shots with Herd in second place.

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James Braid has left his signature on some of the most iconic golfing venues in Britain: from Carnoustie, to Southport and Ainsdale, to Gleneagles

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Unsung heroes

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Their finest hour

Hugh Kirkaldy, St Andrews, 1891

The names inscribed on the Claret Jug include most of golf’s greatest-ever practitioners, but there are also some on there who tore up the form-book to produce the performance of a lifetime at The Open

Hugh Kirkaldy spent his golfing life in the shadow of his older brother. Andrew Kirkaldy was five years his senior and widely recognised as the better player. Yet it was Hugh who got his name on the old Claret Jug, bettering his sibling in the process.

The 1891 championship over the Old Course at St Andrews was the last to be contested over 36 holes, both rounds played on the same day, with the following year’s tournament at Muirfield the first 72-hole Open.

Hugh returned a pair of 83s on a cold day when heavy rain hindered scoring. His second round was distinctive: it was the first Open round at the Old Course not to include a six on the scorecard. His 166 total set a new scoring record in Opens at St Andrews, improving on the previous best by three shots. It gave him a two-shot victory over 1883 champion Willie Fernie and brother Andrew (who finished runner-up at The Open on three occasions).

Words: Alistair Tait

Not considered a stylist: Alfred Perry (above), champion at Muirfield in 1935. Bill Rogers (right) came within a whisker of missing his tee time at Royal St George’s in 1981, but ended up taking home the Claret Jug 100

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Hugh put up a stout defence of his title the following year, finishing joint second along with John Ball and Sandy Herd to amateur Harold Hilton. He also finished third three times.

Hugh Kirkaldy didn’t see the new century. He died of tuberculosis in 1897, aged 28. He left another legacy: the putter he used to win The Open became the first President’s Putter, the trophy presented to the winning team in the varsity match between Oxford and Cambridge.

starting with a six saw him run out a four-shot winner over Alf Padgham on 283 to equal the best 72-hole total. Cotton finished seventh. Unlike Cotton, Perry was not considered a stylist. He had a strong right hand grip and flat swing.

Aside from that Open triumph, Perry appeared in three Ryder Cups, won the 1938 Dunlop Metropolitan and third in the 1939 Open (behind another possible contender for this list, Dick Burton).

Alfred Perry, Muirfield, 1935

Bill Rogers, Royal St George’s, 1981

Perry’s entry in the 1975 Shell International Encyclopaedia of Golf sums up why he is included in this list. It reads: “Chiefly remembered for his somewhat surprising victory in the British Open at Muirfield in 1935.”

“Somewhat” is perfectly adequate since the man born in Coulsdon, Surrey, in 1904 played David to the Goliath that was Sir Henry Cotton to get his name on the old Claret Jug. Cotton was defending champion, the pre-eminent golfer of his era. He did not just win the 1934 Open at Royal St George’s, he set records that would stand for decades.

Cotton began his title defence with an opening 68 to signal he meant to retain the trophy. With all the attention on Cotton, Perry quietly went about his business with an opening 69 before adding a 75 to lie five shots behind Charles Whitcombe. Then Perry really kicked into high gear.

The Englishman went eight shots better in round three. His 67 equalled Walter Hagen’s course record around Muirfield, giving him a one-shot lead over Whitcombe. A closing 72 despite

Rogers was not one of the fancied runners in 1981 at Royal St George’s. This was the age of Tom Watson, winner of three of the previous seven Championships, when the world’s best arrived on the Kent coast.

Jack Nicklaus had won two Majors the year before and was gunning for his fourth Open. Throw in Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Ray Floyd, Lee Trevino, Ben Crenshaw and a host of other strong contenders and it is easy to see why Rogers flew under the radar. The Texan only turned up because Crenshaw persuaded him to make the trip.

Rogers might not have won if not for journalist John Whitbread. Then writing for the Westminster Press, Whitbread noticed Rogers on the practice putting green on day one when he should have been on the tee. Rogers thought his tee time was in 20 minutes.

“There’s no doubt that if John hadn’t told me I would have been disqualified. Instead I won.”

He did so by four shots over Langer in just his second start in the oldest Major. He would play just five more in his career.

Rogers won three other PGA Tour wins that year and was voted the circuit’s player of the year. His Open triumph earned him appearance fees around the world and he took advantage. That led to burn out. In 1988 he quit tournament golf to become director of golf at San Antonio Country Club and settled down to a quieter life.

John Daly, St Andrews, 1995

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Although Daly had won the 1991 PGA Championship and two other PGA Tour titles, most did not rate the long hitter’s chances at St Andrews. “Wild Thing” did not seem suited for links golf. He generally played the game through the air, not along the ground.

However, Daly opened with 67 to share the lead with fivetime winner Tom Watson, Ben Crenshaw and Mark McNulty.

Further rounds of 71 and 73 put Daly four shots off Michael Campbell’s lead. The New Zealander slumped to a 76 and third place, one shot out of a play-off with Daly and Italy’s Costantino Rocca.

Daly returned a 71 in the windy conditions of the final round and only found himself in a play-off thanks to Rocca’s magic on the 72nd hole.

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Needing a birdie to tie, Rocca felt his chance had gone when he duffed his second shot into the “Valley of Sin”. The Italian then holed a 65ft putt. The four-hole play-off became anticlimactic when Rocca took three in the Road Hole bunker.

Daly went on to win by five shots.

Great lag putting and hitting the ball long and left to avoid the St Andrews bunkers was the main reason Daly was crowned Champion Golfer of the Year.

He has never finished higher than tied 15th in 19 subsequent appearances and remains a popular figure because of his less than traditional approach to the game.

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Unsung heroes

was rated as a 500-1 shot by the bookmakers. A sun-baked course suited the man from Ohio and he entered the final round two shots off the lead, although with the likes of Tiger Woods, Thomas Bjørn and Vijay Singh in the mix he was still seen by the vast majority of spectators as a likely also-ran.

Six birdies on the first 11 holes changed those perceptions, though, and when Bjørn and Singh both found a bunker on the 16th, the engraver was getting to work.

Curtis rocketed 300 places up the world rankings overnight and enjoyed a brief burst of publicity. He finished in the top-10 at The Open twice more, in 2007 and 2008 – the year he also tied for second at the US PGA. Curtis retired from professional golf in 2017 to focus on other interests, notably children’s charity the Ben Curtis Family Foundation.

Ben Curtis, Royal St George’s, 2003

Ben Curtis was ranked 396th in the world when he arrived in Kent for The Open Championship in 2003. A fresh-faced 26-year-old, he had gained entry to the event courtesy of a tied-13th finish at the Western Open the previous week and

Out of nowhere: Ben Curtis lines up his putt on the 10th green during the final round of the Open Championship at Royal St George’s in 2003

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A sun-baked course suited the man from Ohio and he entered the final round two shots off the lead, although he was still seen by most as a likely also-ran

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Champion G olfer

AIG Women’s Open Champion 2021

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It will be great to be back in Scotland to defend my AIG Women’s Open title and it’s fantastic to see the Championship coming to Muirfield for the very first time. I’m sure the course will provide a testing challenge and the spectators will be treated to a first-rate display of world-class golf.

To be part of a such an exciting finish at Carnoustie – and to come out on top – was one of the absolute highlights of my golfing career. The course was as challenging as ever and provided an outstanding test for all the players.

I’m really looking forward to defending my title at this year’s Championship and being part of what will surely be another historic milestone for the game of golf.

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Course guide

The AIG Women’s Open Muirfield 4-7 August 2022

Mark Alexander

Words: Mike Aitken Home to the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, whose history dates back to the 1740s, Muirfield was first created by Old Tom Morris and then re-configured in 1925 by Harry Colt. Venue of The Open Championship on 16 occasions, the course will this year host The AIG Women’s Open for the very first time. Renowned as a challenging, but balanced links course, with a distinctive circular layout, Muirfield is also a venue where the true greats often win.

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Course guide

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Bunkers guard the green like sentries on the second hole

Hole 1

is compacted by an out of bounds wall on the left which runs as close as 15 feet to the green. With the prevailing breeze blowing from the left, it is easy to lose the ball to the right and mentally daunting to aim at a hazard to stay on the short grass. Four bunkers guard the right side of the green like sentries.

Regarded by Jack Nicklaus as an ideal complement to the first, the hole yields fewer birdies than its length might suggest.

Yardage: 412 Par: 4 This is one of the most intimidating opening holes in Championship golf according to Tony Jacklin. Playing into the prevailing wind from the west, the tee shot to a narrow fairway that follows a dogleg to the right requires length and accuracy.

The addition of a deep bunker on the left at 306 yards, to accompany one at 246, has further squeezed the landing area.

Tiger Woods hooked his opening fairway wood from the tee so far left here at The Open in 2013 he had to play a provisional.

When he did find his original ball, he took an unplayable lie and recovered to make bogey from a greenside bunker.

Hole 3

This tempting par four begins a three-hole stretch, the only sequence on the course, where the holes all run in the same direction thereby minimising any change in playing angle from the breeze. The broad fairway only runs to the 290-yard mark where towering mounds and deep bunkers flank the slim runway to the green. With the prevailing wind at your back, the smart play is to find the left side of the fairway and take enough club for the approach to carry the front greenside bunkers.

Hole 2

Yardage: 354 Par: 4 Although the shortest par four on the links – a new back tee was added nine years ago – this underrated, north-facing hole

Mark Alexander

Yardage: 370 Par: 4

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Hole 4

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Even so, the player still has to carry the bank of five bunkers at the front right of the fairway without racing to the bunker on the left at 296 yards. Although the green is surrounded by a cluster of seven bunkers, the approach shot struck from right to left is accessible. Pin position can be a factor on the sloping green, especially for anyone facing a downhill putt.

Yardage: 180 Par: 3

Muirfield presents a selection of stunning par threes, of which the fourth is formidable. With the wind probably at your back, or off the left, the trick is not so much in locating the 40-yard-long raised plateau as keeping your ball on the narrow putting surface.

Ideally, the tee shot should bounce or run on to the green. Long is better than short and it is best to avoid the vengeful bunker on the front right. Brian Barnes was so taken aback by making an ace here at The Open in 1972 that the shocked Scot promptly ran up seven at the next.

Hole 6 Yardage: 435 Par: 4

Jack Nicklaus always regarded this tee shot as the trickiest drive on the links.

The hole, with Archerfield’s wood in the background, follows a steep dogleg to the left and features a blind landing area invariably complicated by a crosswind. There is a hollow short of the green, flanked by bunkers left and right, which creates the illusion of the flag being closer than it really is and leaves many players a club short for the second. Sir Nick Faldo, who twice won The Open at Muirfield, says the sixth is the most demanding hole on the course.

Hole 5 Yardage: 512 Par: 5

The tee shot here, hit from one of the highest parts of the course, can be crucial – especially when a following wind is blowing. Get it right and the hole can provide an excellent chance of a birdie or maybe even better.

The fifth: the top players will be targeting a birdie or better

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The ninth: where rewards can outweigh the risks

Hole 7

the second, over cross bunkers, to a green where the traps, and the trouble, are at the back.

When Walter Hagen won The Open at Muirfield in 1929 he went via the practice ground, an option long ago eliminated by out-of-bounds, on his way to a six-shot victory.

Yardage: 149 Par: 3

The view here from tee to green stretches beautifully out to the Firth of Forth. Into the wind, even from relatively close range, this can be an inhospitable par three. Short is no good, with run-off areas and revetted bunkers lying in wait for the cautious. Simply getting the ball on the green is an achievement, according to 1992 Masters champion Fred Couples. The back of the green, 36 yards from the front, runs from back to front and delivers some of the quickest putts on the links.

Hole 9 A land swap with the adjacent Renaissance club added a back tee 50 yards further away for The Open in 2013. Without breeze, however, this par five remains more reward than risk as Tony Jacklin and Lee Trevino, who were playing together in the final round of The Championship in 1972, discovered when they both made eagle here. There is an out-of-bounds wall positioned relatively close to the green on the left, Simpson’s bunker in the middle of the fairway and a flurry of bunkers shielding the right side of the putting surface .

Hole 8 Yardage: 442 Par: 4

A veritable shoal of bunkers on the right of the fairway tempt most to aim driver or fairway wood towards the left of the short grass. The trade-off for going left is a longer, semi-blind shot for

Eric Hepworth, Mark Alexander

Yardage: 556 Par: 5

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Hole 10

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Course guide

an exception to prove the rule, however, the tee shot over a hill on this hole is completely blind.

There are also bunkers on both sides of the fairway to punish inaccuracy. When Tom Watson won The Open here in 1980 it was a five iron drilled to four feet on the 11th in the fourth round that put him back on track towards the Claret Jug after he had taken five at the 10th.

Yardage: 430 Par: 4

Another hole that is revered by Jack Nicklaus, it features a trio of bunkers on the right so players need to steer their drive left.

Twin bunkers also cross the fairway around 90 yards or so from the green and effectively mask the entrance to the flat putting surface. There are bunkers on either side of the green and it takes two terrific shots to locate the target.

The rough was so deep on this hole at The Open in 1966 that Doug Sanders famously quipped he would readily forego any prize money if compensated by the lost ball and hay concession.

What is more often forgotten, though, is that Sanders actually finished tied for second that year, behind Nicklaus himself.

Hole 12 Yardage: 360 Par: 4

The ideal line on this possible birdie chance, other than for the longest hitters, is best directed shy of the fairway bunker on the left around the 260-yard mark.

The undulating ground on the sweeping fairway adds to the difficulty of a second shot where the narrow green is heavily bunkered (particularly to the right) and falls away both to the rear and to the left.

As much as any hole on the back nine, pin position here can make all the difference.

Hole 11 Yardage: 354 Par: 4

Muirfield’s reputation as one of the fairest links in the UK is built on players being able to see the golf course in front of them. As A plethora of bunkers flank the 12th green

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Ernie Els had to pull out something special to escape the sand on the 13th in 2002

Hole 13

left create a bottleneck. The green falls away on all sides and Martin Hawtree’s subtle revision of the links before The Open in 2013 added furrows on the left. The greenside bunker on the right is modest in size, but malignant in consequence, while taking an extra club and running through the back is also problematic.

Yardage: 160 Par: 3

Tom Watson says he loves the severity of this gem of a par three set in a crown of dunes. After pulling a six iron into a bunker of pernicious depth, Ernie Els knew The Open was about to slip from his grasp here in 2002 had he not executed a sand wedge as perfect as any in his career.

The rhythmic blow that cleared the towering face and then faded gently towards the cup even drew applause from the big South African’s playing partner, Søren Hansen.

The moral for the players here is simple: stay out of the five bunkers that surround the green.

Hole 15 The back tee on this dogleg par four has been lengthened considerably over the years – adding to the difficulty of a hole that already swarmed with bunkers.

The view of Gullane may be enchanting, but it makes the challenge no less daunting. It was here in 1992 that Sir Nick Faldo reversed his fortunes against America’s John Cook in the final round of The Open. Taking a five iron for his second shot he finished three feet from the pin on the sizeable green that is known by the members of the Honourable Company as the Camel’s Back.

Find the wrong spot here and three putts threaten the card.

Hole 14 Yardage: 423 Par: 4

The tee on this testing hole stands on the highest part of the course and looks west towards a broad fairway which narrows alarmingly towards the 270 mark, where three bunkers on the

Mark Alexander

Yardage: 413 Par: 4

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Hole 16

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Course guide

right to left while the heavily contoured green, guarded by two bunkers at its entrance, waits amid the dunes.

The AIG Women’s Open competitors will need a combination of strength and subtlety to get ahead at this hole.

Yardage: 178 Par: 3

This is still remembered as the hole where Lee Trevino holed a bunker shot in the third round of The Open in 1972 – the ball in full flight thudding into the flagstick.

It pays to respect the seven sand traps that guard Muirfield’s closing par three. Club selection is dictated by the breeze and can vary wildly, while a compact green slopes away to the left towards bunkers and rough. Any player whose tee shot finds the middle of the putting surface here will probably allow themselves a sigh of relief.

Hole 18 Yardage: 428 Par: 4

The 18th represents a finishing test so sublime that Jack Nicklaus once described it as the best hole on the best Open Championship layout.

Bunkers on the left trim the fairway at the narrowest point and can be a threat when the prevailing wind blows. The steep green, in front of the clubhouse, is also protected by sand seemingly everywhere you look.

It is a measure of Dame Laura Davies’ longevity that she was part of the Great Britain and Ireland side which contested the Curtis Cup against the USA in 1984. Her drive on the home hole in a singles victory over Anne Sander was so prodigious that Davies was left with just an eight iron into the green while her opponent reached for a fairway wood.

Hole 17 Yardage: 544 Par: 5

With the prevailing wind at your back, this par five offers the prospect of getting close in two blows. However, if a strong breeze is coming from the east then the two cross bunkers, situated around 100 yards short of the green, can provide a real threat. Five bunkers crowd the corner of a dogleg that kinks from The 16th – where Lee Trevino holed from a bunker in 1972

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Champion focus

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“Never give up”

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Champion at Carnoustie last year, Anna Nordqvist is a player whose can-do attitude works wonders Words: Brian Keogh

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nna Nordqvist stands out in any crowd and, while remaining a reluctant LPGA star, her fighting spirit and love of the Majors shines through.

When the Swede won the AIG Women’s Open at Carnoustie last year she suddenly had three Majors on her CV as well as four Solheim Cup wins from seven appearances and 12 professional victories. And yet she remains self-effacing and low-key (even though her first triumph came in only her fifth start on the LPGA Tour).

It was no ordinary win either, but a Major victory – the 2009 McDonald’s LPGA Championship.

Nordqvist would go on to win the LPGA Tour Championship later that year, but it would be another five years before she won again.

“Things in life have never come easy for me,” she told the LPGA Tour last year before that one-shot win over Georgia Hall, Madelene Sagström and Lizette Salas at Carnoustie.

“I wasn’t the smartest girl in class, nor the most talented athlete. It’s funny to say that now as a two-time Major Champion, but that’s because I worked at it. Whatever I felt I lacked in talent, I made up for in hard work. When I put in the time, the success came, both in school and in sports. There’s never been any other way than to work extremely hard and put my full heart into overcoming challenges. And there have been plenty of challenges.

“I didn’t start playing golf until I was 13 years old. That, in and of itself, is a hurdle when it comes to competing on the LPGA Tour. By that age, Michelle Wie and Lexi Thompson were already competing in Majors. I was still learning the game.

“My grandfather would take my two brothers and me to the golf course to practice. We would spend time with him rather than going to daycare when our parents were at work. Those were some of my favourite memories, spending time with Anna Nordqvist hits from the 10th fairway during this year’s US Women’s Open at Pine Needles Lodge, North Carolina 119

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“My younger brother, Mattias, came out to caddy for me one summer. It changed my life.”

Within a year, she had two LPGA Tour wins, including a Major. “It was an incredible start to my professional career,” she said. “But I soon found that I was going to need Grandpa’s advice to never give up, now more than ever.”

Unprepared for tour life, it was five years before she won again on the LPGA Tour and eight years before she captured her second Major by securing the 2017 Amundi Evian Championship despite suffering from mononucleosis (mono).

“Those were long, hard years,” she confessed.

“There were times I thought about quitting. I lost my motivation and inspiration for the game. My younger brother, Mattias, came out to caddy for me one summer. It changed my life.”

Early success: Nordqvist at the Espirito Santo Trophy in 2008 (above); emotions come to the fore at the Evian Championship of 2017 (right)

Grandpa. He was always my biggest role model. He was also the most stubborn person I’ve ever met. I probably inherited that trait from him. He was my biggest cheerleader, always sending me little messages of encouragement, telling me to keep fighting. To never give up.”

Nordqvist has been a fighter for her entire career, taking four years to make the Swedish national team.

But she soon found her stride, winning the 2008 European Ladies’ Team Championship and the 2008 World Amateur Team Championships for the Espirito Santo Trophy, where she finished individual runner-up to future Solheim Cup teammate Caroline Hedwall. She also triumphed at The Women’s Amateur Championship that year (adding to her runner-up finishes the previous two years).

In her first season at Arizona State University, she was crowned Pac-10 co-champion and the National Golf Coaches Association’s Freshman of the Year, Pac-10 Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year, going on to win her LPGA Tour card at the Q-School in 2008.

“My coach didn’t think it was the right decision, but I knew I had to follow my heart,” she said of her choice to turn professional midway through her Junior year.

“I had to learn that it was OK to say ‘no’, to have my own opinion and make my own decisions. I feel like I’m a strong person. I know what I want, and I think I’ve learned how to be that person.”

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Champion focus

Rolling in the winning putt at Carnoustie

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She was in contention for the US Women’s Open at Pine Needles Lodge in North Carolina in June, eventually finishing tied for sixth with England’s Bronte Law That Major win came in a season that proved to be the toughest she had ever faced.

“I was exhausted and had no idea why,” she recalled. “For months, I had been struggling with the illness that is known for creating debilitating fatigue. Here I was, travelling the world, trying to compete at the highest level, but I was sick. I didn’t have the energy that I used to.”

Nordqvist didn’t win again until last year’s AIG Women’s Open triumph and she admitted she spent most of the time in between struggling physically.

“The hardest part was basically losing my mental endurance and my physical endurance,” she said. “It took about three years to get over mono, and I think last year during Covid I finally had some time to be at home and slow down. My life has always gone at 110 miles an hour.”

Winning made all the suffering worthwhile and that success at Carnoustie last year is now her most cherished victory.

“I think this is the most special one,” she said, minutes after her win in Scotland. “Just because it’s taken me a couple of years and I’ve fought so hard and questioned whether I was doing the right things.

“There’s just something about golf that keeps driving me. I hate losing probably more than I like winning. I think all the controversy and all the downs, and having my caddie and husband there pushing me every day being a rock; I hate to give up.”

She was in contention for the US Women’s Open at Pine Needles Lodge in North Carolina in June, eventually finishing tied for sixth with England’s Bronte Law, nine shots behind the champion, Minjee Lee. Nordqvist admitted during that week how much the Majors appeal to her fighting spirit. “I can dream of things,” she said.

“The feeling when you win a Major, there’s just nothing else that can describe it.”

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ust as an adopted child can find a guiding star in a new home, Sweden’s Anna Nordqvist, who makes her life in Arizona, was embraced as one of their own in Angus by her Scottish caddie, Scottish husband and Scottish family and friends among the 8,000 or so spectators who hailed her compelling victory at Carnoustie in what was an electrifying staging of the 2021 AIG Women’s Open.

Securing the third Major title of her career, thanks to the 12-under-par total of 276 which proved sufficient to win by a stroke from Georgia Hall, Madelene Sagström and Lizette Salas, Nordqvist felt a bond with the historic links, partly because her husband, Kevin, the son of former Dundee United goalkeeper Hamish McAlpine, is a native who reckoned his wife enjoyed popular support from the galleries surpassed only by the local favourite, Louise Duncan.

A former Scottish Amateur champion and caddie for players of the calibre of Martin Laird and Lexi Thompson, Kevin decided discretion was the better part of valour when considering whether or not to carry his wife’s clubs. “I don’t think she could have won the AIG Women’s Open with me on the bag,” he smiled, “or stay married if we did…”

Instead, McAlpine’s friend Paul Cormack, from Banchory, brought the local knowledge that helped the Swede master the lay-out. Nordqvist reveres the game played beside the sea in Scotland and rates Carnoustie and Kingsbarns among her

Anna Nordqvist drives from the first tee during the final round at Carnoustie

favourite tests. Her third Major title – the previous successes were at the Women’s PGA in 2009 and the Evian in 2017 – perhaps meant the most to the Solheim Cup player because she was unsure if she would ever win again after contracting glandular fever.

“The hardest part [of the illness] was basically losing my mental and physical endurance,” she confessed. “It took about three years to get over and I think during Covid I finally had some time to be at home and slow down. My life has always gone at 110 miles an hour. It was great finally to have a little bit more time at home, not having to travel. I think it was probably the break I needed a couple of years earlier but just never gave myself. [For a while] I kept pushing, but I didn’t have that extra gear I was always used to having.”

While her rejuvenated spirit, obviously, drove her on to victory at Carnoustie, one of the technical keys to Nordqvist’s success was her researched grasp of pace on the seaside greens. “I worked a lot on speed control,” she acknowledged. “My speed

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Early leader Nelly Korda keeps an eye on the leaderboard

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Serene on the greens was a little bit off [in the final round] on some of the birdie putts. But I think when you’re out of position, get back in position for a par putt. I would say the best lag putt of the day was on 18 when it mattered the most.”

With the Championship boasting a prize fund of $5.8m (£4.7m) and the winner taking home $870,000 (£710,000), the AIG Women’s Open represented another leap forward for women’s golf, showcasing the world’s best players on one of the ancient game’s most challenging settings.

A study published by Abertay University earlier this year confirmed the impact of the AIG Women’s Open was significant far beyond the gates, not only earning £6m for the local economy, but also encouraging a rise in the numbers

Crowd favourite Anna Nordqvist’s short-game skill and local knowledge helped see her to victory at Carnoustie in 2021 Words: Mike Aitken 123

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England’s Georgia Hall and Scotland’s Louise Duncan share congratulations after finishing their second round at Carnoustie

Korda’s eight birdies were good enough to share the early lead with Sweden’s Sagström and Korean Sei Young Kim. The focus of attention for the Scottish galleries, though, was on the performance of amateur champion Duncan, who finessed an eagle at the 14th as well as four birdies in an exceptional round of 68, which appeared to leave the young woman flabbergasted.

“That was a ridiculous amount of fun,” she said of an opening salvo which would eventually propel her into a share of 10th and the Smyth Salver for leading amateur.

On Friday, the demands of a hectic season drew Korda back into the pack as she carded 73 while Nordqvist kept an eye on those making the early running with another 71. This left the champion from 2018, England’s Hall, with an opportunity to grab a share of the lead, adding 69 to her 68 from the day before. The Bournemouth golfer reckoned Carnoustie had offered a pretty gentle examination thus far due to the still conditions. Even without much breeze, mark you, Hall still had to endure a double at the 15th which brought her back into a

thinking about taking up golf and improving the perception of female professionals as elite athletes.

Once again able to floor the accelerator at Carnoustie and spearhead the field, Nordqvist started the championship on a steady note, balancing out dropped shots at the second, ninth and 10th holes with birdies at the sixth, seventh, 12th and 15th to begin the championship on 71, one under par.

Not that she was making many headlines during the first round when world number one Nelly Korda – dubbed Nelly the Elegant by one astute headline writer – set the pace on a driech Scottish morning by signing for 67, five under, thanks to a brace of outstanding birdies over the closing holes created by piercing iron shots of the highest quality.

Having won gold at the Tokyo Olympics, her first Major title and two other LPGA events in 2021, the American understandably commanded much of the attention going into this event. Although she dropped strokes at three holes,

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World number one Nelly Korda – dubbed Nelly the Elegant by one astute headline writer – set the pace on a driech Scottish morning by signing for 67

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tie with American Mina Harigae at the halfway mark. Ireland’s Leona Maguire, who would go on to capture global attention thanks to a nerveless performance at the Solheim Cup, also caught the eye with a bogey-free 67.

On Saturday, Nordqvist slipped back into that top gear which had eluded her for three long seasons. The Swede’s third round of 65 featured seven birdies, three of which were fashioned over the testing closing stretch of holes at the 14th, 15th and 17th. It was the lowest score of the week to date and rewarded her aggressive approach with the driver.

“You have to challenge some of the pot bunkers off the tee,” she observed, “or you’re going to be left standing with some really long irons in…”

Nordqvist’s exceptional golf elevated her into a share of the lead after 54 holes on nine under with Denmark’s Nanna Koerstz Madsen, who reached the head of affairs thanks to an impressive 68, turbo-charged by an eagle at the 12th.

Of the chasing pack on seven under, none was hailed more warmly by the crowd than Duncan, who made an exhilarating birdie three at the last to card another 68 and share third spot

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AIG Women’s Open review

going into the final day, where she eventually finished with 72 for 281.

Paired together in the final group, Koerstz Madsen looked edgier on Sunday than her fellow Scandinavian. To her credit, the Dane fashioned a few notable saves and was still in the hunt coming down the last. The 18th at Carnoustie, however, can be one of the cruellest finishes in golf. While her fate fell short of Jean Van de Velde territory, watching the Scandinavian on the closing hole was still tough as she shanked a sand wedge from the front green-side bunker into the rough and ran up a double bogey.

Nordqvist, on the other hand, remained a model of serenity on the 72nd hole as she made one of the most professional pars of her career, narrowly missing the putt for birdie before celebrating among her adopted supporters.

Nordqvist slipped back into a top gear which had eluded her for three seasons

Job done: Nordqvist and caddie Paul Cormack embrace as victory is sealed 125

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Distance off the tee

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The women’s game is witnessing an explosion in driving distance – but will the ability to bomb it off the tee be the deciding factor at this year’s AIG Women’s Open?

Tight fairways and thick rough mean Muirfield demands accuracy just as much as raw power

The power

and the glory

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n 1997, John Daly became the first man to maintain an average driving distance of more than 300 yards for an entire season. At the time, the prospect of a female golfer doing the same seemed absurd. The average driving distance on the LPGA Tour that year was just 237 yards, and only two players – Simi Mehra and Jane Geddes – managed an average of more than 260 yards.

Fast forward 25 years and we have a different story. Anne van Dam averaged 290.8 yards on the LPGA Tour last season and 297.7 yards on the Ladies European Tour (LET). Two players – Pia Babnik and Emma Cabrera-Bello – are currently maintaining averages above 300 yards for the 2022 season.

The average driving distance for all players on the LPGA Tour exceeded 250 yards in 2016 and has been steadily increasing ever since, while the LET average broke the 250-yard barrier for the first time last season.

With yardages in the women’s game increasing year after year, it is now a question of when, not if, a female golfer will

break that 300-yard season average barrier – and the answer is likely to be sooner rather than later.

The 26-year-old van Dam is an obvious candidate to be the first to achieve the feat, but she faces competition from Babnik and Cabrera-Bello, as well as Pauline Roussin-Bouchard, who was only a yard behind van Dam’s LET average last year, and Bianca Pagdanganan, who topped the LPGA Tour for driving distance the previous year, edging out van Dam by one yard.

Whoever it is, when one player does it, expect the floodgates to open. Nowadays, around a third of PGA Tour players boast an average driving distance above 300 yards. Daly’s landmark feat quickly became commonplace, much like Roger Bannister’s formerly “impossible” four-minute mile.

But what do the ever-increasing distances in the women’s game mean for this year’s AIG Women’s Open at Muirfield?

Should we write off the chances of any player who does not bomb it miles off the tee? Not necessarily. Four of the women’s Majors last year were won by big-hitting players who ranked

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Words: Rob McGarr

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Anne van Dam of the Netherlands: one of those who is leading the way in terms of driving distance

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Nelly Korda: the American’s combination of accuracy, power and creativity may well put her in contention

in the top 50 for driving distance throughout the season. The one exception? Anna Nordqvist’s AIG Women’s Open victory at Carnoustie. The Swede’s average drive of 253.5 yards saw her rank 97th for driving distance, but did not stop her picking up her third Major title.

While Muirfield has never hosted the AIG Women’s Open before, it has hosted the Open Championship 16 times, which gives us plenty of comparable information to digest. The records suggest that Muirfield, like Carnoustie, requires more than just booming drives.

Phil Mickelson won the most recent Open Championship played at Muirfield, in 2013, and was far from one of the game’s biggest hitters; his average of 288 yards ranked him 93rd on the PGA Tour during that season. Muirfield’s previous Open champion, Ernie Els, had a season average drive of 281 yards, ranking him tied-84th for distance on the PGA Tour the year of his 2002 victory. Sir Nick Faldo was something of a Muirfield specialist, having secured two of his three Open Championship victories at the East Lothian course, and was never a particularly big hitter either.

Muirfield’s tight fairways and thick rough demand accuracy off the tee just as much as power. “You are unlikely to win an Open Championship at Muirfield from the rough,” said Peter

Dawson, then R&A Chief Executive, ahead of the 2013 Open, a sentiment that will ring true in 2022.

Anne van Dam hit just 57.1 per cent of fairways on the LPGA Tour last year, ranking her 153rd of 156 players for driving accuracy. Bianca Pagdanganan fared only slightly better, ranking 147th with 61.7 per cent of fairways hit. There is a chance they will be able to overpower the course by hitting wedges from the rough, but there is an equal likelihood that Muirfield’s defences will punish any repeated lack of accuracy.

Muirfield has hosted The Open nine times since the Second World War and seen eight different winners, all of whom were genuine world-class players. Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Faldo (twice), Els and Mickelson have all lifted the Claret Jug here. The octet have 57 Major titles between them, proving that this course tends to see the cream rise to the top, rather than unearthing surprise winners and hidden gems.

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Muirfield tends to see the cream rise to the top, rather than unearthing surprise winners and hidden gems

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Distance off the tee

If we accept we are looking for a top-20 player with good driving distance, accuracy and excellent sand saves, two names shine brightest...

Trevino, Nicklaus, Watson, Els and Mickelson had all won multiple Majors before they added to their tally at Muirfield, but hope is not lost for players coming into the AIG Women’s Open without a trophy cabinet already bulging with Major silverware; it is worth noting that Player and Faldo both won their first Major title at Muirfield.

Three Open Championships have been held at the course since the advent of the Official World Golf Rankings; the winners were ranked fifth, third and second in the world at the start of the week, further evidence that we should not be looking too far from the big names for our likely winner.

One other facet the victor’s game will require is excellent bunker play, as there are no fewer than 150 sand traps lurking at Muirfield.

If we accept we are looking for a top-20 player with good driving distance, accuracy and excellent sand saves, two names shine brightest.

Nelly Korda ranks seventh on the LPGA Tour for driving distance (275 yards), 45th for driving accuracy (76.2 per cent),

and 43rd for sand saves (47.69 per cent). Last year’s Women’s PGA Championship winner underwent surgery in the spring for a blood clot in her arm, but if she can get back to good health in time for the AIG, she is one to watch out for at Muirfield.

The other player ticking all the boxes is Japan’s Yuka Saso.

The 20-year-old only turned pro at the end of 2019, but already has three professional wins to her name, including last year’s US Women’s Open. Saso ranks 12th for driving distance with an average of 271.9 yards, 52nd for driving accuracy, hitting 75.2 per cent of fairways, and gets up and down from the sand more than anyone else on tour, saving par 63.64 per cent of the time.

Jennifer Kupcho would be another warranting attention thanks to her distance and accuracy off the tee – 265.9 yards, rank 26th; 77.5 per cent of fairways hit, rank 32nd – but her sand save success of 43.24 per cent ranks her 76th and will need to improve if she is to triumph over four days at Muirfield.

Whoever comes out on top, this year’s AIG Women’s Open promises to deliver four days of fascinating viewing.

Yuka Saso: her ability from the sand could be key at a course that includes more than 150 bunkers

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Woman with a mission

The Jazzy Golfer playing in a pro am prior to the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in 2019

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Innovators

Broadening golf’s appeal among women and girls has become the quest of influencer Jasmine, the Jazzy Golfer Words: Keith Jackson

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asmine, the Jazzy Golfer, is on a mission. What started out as a “passion project” has transformed into one of the biggest campaigns to make golf more inclusive and welcoming for women and girls of all ages and abilities.

Whether it is presenting, campaigning or networking, few have done more than Jazzy to get more women involved in golf. Her relentless quest to promote the sport for women has incorporated many facets, which reached new heights earlier this year when she launched the UK Women’s Golf Community (UKWGC).

And she has even become involved in politics, hoping to use her influence, aligned with others of a similar nature, to persuade the government to take her campaigns to new levels. But how did it all start?

“I got into golf while on a family holiday in Portugal and when I came back to the UK I was adamant that golf would be a long-term hobby of mine, I just fell in love with the game.

But I found there wasn’t anyone I could really learn from in the amateur space and I didn’t know where to start.

“So, I began to document my own journey on social media in the hope that it would not only help me to stick at it, but maybe persuade others to follow suit. The difficulty of being a woman in a male-dominated sport soon became apparent, like having to play on a Tuesday if I wanted to lower my handicap because there weren’t any available competitions for ladies over the weekend.

“That prompted my desire to create a vehicle that showed other women and girls that golf was a fun and healthy sport to take up.”

The journey started, gained momentum and has led to a number of innovative initiatives, culminating in the creation of the UKWGC in January.

“It’s proved a huge success, influencing many women and girls to take up the game. The UKWGC provides a platform for female golfers of all ages to get in contact with new friends and potential playing partners, the support network is incredible and I’m delighted with how it’s taken off.

“Perhaps the biggest thrill for me has been the messages I’ve received detailing how many young girls have built new confidence from being part of a golf-related community, and we’ve heard of how this has helped many people in many different ways. I had one particularly nice message a few days ago from a woman who is now using golf as a means of recovery thanks to her pro and the UKWGC community,

which read: ‘Never underestimate how much good you do by providing us with safe spaces where we can get together, laugh, hit balls and learn from each other.’ When you get feedback like that, it makes the whole thing worthwhile and inspires me to take it further.”

While Jazzy has been the driving force, she is quick to acknowledge the support and collective efforts of a number of influencers, including the likes of professionals Inci Mehmet, Iona Stephen and Sophie Walker. And, with everyone promoting the same cause, Jazzy is happy to call them friends and dismisses any hint of rivalry which could damage everything they have worked so hard for.

“Culture, by nature, tends to pit women against each other, and when you’re part of a male-dominated industry like golf, Jazzy prepares for the pro am prior to the Sky Sports British Masters at Walton Heath. “I wanted to show women golf was a fun sport,” she says

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there is a perceived scarcity of opportunity. But I don’t think that is the case, I just think there is room for everybody to bring their own skills and character into the conversation.

“I’m lucky to call many of the women who promote golf, in whatever way, my friends, rather than become embroiled in any rivalries. The likes of Inci, Iona, Sophie and Alison Whitaker are all good friends and I don’t see them as competitors. We’re all on board with promoting golf for women and making it a more inclusive sport as a whole.

“I have the utmost respect for them as they bring something I can’t, they’re professional golfers and have that extra appeal and added insight into the pro game and beyond. They’re incredibly skilled at what they do, whereas I bring something a little different. But collectively, I feel our work complements each other.

“When I started the UKWGC, I contacted many influencers, many professional golfers and other women who work in the golf industry across the board, I explained what my aims were, and I gained so much support. Inci, Iona, Sophie and Eilidh Barbour have all backed me and taken the initiatives to a wider audience.”

So, has Jazzy inspired a new generation of golfers and prompted an established generation to try something new?

“Yes, definitely. And that’s not me making lofty assumptions, that’s based on all the feedback I get on a weekly basis. I have parents sending me snaps of their daughters wearing Jazzy leggings. I had various groups of young golfers wanting to speak to me about my work when I played in the BMW PGA Championship pro-am at Wentworth. I lose count of all the messages of thanks.

“It’s tough to pinpoint one standout best part of the journey, but just meeting new people through golf is right up there.

I’ve made friends for life, and since the launch of the UKWGC, that’s given me a huge amount of satisfaction to see how it’s grown. I take a lot of gratitude, pleasure and pride from seeing so many women connect thanks to this community.

“I really wanted to do something tangible and all the messages thanking me for what I’m doing for the women’s game means that we’re continuing to challenge the sexism and elitism in the sport. I’ve found a way to use my platforms in the best way possible, promoting the game for women and juniors that will have an impact on so many.

“It’s hard to put into words how I feel when I see women and girls leaving one of our sessions absolutely buzzing, and knowing they’ve exchanged contact details and then met up for golf over the following weekend is just incredible.”

“It’s tough to pinpoint one standout best part of the journey, but just meeting new people through golf is right up there. I’ve made friends for life.”

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Speaking at The R&A Women in Golf Charter launch in 2018

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Annika S örenstam

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Still focused on the goal: Sörenstam on course in Orlando, Florida, this year

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nnika Sörenstam’s amazing haul of 10 Majors and 94 tournaments in all are but a part of the Swede’s story. No less compelling is the tale of how golf has been the making of Sörenstam as a coach, a mother and someone who has what it takes to be President of the International Golf Federation, where she is involved in Olympic issues.

I first met Sörenstam on the first day of the 1992 Standard Register Ping event at the Moon Valley Country Club in Phoenix. Then the shyest of 21-year-olds and a student at Arizona University, she had been given an invitation to play in the tournament only to be turfed out of the competitors’ car park the moment she arrived. The car-park attendant said it was plain to him that she was too young to be competing among the professionals.

It took her forever to find somewhere that she could park but, after hurrying to Moon Valley with her clubs over her shoulder, she unfurled the calmest of 67s, one of the top scores of the day.

Most of the media interest was in well-known names such as Nancy Lopez, Patty Sheehan and Juli Inkster,

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Annika S örenstam

but I stayed behind to ask Sörenstam whether she had a specific ambition in golf. What I thought she said – and what she would confirm when I persuaded her to speak up a bit – was as follows: “It’s to score in the 50s.”

Once I had digested that unexpected piece of information, she was happy to explain how such a thing could be done.

Citing Karl Enhager, the Swedish guru who worked with Sir Nick Faldo towards the end of his golfing reign, she spoke of how generations of golfers had made things too easy for themselves by viewing two putts per green as acceptable. Enhager had convinced Sörenstam and her peers that one putt was enough.

Eight years on, when Sörenstam won the same Standard Register tournament, she achieved her ambition in returning a sub-60 score. It was a second-round 59 and, as everyone knows, she has rejoiced in the title of “Miss 59” ever since.

Between 1995 and 2006 Sörenstam and Tiger Woods enjoyed a series of, believe-it-or-not, online exchanges as they raced each other to 10 Majors apiece. Sörenstam,

Ahead

of the game Perhaps nobody has done more to pave the way for the quality of golf we shall see at Muirfield this year than the great Annika Sörenstam Words: Lewine Mair

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Annika S örenstam

Sörenstam had a runaway, eight-shot victory in last year’s Senior US Open Sörenstam competing at the 2003 Colonial tournament

Her brief was to encourage golf among the country’s women and children. However, once she was there, she was hugely flattered when the women she had known from her playing days started coming up to her for advice.

Where she felt most able to assist was in the matter of analysis. It struck her that some of the players were taking a less than comprehensive look at the pattern of their play: “They would mention their disappointing putting statistics but it took a bit of prompting to get them to realise that their figures had more to do with wayward tee shots than their putting skills. They were leaving themselves 40-footers after approaching the green via the rough.”

Sörenstam is back playing a bit of golf herself in among her other commitments and, indeed, had a runaway, eight-shot victory over Liselotte Neumann in last year’s Senior US Open.

Dame Laura Davies, who finished third, said of the Swede’s reappearance on the golfing scene: “She looked like the Annika of old… I knew straightaway that we’d be in trouble.”

In examining the player’s all-round achievements over the past 40 years, there is only conclusion anyone can draw. At 51, Sörenstam remains a rising star.

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now 51, took between 1995 and 2006 to arrive at that tally, while the now 46-year-old Woods collected his first Major in 1997, and the 10th of his 15-strong collection, in 2005.

Yet the golfing occasion on which Sörenstam shone more brightly than any other was her lone foray into the men’s game in the 2003 Colonial tournament. Since this was in the days before Michelle Wie competed in a series of men’s events, people poured in to watch the Swede unfurl what she would describe as the best round of her life, a 71 from the men’s championship tees. Aaron Barber, one of her playing companions, was moved to remark: “She’s a machine! I’ve never played with someone who didn’t miss a shot.”

Her second round was a 74 but, when she holed a long putt across the last green, she did so to tumultuous applause. Her tears at the end had less to do with missing the cut – it came on 141 and she was 145 – than the fact that she had given her all to the exercise.

Kenny Perry, when he collected the first prize, could not have captured what the week was all about more graciously.

“People,” he said, “will say I won Annika’s tournament.”

Sörenstam, who had by then turned herself from a relatively short hitter into a long one by dint of some judicious training, revisited her experience at the Colonial in A Letter to my Daughter which she penned for the LPGA in 2016.

“Finding your own place in the world as a strong woman is only going to get harder the older you get,” she advised little Ava. “A lot of people aren’t going to want you there but don’t listen to them. I didn’t and it led to the moment that would define my career.

“As we reached the first fairway,” she recalled of her opening round at the Colonial, “I saw something I’ll never forget. All these little girls were there to watch me – dads with their daughters, all smiling and waving and cheering me on.”

Like Woods on the PGA Tour, Sörenstam tended to keep to herself in her years on the LPGA and LET circuits.

“The journey to the top,” she told Ava, “is a lonely one. Early in my career I would join the other women for practice rounds in the morning; I would stand there with the other players but soon realised that I was getting nothing done. From then on, I would always come out in the afternoon and work by myself.

I wasn’t there to make friends. I was there to do my job and to do it to the best of my ability.”

Sörenstam‘s experience in the company of the men whetted her appetite for learning more about the game she had played so well for so long. Even before she retired in 2008, she had opened an Annika Academy where she could pass on her knowledge to others.

She delighted in helping children not just to play the game, but to enjoy it, while there was a further development at the start of 2012 when she went as an HSBC Ambassador to the LPGA’s Brazil Cup tournament.

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PARTNER CONTENT – Iona Stephen

Iona Stephen – Representing the Spirit of The Open Introducing Iona Stephen, one of the rising stars within golf media. Former professional golfer, and now broadcaster, Iona works with many of golf’s global networks including GolfTV, Sky Sports Golf, the BBC and NBC Golf Channel

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ona’s rise has not come about by chance. From making her professional debut on the Ladies European Tour in 2016 before injury curtailed a promising playing career. Her insight, personality, and energy were quickly recognised by Golf’s major broadcasters. She has since worked at The Masters, Solheim Cup, Ryder Cup and of course, The Open.

This summer the world’s original major Championship will return to St Andrews for The 150th Open where Iona embarks on arguably the highlight of her impressive career to date as she brings the action to audiences live from behind the ropes as an on-course commentator for Sky Sports Golf at The Open.

Since Loch Lomond Whiskies became the Spirit of The Open in 2018, it too has become one of the rising stars in scotch whisky. Iona is one of the brands longest standing Ambassadors, and will also be found in Loch Lomond Whiskies’ iconic two-tier pavilion located in the heart of the Spectators Village. Here Iona will host a number of Q&As with other Loch Lomond Whiskies ambassadors such as Colin Montgomerie, Louis Oosthuizen and Lee Westwood with a variety of other surprise guests throughout the week.

Scotch Whisky goes hand-in-hand with Scotland’s number one sporting export, and The Open will have an exceptional selection of single malts, Ben Lomond Gin and Champagne Piaff to enjoy, brought to spectators by Loch Lomond Whiskies, the Official Spirit of The Open.

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Players to watch

Hataoka: a regular in the top-10 at Majors over recent seasons

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Nasa Hataoka Japan

Age: 23 Professional wins: 11 Major victories: 0

A superstar named after a space programme, Nasa Hataoka is surely a player on the cusp of becoming a Major champion Words: Rob McGarr

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idely regarded as the best player in the world without a Major title to her name, Nasa Hataoka has spent the majority of the past four years inside the top 10 of the Women’s World Golf Rankings, at times reaching as high as third in the world.

Hataoka’s parents named their daughter in the hope she would be inspired to chase the stars and achieve great heights. So far, so good. The diminutive, Kasama-born golfer’s career saw a very successful launch and appears to be a long way from any sign of descent.

She has won at least one professional title every year since turning pro in 2016, barring a Covid-ravaged 2020 season, racking up six LPGA Tour wins and six LPGA of Japan Tour titles to date (one of which was the co-sanctioned Toto Japan Classic, giving her a total of 11 career wins so far).

Hataoka has five top-10 Major finishes in the past four seasons, including runner-up spots at the Women’s PGA Championship in 2018 and US Women’s Open last year, where she started the final round six shots back but still managed to force a play-off, before eventually losing on the third hole of sudden death to Yuka Saso.

While that leaves Hataoka still hunting her first Major victory, she did win the 2016 Japan Women’s Open Golf Championship – a Major on the LPGA of Japan Tour. She was still an amateur and just 17 at the time, becoming the youngest player and first amateur to win a JLPGA Major title.

Hataoka was third on the LPGA Tour money list last season, behind Jin Young Ko and Nelly Korda, and has already tasted victory in 2022, with rounds of 67-68-67-67 securing a

dominant five-shot margin at April’s DIO Implant LA Open.

That performance, being the only player in the field to shoot four rounds in the 60s, came after a FaceTime video call with her new coach, whom she had never met in person.

Hataoka has fallen short in each of the four play-offs she has been in to date, so she may be hoping to get the job done in 72 holes at Muirfield. And she has met her coach face-toface now, so anything is possible.

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Hataoka was third on the LPGA Tour money list last season, behind Jin Young Ko and Nelly Korda

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Players to watch

Jennifer Kupcho USA

Age: 25 Professional wins: 2 Major victories: 1

The winner of this year’s first Major possesses an unmatched combination of power and accuracy off the tee that could prove pivotal at Muirfield Words: Rob McGarr

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ennifer Kupcho could well be described as something of a Major championship specialist. The 25-year-old has made the cut in 12 of her 15 Major appearances as a professional, including all five of the big events last year.

And her first ever LPGA Tour victory came at this year’s first Major, the Chevron Championship, where she held off the challenge of Jessica Korda to win by two shots.

Breaking her LPGA Tour and Major Championship duck in one swoop was a relief for Kupcho, who had fallen just short of LPGA Tour success on numerous previous occasions, having clocked up 12 top-10s and six top-five finishes since turning pro in 2019.

Kupcho: hoping her higher profile will bring more support from those on-course fans

“One of the biggest things I have fought over the last year is everyone out there cheering for Nelly [Korda] or Lexi [Thompson] or someone else that I am playing with,” she said.

“I don’t ever hear, ‘Go, Jennifer’.”

Those cheering Kupcho at Muirfield and hoping to see her secure a second Major victory will be encouraged by her prowess with driver in hand. While not the single longest or straightest off the tee, her combination of distance and accuracy is unmatched on the LPGA Tour, with an average drive of 268.9 yards maintained while hitting 83.7 per cent of fairways. Only three players have hit a greater percentage of greens in regulation on the LPGA Tour so far this season.

If Kupcho can get her putter hot at Muirfield and has a good week from the sand – she ranks in the bottom half of the LPGA Tour for both metrics – she will take some stopping in her bid to take home the AIG Women’s Open trophy.

If she can get her putter hot at Muirfield and has a good week from the sand she will take some stopping “Being able to say that I’ve won and I can compete out here – obviously I already knew that I could compete, but I think being able to win is really important,” she said. “I won a lot in college, so my confidence was low, coming out here, not having won in two or three years. To be able to say I won, it’s definitely a confidence booster.”

The victory also boosted Kupcho’s profile among fans, something she hopes will be in her favour as she chases further success.

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Players to watch

Lee sinks the winning putt at the Cognizant Founders Cup in May

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Minjee Lee Australia

Age: 26 Professional wins: 11 Major victories: 2

Minjee Lee secured her first Major title last season, despite starting the final day seven shots back, and in June added the US Women’s Open title to her tally Words: Rob McGarr

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omething about the AIG Women’s Open clearly agrees with Perth-born Minjee Lee. In the past four years her worst finish has been tied-11th, and the last two championships have seen her finish solo third and tied-fifth. Her Sunday 66 was the lowest final-round score in the field last year and saw her finish two shots shy of Anna Nordqvist’s 12-under winning total.

Lee comes to Muirfield as a player who is seemingly always in contention at the AIG Women’s Open and, after victory at the US Women’s Open and last year’s Evian Championship, one who knows what it takes to win a Major championship.

Her US Open victory was by a comfortable three-shot margin while, at the Evian, her final-round 64 was bested only

by Leona Maguire’s record-equalling 61 and saw her close a seven-shot gap on overnight leader Jeongeun Lee6, before winning the first hole of a sudden-death play-off.

Lee leads the LPGA Tour in scoring average this season, with a 68.89 average, and ranks in the top 15 players for driving distance, greens in regulation, putts per green in regulation, and holes played in birdie or better.

With those statistics on her side, it was no surprise to see Lee also win her seventh LPGA Tour title in May, finishing 19-under par at the Cognizant Founders Cup to beat Lexi Thompson by two shots.

“I just feel like I’ve kind of been trending,” said Lee, who also has a tied-second and tied-third finish among her LPGA Tour starts of 2022. “I’ve been hitting it really, really well this whole season, and I just felt like it was around the corner.”

Lee comes to Muirfield as a player who is seemingly always in contention at the AIG Women’s Open

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Lee has now finished first, first, fifth and 12th in her last four Major appearances Given her ability not only to hold onto leads but also to close huge gaps on a Sunday her name anywhere near the top of the leaderboard will give the rest of the field cause for concern.

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Players to watch

Maguire at last year’s Pelican Women’s Championship

Leona Maguire Ireland

Age: 27 Professional wins: 3 Major victories: 0

Having made a habit of breaking records throughout her entire career, Solheim Cup heroine Leona Maguire aims to make history by becoming Ireland’s first female Major champion Words: Rob McGarr

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reland has never had a female Major winner, but County Cavan-born Leona Maguire appears to have all the credentials required to change that. She certainly has no problem breaking long-standing records, having made a habit of doing just that throughout her amateur career and since turning pro in 2018.

As an amateur, Maguire spent an impressive 135 weeks atop the World Amateur Golf Rankings, breaking Lydia Ko’s record of 130 weeks.

She came tied-34th at the 2015 Evian Championship, finishing as Low Amateur and becoming the first woman from the Republic of Ireland ever to make the cut in a Major.

She finished in the top 30 in all four of her Major appearances last year (she was not in the field for the US Women’s Open), including her first Major top-10, coming tied-sixth at the Evian Championship. That performance included a final-round 61, the lowest-ever final round score in the history of a Major championship, male or female. Maguire became one of just three people ever to shoot 61 in a Major, alongside Kim Hyojoo and Jeongeun Lee6.

Her stellar 2021 season saw her become the first-ever Irish player to be selected for the Solheim Cup, where she broke the all-time rookie points record for the Solheim Cup and Ryder Cup by securing 4.5 points, helping Europe to a 15-13 victory.

Maguire was only the third player in Solheim Cup history to earn her team more than four points.

Her final-round 61 was the lowest-ever final round score in the history of a Major championship, male or female In February this year, Maguire made more history by becoming the first Irish woman to win an LPGA Tour event.

“It’s incredible to be the first Irish person and to show that it is possible for a girl from a small town in Ireland to be able to compete against the best players in the world and win on the LPGA,” she said, celebrating a three-shot victory at the LPGA Drive On Championship. “Hopefully there are a lot of people watching at home tonight with big smiles on their faces and little girls watching knowing they can do that too.”

Should Maguire join Shane Lowry and Padraig Harrington as Irish Major winners, there will be no shortage of smiles on the Emerald Isle.

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Players to watch

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Atthaya Thitikul Thailand

Age: 19 Professional wins: 11 Major victories: 0

Could Muirfield witness the former world amateur number one (and fastest rising woman in golf) become the first teenager to win the AIG Women’s Open?

Words: Rob McGarr

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hile Masters champion Scottie Scheffler’s ascent to the top of the Official World Golf Rankings has been impressive in its rapidity, it looks positively unhurried compared to Atthaya Thitikul’s rise through the ranks of the women’s game. The Thai starlet rocketed from 308th in the Women’s World Golf Rankings to fourth in less than a year between May 2021 and April 2022.

Thitikul’s swift ascent was thanks to a series of performances that saw her secure 15 top-10 finishes and no missed cuts from 18 starts during the 2021 season, her first as a professional. That total included two Ladies European Tour wins, at the Tipsport Czech Ladies Open and VP Bank Swiss Ladies Open, to add

Not only is she a former world amateur number one, she is also the youngest golfer ever to win a professional tournament, aged just 14 years, four months and 19 days when she lifted the Ladies European Thailand Championship as an amateur in July 2017.

Thitikul will not turn 20 until February next year and victory at Muirfield would make her the youngest winner in Women’s Open history, breaking Ji-yai Shin’s record of 20 years, three months and six days when she triumphed at Sunningdale back in 2008.

Thitikul has AIG Women’s Open pedigree, too, having finished Low Amateur in 2018 and 2019, aged 15 and 16, before placing tied-48th last year in her first appearance as a professional.

Those requiring further context of Thitikul’s youth need look no further than the fact she started playing golf at the age of six, after being presented with the choice of golf or tennis by her father; she chose golf after watching clips of both sports on YouTube.

Thitikul has AIG Women’s Open pedigree, having finished Low Amateur in both 2018 and 2019, aged 15 and 16 to the two Ladies European Tour (LET) titles she won as an amateur. Thitikul topped the LET Order of Merit last season, becoming the youngest winner in history. Unsurprisingly, she also picked up LET Rookie of the Year and was voted Players’ Player of the Year.

She moved to the LPGA Tour this year and took next to no time to adjust, winning the JTBC Classic in just her fifth start on the tour.

Thitikul finding her feet so quickly should come as no surprise.

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Thitikul plays from the fairway during the HSBC Women’s World Championship

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CARNOUSTIE GOLF LINKS

8 TIME HOST TO THE OPEN

MAKE THIS THE YEAR THAT YOU EXPERIENCE

GOLF’S GREATEST TEST

Carnoustie’s Championship is one of the courses that every golfer in the world wants to play. Voted the World’s Best Golf Course in 2019, venue for eight Open Championships, two Women’s Opens and two Senior Opens, Carnoustie is undoubtedly one of, if not the most, memorable golf courses that you’ll ever play, not just in Scotland but in all of golf. For more details or to book now, contact our team.

E: golf@carnoustiegolflinks.co.uk T: +44 (0)1241 802270

CARNOUSTIEGOLFLINKS.COM

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The Performance Centre

The Rookery Restaurant and Bar

13/06/2022 24/05/2022 15:27 10:07

PARTNER CONTENT – by Carnoust ie G olf Links

Scottish Links at its absolute best Carnoustie presents an exceptional test of golf designed to challenge and reward in equal measures

Carnoustie Golf Links 16th hole

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arnoustie’s Championship is one of the courses that every golfer in the world wants to play. Amongst its many accolades, it was voted the World’s Best Golf Course and Scotland’s Best Golf Experience in 2019.

A venue for The Open since 1931, Carnoustie has hosted eight Open Championship’s, two Women’s Opens and two Senior Opens.

Although Carnoustie openly and proudly boasts these awards, it is only the beginning of the story. To truly understand Carnoustie – you must experience it for yourself. Step out onto the Scottish turf that is steeped in history, soak up the iconic landscape, delight in the perfection of the greens and take in the undulating fairways which are simply brimming with mystery…

Carnoustie tempts you with an abundance of challenges within its dramatic and beautiful landscape, designed to

make you think on every shot… there’s no escaping the course once you’ve started. This is a place that will grab hold of you, immerse you in the fairways and guide you on a journey.

If you are lucky enough to arrive at Carnoustie during a clear, blue-sky day, don’t let the sunshine deceive you as there are weather conditions out there that will undoubtedly cause you to search for the best of your game. Carnoustie is wonderfully exposed to the elements, with wind directions designed to keep you thinking each step of the way. An exciting and enticing challenge awaits… A challenge that will draw you in.

Carnoustie Golf Links has long been known as Golf’s Greatest Test – and with good reason. Despite being considered the toughest course on The Open rota – it is not without reward.

That feeling when stepping off the 18th is like no other and one that must be experienced to understand it.

Along with a great personal challenge, The Championship 146

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PARTNER CONTENT – by Carnoust ie G olf Links

Carnoustie Golf Links 15th hole

round, and the chance to review or prepare for your round over a cold refreshing drink.

As is the nature of Carnoustie, it leads the way with its unique state-of-the-art indoor golf facilities – delivering a premium warm up and practice experience. The Performance Centre houses seven simulator bays. Six of the bays, complete with GC2 launch monitors and a seventh teaching studio bay, which comprises of a GCQuad launch monitor, balance plate and camera analysis technology allowing you to warm up in style before venturing out to take on your own unique Championship Course challenge.

Undeniably, an extraordinary summer of golf lies ahead, Carnoustie Golf Links send wishes of good luck to its friends a short distance across the water in St Andrews as they play host to the 150th Open Championship.

For golf fans the world round, in this celebratory year, there’s never been a better time to start ticking off your bucket list courses, and we all know that Carnoustie is on everyone’s list!

If the past years have taught us anything, it’s not to put off anything that brings us this much joy. www.carnoustiegolflinks.com t: +44(0)1241 802270 | golf@carnoustiegolflinks.co.uk Course allows you to walk in the footsteps of golf’s legends.

The course has played host to the world’s greatest golfers and produced many of golf’s most dramatic moments. From Ben Hogan’s extraordinary win at the 1953 Open Championship to Van de Velde’s ill-fated play at the 1999 Open, to Paul Lawrie’s remarkable comeback that same year – a memory that still raises goosebumps when the story is retold. These greens have sat patiently with a watchful eye as the hardships and victories unfold.

Off the course, The Rookery Restaurant and Bar allows you to enjoy a panoramic view over that course of legends and the opportunity to relive a day that will stay with you forever.

The Rookery showcases the best produce Scotland has to offer where you can enjoy a relaxed lunch or dinner with great service. With a focus on local, seasonal produce, the menu is designed for informal lunch and dinner time dining pre or post

Carnoustie Golf Links 147th Open

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Old Head Golf Links, Kinsale, Co. Cork, P17 CX88, Ireland.

Telephone (+353) (0)21 477 8444

Email reservations@oldhead.com

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Champion G olfer

The Senior Open Champion 2021

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I was delighted to win the Senior Open Championship at Sunningdale last year. Securing my first Major victory was definitely one of the finest moments of my golfing career and it was great to emerge victorious among so many hugely talented golfers.

This year’s venue of Gleneagles will present a different challenge to Sunningdale, of course, but I’ll be looking to stay relaxed, take the opportunities when they arise and be up there among the leaders in the final stages.

As ever, Gleneagles promises to be an exceptional venue and I’m sure both players and spectators alike will enjoy themselves immensely over the course of the Championship.

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Course guide

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Course guide

Gleneagles 2022

The Senior Open presented by Rolex King’s Course, Gleneagles 21-24 July 2022 Words: Alistair Tait

Mark Alexander

With superb views of the Perthshire hills, the King’s Course at Gleneagles has been providing golfers with the most gloriously scenic of challenges since 1919. Designed by five-time Open Champion James Braid, the course may not be the longest but what it lacks in length it makes up for in beauty, intrigue and creativity. A frequent host of the Scottish Open, Gleneagles also lays claim to staging the prototype of the Ryder Cup in 1921, when a team from the USA, including Walter Hagen and Jock Hutchison, took on UK opponents including Braid, JH Taylor and Harry Vardon.

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Course guide

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A glorious view of the Perthshire hills from the first hole on the King’s Course

Hole 1

should ideally favour the right side of the fairway to open up the green. Unlike the first hole, it is possible to run the ball into this green through the trio of bunkers, two right and one left, that front the putting surface. Since the green slopes from right to left, players will encounter some fast putts from right of the flag.

There is a greenside bunker to the right of the green that must be avoided, especially if the pin is on the right.

Called East Neuk because this is the golf course’s furthest point east, while neuk is the Scots word for corner, as in nook.

Name: Dun Whinny Yardage: 362 Par: 4 This is an inviting opening hole featuring a generous fairway that sweeps up to a raised green with the Perthshire hills as a splendid backdrop. It is just 362 yards and players have the luxury of taking a long iron or fairway wood to get the ball into position, with right of centre of the fairway the best route to the green.

The raised green calls for a longer club for the approach shot than the yardage suggests. Players are advised to err long rather than short to take the huge bunker fronting the green out of play, with a pair of bunkers on the right awaiting pushed approach shots. Dun is the Gaelic word for hill, while whin is Scots for gorse.

Hole 3

Tassie comes from the French word tasse for cup and reflects the fact this green sits in a cup-like dell. Silver refers to the silver birch trees near the green.

Pin placement on this two-tiered green will dictate the choice of club for an approach shot ideally from the right of the fairway.

It could be a two-club difference if the flag is at the back of the green. Any shot that lands on the higher back tier will leave a slippery putt down a steep slope if the pin is on the bottom.

Hole 2

Name: East Neuk Yardage: 436 Par: 4 This is the second easiest par four according to the scorecard, with a stroke index of 14 for handicap golfers. Only the 14th (stroke index 15) is easier among the two-shot holes. Tee shots

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Name: Silver Tassie Yardage: 368 Par: 4

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Hole 4

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Course guide

balls may slide off this raised green in similar fashion to the way butter slides off a hot skillet.

There is really no preferred side to miss this long, narrow green since it falls away on all sides, albeit the bunkers short may be the best miss. Although players will need to take a longer club to fly the bunkers, the green slopes uphill front to back, and any ball that lands past the flag will make birdies harder to come by.

An uphill putt gives the best chance of a two.

Name: Broomy Law Yardage: 443 Par: 4 At 466 yards, the fourth is the longest of the two-shot holes on the King’s, hence why it is rated the second-hardest hole on the course, with a stroke index of two. Players need to be wary of the first right-hand fairway bunkers, but right of centre is again the preferred side of the fairway.

The land left of the green falls steeply away and competitors will favour the right side of this green on approach shots.

However, a bunker just short and right of a putting surface that slopes gently from front to back awaits shots that come up short. Law is the Scots word for hill, while broom refers to the bushes to the right of this hole.

Hole 6

Name: Blink Bonnie Yardage: 462 Par: 4 A good chance for the field to pick up a birdie on the shortest par five on the course. Competitors need to thread tee shots between two fairway bunkers left and right of the fairway, with the landing spot right where the fairway pinches to its narrowest and sits on a small saddle.

A good tee shot should leave a medium iron for the world’s best over-50s to a green with three slight tiers. There is only one greenside bunker and this should only come into play if the flag is on the lower right-hand corner of the putting surface.

Hole 5

Name: Het Girdle Yardage: 178 Par: 3 This may be the most aptly named of all the King’s Course holes. Het Girdle means hot griddle, a reference to the fact that The fifth: where a ball can slip off the green like butter off a hot griddle

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Course guide

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Two deep bunkers await the faint of heart or short of power at the ninth

Hole 7

left of the flag will leave an uphill putt. Four bunkers, two front and two back, protect this green. Club selection will depend on pin placement, with a longer club needed if the pin is hiding at the back.

So called because whaup is another name for a curlew, with the green somewhat resembling a bird’s nest sitting amid the splendid Scottish countryside.

Name: Kittle Kink Yardage: 468 Par: 4 So named because the hole doglegs or “kinks” to the left, with kittle roughly meaning tickle in Scots.

The two bunkers either side of the fairway should not really come into play for Senior Open competitors, with a fairly generous expanse beyond them.

Twin bunkers in the middle of the fairway in pitching distance short of the green also will not trouble most of the field, while the greenside bunkers short of the green have to be avoided to find this long green which can be hard to read because of its subtle slopes.

Hole 9

The English translation says it all: “height of trouble” spells out what lies ahead for any player that makes a mistake on this tricky par four. The best landing area for the downhill tee shot on this slight dogleg right hole is on the left side of the fairway, where there is a better chance of a level lie.

An elevated green means the approach shot will need to be played with a longer club than the yardage suggests. There could be a two or three club difference depending on whether the flag is on the front or back of the green, with two bunkers short of the putting surface waiting to catch anything under-clubbed.

Hole 8

Name: Whaup’s Nest Yardage: 178 Par: 3 At stroke index 17 for ordinary golfers, this should be a birdie opportunity for the Senior Open field.

The green slopes uphill from left to right and balls that land

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Name: Heich o’Fash Yardage: 409 Par: 4

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Hole 10

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Course guide

hole, with its heavily bunkered green that slopes back to front.

The left and right bunkers short of the green can often gather shots that do not quite make the putting surface, so competitors will have to take more club to stop these coming into play. Two bunkers, right of the green and left, await wayward tee shots.

Name: Canty Lye Yardage: 499 Par: 5 A long, straight par five calling for a tee shot that needs to avoid trouble on the left, with the land slanting downhill on that side.

This hole only features one fairway bunker, but it should not come into play since it is far enough up the fairway and not in range from the tee. However, the green is heavily bunkered and slopes left to right. It is one of the fastest greens on the course, and requires a deft touch with the putter to earn a birdie.

The hole’s title comes from canty meaning pleasant and lye, the Scots equivalent of lea. Seemingly it is not too pleasant though, at stroke index one on the card.

Hole 12

Name: Tappit Hen Yardage: 475 Par: 4 The green sits on the highest point of the course, with tappit hen roughly translating as an old pewter ale mug of a type that was often capped with the figurine of a hen. The hole gets its name not from the former presence of either an alehouse or chicken coop, but from the clump of trees that grows immediately behind the green.

Competitors will not be able to see the fairway on this blind par four, with the ideal drive played left of centre. Approach shots need to avoid three bunkers that stand sentry over the green, while the putting surface slopes from front to back right.

One suspects there will be some quick putts on this green over the four days.

Hole 11

Name: Deil’s Creel Yardage: 230 Par: 3 The Devil’s fishing basket is the hardest of the King’s Course one-shot holes, at stroke index 10 for ordinary golfers. It will not be an easy task for Senior Open players to make birdie on this Plenty of sand to snare unwary souls at the 11th

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Course guide

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The view from behind the sloping green on the 15th

Hole 13

and Senior Open hopefuls will be looking to do likewise. They will need to negotiate five fairway bunkers and five greenside ones to do so, with the back right pin placement the toughest to get close to This is the shortest and easiest par four on the card, with a stroke index of 15, and the field will hope to overcome it with elegance and aplomb, as befits its name “dainty dell”.

Name: Braid’s Brawest Yardage: 464 Par: 4 So called because designer James Braid, a five-time Open Champion, considered this hole the best on the course.

A bunker by the name of Auld Nick needs to be avoided on the tee shot, which will ideally land in the centre or slightly right of centre to leave the best line into the green.

The angled putting surface slopes from front to back and left to right, with approach shots needing to find the right side of the green to leave uphill putts. Four bunkers, one known as Young Nick to go with its fairway elder, may well punish the foolhardy.

Hole 15

The hole is entitled “hollow of hope”, perhaps because players just hope to get through this tough par four, stroke index three, with scorecards unsavaged.

Tee shots ideally need to be played left of the marker post to leave the best line into the green, with no fairway bunkers in play.

Four bunkers then protect a two-tiered green that slopes left to right, with the back tier lower than the front. This is a tough hole which arrives at an often crucial stage of the round; a moment when pars will probably be most welcome both for the leaders and the stragglers.

Hole 14

Name: Denty Den Yardage: 341 Par: 4 Australian Peter O’Malley remembers this hole fondly. He eagled it in the final round of the 1992 Scottish Open to start a run of five holes in seven-under to win the tournament.

O’Malley drove the green and holed a 20-foot putt for his two,

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Name: Howe o’ Hope Yardage: 459 Par: 4

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Hole 16

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Course guide

take long irons or fairways clubs off the tee to get the ball on the left side for their approach. The hole doglegs gently right to left with a right-hand fairway bunker perhaps coming into play for those who take an iron off the tee.

An elevated green protected by three bunkers short of the putting surface may call for an extra club to carry the sand.

Name: Wee Bogle Yardage: 155 Par: 3 The shortest of the one-shot holes, which probably explains why it is the most heavily bunkered. Ten sand-traps circle this green like a string of pearls and all of them can bring bogey into play for anyone unlucky enough to find one.

The green slopes from back to front and can offer up lightning fast putts. Competitors should not be fooled by the yardage; there is a reason the hole is named after a small ghost or goblin.

The final par three on the King’s can be a scary place.

Hole 18

Name: King’s Hame Yardage: 555 Par: 5 The home hole can produce plenty of fireworks, as it did when Peter O’Malley was crowned 1992 Scottish Open Champion.

The Australian’s tee shot carried the ridge and ran down the fairway that slopes towards the green, leaving him a 6-iron from approximately 200 yards. His ball ended up 25 feet from the hole, and O’Malley holed the putt to come home in 28 strokes.

Needless to say, this reachable downhill par five may end up playing an important role in deciding who is crowned the 2022 Senior Open Champion. Players will certainly need to be aware of the six bunkers that protect the largest putting surface on the course, which features a ridge that runs left to right.

Hole 17

Name: Warslin’ Lea Yardage: 377 Par: 4 While this relatively compact par four normally calls for a short iron or wedge approach, it is renowned for being notoriously tricky. Hence the reason for the warslin’ or “wresting” moniker: it will put up a good fight.

It has the narrowest fairway on the course and competitors may The 18th: a reachable par five, but not without its defences

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S enior Open Championship review

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There were household names aplenty in the running at Sunningdale, but none of them could match the unheralded Welshman, Stephen Dodd Words: Andy Farrell

Easy does it: a relaxed Dodd acknowledges the applause

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t was ever so slightly surreal, but very definitely wonderful. A drizzly old summer’s evening under the big oak tree at Sunningdale, like many before and yet unlike any other. Stephen Dodd faced a 10ft putt at the back of the 18th green of the Old Course to win the Senior Open Championship presented by Rolex. And, without any fuss or fanfare, Dodd rolled it in. He nonchalantly waved his putter aloft, bumped knuckles with his playing partner, Jerry Kelly, briefly hugged his caddie and was then enveloped in an embrace by runner-up Miguel Ángel Jiménez, cigar in hand.

Jiménez, the 2018 winner, had just scored a 65 and posted the clubhouse target at 12 under par, having earlier in the week made an albatross. Kelly, Dodd’s nearest challenger after three rounds, was at the time leading the Charles Schwab Cup season standings on the PGA Tour Champions.

Darren Clarke, who lifted the Claret Jug in 2011, was hoping to become only the fourth after Gary Player, Bob Charles and Tom Watson to win both The Open and the Senior Open.

The Northern Irishman finished two behind, while Bernhard Langer, the defending champion looking for a fifth win, was fourth and Paul Broadhurst, the 2016 champion, fifth.

Ernie Els and the newly crowned US Senior Open champion, Jim Furyk, both on their debut, were also in contention, as was Alex Cejka, winner of two of the Champions Tour’s Majors in 2021. The Senior Open had to be cancelled in 2020, but was rescheduled at Sunningdale for 12 months later and the field was as strong as it could be. Everyone was here and Dodd beat the lot.

Which was remarkable not least because the 55-year-old Welshman had barely been playing. While the Champions Tour in America had restarted after the pandemic in the summer of 2020, and been going strongly ever since, the Legends Tour 158

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Dodd seizes

the day

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Bernhard Langer keeping dry on his way to a fourth-place finish (left): America’s Jerry Kelly (below) would come home sixth after keeping champion Dodd company on the final day

Northern Irishman, with two wins already behind him on the Champions Tour, opened with a 65 alongside South Africa’s James Kingston, who fell away on day two. Clarke threatened to do the same, with three consecutive bogeys on the front nine, but birdied four of the last six holes for a 67 to be one ahead of Langer and Kelly, and two in front of Els and Broadhurst.

After a 66 on Thursday to be one off the lead, Dodd fell five adrift with a one-over-par 71 in the second round.

It was “pretty poor,” he said, and the turnaround on Saturday he put down to

“Expectation-wise, I didn’t really have any. I wanted to do myself justice, and I think I’ve done a bit more than that.”

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in Europe had only resumed with the Farmfoods European Legends Links Championship the previous month in June.

Dodd was 43rd there after an opening 78. In 2020 he did not even have to cross the Severn Bridge for his only tournament of the year, when he missed the cut at the Celtic Classic at Celtic Manor.

“With no real competitive golf behind me, I didn’t know what to expect this week,” Dodd said. “I just wanted to try and enjoy it. I didn’t play great today, just ground it out. I did some good work on Monday with my coach, Denis Pugh, but it gradually got a bit worse as the week went on. Expectation-wise, I didn’t really have any. I just wanted to do myself justice, and I think I’ve done a bit more than that, luckily.”

Dodd is a modest man with a huge talent, albeit only seen in occasional glimpses. He was the BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year in 1989, after he won The Amateur Championship, the Welsh strokeplay and matchplay titles, and played on the Walker Cup team that won in America for the first time ever.

He won once on the Challenge Tour in 1992, but on the main tour had to wait until he was 38 in 2004 to win at the Volvo China Open. He suddenly burst into life, winning the Irish Open the following year and the European Open at the K Club in 2006, as well as the World Cup of Golf in 2005 with Bradley Dredge. After turning 50, he won three times in three years on the Legends Tour but not since 2018.

“He’s truly a great player who rarely gets motivated,” Dredge told Global Golf Post. “Nothing fazes him. On virtually every occasion he’s had a chance to win, he’s seized it.”

Dodd proved that again in the denouement at Sunningdale, but it was Clarke who led the way in the early going. The 160

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S enior Open Championship review

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On the regular tour, Dodd had played in The Open Championship three times and missed the cut in all of them a “good night’s sleep and I suppose I got lucky once or twice early on”.

All that added up to six birdies going out, to turn in 29, and then following his only bogey at the 10th, three more in a row from the 13th. His 62 tied the Senior Open record, set by Harold Henning in 1990 and matched by Jim Colbert in 2003, both at Turnberry, and he also tied the Old Course record set

by Sir Nick Faldo in 1986 and equalled by Shane Lowry in Open Qualifying in 2010.

Suddenly, Dodd, at 11 under par, was two ahead of Kelly, who had a 68, and three ahead of Clarke (70). Jiménez holed his second shot from 147 yards at the par-five opening hole for a two and his second successive 67 put him into a tie for fourth with Langer and Broadhurst.

It was the Spaniard who put the pressure on during the final round, birdieing three of the first four holes, and he got to 12 under with his last birdie of the day at the 17th.

Dodd had made three birdies and two bogeys — having also holed long par putts at the seventh and 12th holes — when he came to the last. His tee shot just leaked into the rough on the right but his approach shot was superb, the best of any of the contenders at the last. And then the putt went in.

He knew exactly what was required and, as Dredge suggested, seized the day.

“I like to see the scoreboards and know what I need to do,” he said. “For me it focuses my mind more... I hit some decent shots coming down the last few holes.”

This was Dodd’s fifth appearance in the Senior Open. On the regular tour, he had played in The Open three times and missed the cut in all of them.

“I’m not sure it’s sunk in yet,” he said immediately afterwards. “It’s been quite a tough day. I’m sure on the drive home I’ll reflect on it all and I’ll be a very happy person when I get back home later tonight.”

Greeted there by wife Allison, their six dogs and three cats, as well as a glass or two of red, the new Senior Open champion was content indeed.

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Happy days: Darren Clarke and Miguel Ángel Jiménez congratulate each other at the end of the Championship (above); Dodd hits out as the rain comes down on the final day (right) 162

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Players to watch

Alker doffs his cap to the fans following victory at the Senior PGA Championship

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Steven Alker New Zealand

Age: 50 Professional wins: 15 Major victories: 0

Something of a journeyman in his younger days, Steven Alker has taken the PGA Tour Champions by storm – topping the world rankings with style this year Words: Tony Dear

“First I saw Arnold Palmer, I’m not sure what year it was, and you twist it and you see Lee Trevino and you see Jack Nicklaus and you see Tom Watson… It’s pretty cool,” he said.

At the time of writing, Alker sits comfortably on top of the PGA Champions Tour money list. With a game characterised by accuracy of approach and a steady hand on the greens, he may find the King’s Course very much to his liking.

“It’s just perseverance with a capital ‘P’.

I look back and I think, did I really have the game or did I have the attitude?”

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t has been quite a year for Steven Alker, with victories already at the Rapsican Systems Classic, the Insperity Invitational and the Senior PGA Championship plus a handful of top-10 finishes to boot.

What is perhaps more surprising, though, is that the New Zealander had a relatively understated professional career before the age of 50. He appeared on PGA, European, Korn Ferry, Australasian and Canadian tours, but without securing regular success. His best result in a Major was tied 19th at The Open Championship of 2012 at Royal Lytham & St Annes.

Quizzed about the secrets of his new-found success Alker said: “It’s just perseverance with a capital ‘P’.”

“I can’t put my finger on one thing exactly,” he added. “I look back and I go, geez, did I really have the game or did I have the attitude? I think now, I’ve matured and it’s a second wind.”

It certainly is. Take that Senior PGA victory, for example. Alker entered the final round four shots adrift of the leader, Stephen Ames, but then rolled in three birdies in the first five holes on the way to an eight-under 63 and victory by three shots.

On the back of such finishing ability Alker has found himself rubbing metaphorical shoulders with the greats of the game, a fact that was brought home to him as he examined the trophy after his Senior PGA win at Benton Harbor.

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Players to watch

Čejka: enjoying a fine run of form

Alex Čejka Germany

Age: 51 Professional wins: 16 Major victories: 0

Victor at the Regions Tradition and Senior PGA Championship in 2021, the evergreen German has been consistently up among the leaders on tour this year Words: Robert Verkaik

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lex Čejka had a year to remember in 2021. The Czech-born, German-raised golfer celebrated his recent elevation to the Senior Circuit with victory at the Regions Tradition in Alabama and the Senior PGA Championship at Southern Hills within a few weeks of each other.

“It’s incredible,” Čejka said after that latter victory. “Seeing and knowing all those names who are up there on the trophy and being on the trophy myself, it’s a dream come true. [On the] Monday, when I played for the first time here, I walked those fairways and remembered seeing this on TV in all those years... I can’t even describe how it feels to be here and touching the trophy.” Čejka may have departed the Czech Republic (then Iron Curtain-era Czechoslovakia) at the tender age of nine (as a refugee) but he has still enjoyed widespread popularity in his country of birth throughout his career – and he won the Czech Open back in 1990 and 1992.

As a boy, though, his first sporting love was ice hockey, with his interest in golf sparked later as a result of watching Bernhard Langer leading the way for Germany at the highest levels of the game.

Nowadays he gets to spend time with his boyhood hero on the Seniors Tour and he has spoken of how he enjoys a chat with his hugely successful countryman on course. “If we’re playing two English-speakers, we like that, because they have no idea what we’re saying,” he added. Čejka has continued his run of form on the Senior Tour this

As a boy his first sporting love was ice hockey, with his interest in golf sparked

by Bernhard Langer’s achievements year, finishing second to New Zealand’s Steven Alker at the Rapiscan Systems Classic in March and then fourth at the Insperity Invitational.

He would surely love to make an impact at Gleneagles this year – partly perhaps because his record at The Open Championship was slightly disappointing for a player of his prowess – although he did finish tied for 11th in 1996 and for 13th in 2001, both at Royal Lytham & St Annes.

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Players to watch

Els prepares to putt during last year’s Senior Open

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Ernie Els South Africa

Age: 52 Professional wins: 74 Major victories: 4

The Big Easy is a busy man these days – with a host of charitable and business commitments – but he will be relishing his trip to Gleneagles. And the crowd will surely be delighted to see him Words: Robert Verkaik

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His charitable causes in particular have served as a motivation for Els on the PGA Tour Champions

not only in business but definitely in charity work. [The Tour] has really sustained that for me.”

His plan now is to keep promoting the good causes by ensuring his name is prominent on leaderboards: “People love to identify you still as a golfer.”

Since joining the Senior ranks in 2020, Els has been consistently finishing in top 20s and in May tied for third at the Regions Tradition, behind the victorious Steve Stricker.

The Gleneagles crowd will surely relish seeing him back in action in Scotland this year.

Nowadays, Els is a man with plenty of irons in the fire and his focuses include golf course design, wine-making and his extensive charitable work – notably the Els for Autism Foundation, which he founded with his wife, Liezl, in 2009.

Charitable causes in particular have served as a motivation for Els on the PGA Tour Champions. He added: “My stature in the game, whatever you want to call that, it’s really helped us

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he famous swing is as relaxed and rhythmical as ever and Ernie Els certainly appears to be enjoying his forays on the Seniors circuit.

It is 10 years now since the South African won his fourth (and last) Major – The Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St Annes – and he has eloquently spoken about the challenges of stepping away from the highest pinnacle of the sport.

“Priorities change whether it’s family or business,” Els said.

“And then you’re not playing the way you used to play, that can get on your nerves a little bit. Then you’re seeing [younger] guys coming through, the game changing. I don’t want to say you feel like you’ve been left behind, but it’s tough to really play at that top level for a very long period of time.”

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Players to watch

Harrington enjoying himself at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, Florida, in March

Padraig Harrington Ireland

Age: 50 Professional wins: 32 Major victories: 3

Three-time Major winner, Ryder Cup stalwart and former PGA Player of the Year; the Dubliner is now impressing in the Seniors Words: Robert Verkaik

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adraig Harrington will be looking to join an elite club at Gleneagles this July, namely players who have triumphed at both The Open Championship and the Senior Open.

The Irishman celebrated his 50th birthday last August – just a few months after he finished impressively in a tie for fourth place in the US PGA Championship at Kiawah Island.

That statistic alone suggests that Harrington has lost little, if any, of the competitive instinct and will to win that took him to back-to-back Open Championship victories in 2007 and 2008 (at Carnoustie and Royal Birkdale respectively), not to mention a US PGA title also in 2008.

“Scotland holds precious memories for me, as the country of my first Major Championship win.”

“My earliest memory of the King’s Course was when watching Peter O’Malley make two eagles and three birdies in the last five holes of the final round to win the 1992 Scottish Open in a dramatic finish,” he added.

He will no doubt be hoping for something similar himself, and certainly his recent form on the Champions Tour has been impressive – including a second place finish at the Regions Tradition and a tie for second at the Mitsubishi Electric Classic.

Bob Charles, Gary Player and Tom Watson are the only players ever to achieve the double of Open Championship and Senior Open. Who would bet against Harrington joining the list?

“I am excited to be making my debut at the Senior Open and to be able to do so in Scotland is very special,” he said.

“I always love playing there and it holds precious memories for me as the country of my first Major Championship win. It will be a pleasure to be back at Gleneagles. It is a great venue and I have fond memories of being there as a vice-captain at the 2014 Ryder Cup.” Harrington was a regular in that competition, playing in six iterations of the event between 1999 and 2010 and then taking the captaincy for 2021’s Covid-delayed loss to the USA. 169

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he 150th Open Championship, Muirfield’s first running of The AIG Women’s Open, a Senior Open staged at one of the most scenic and historic of all Scotland’s courses…

One thing’s for sure, 2022 will be a year that will go down in the history of golf in the UK. In our excitement, though, we should not forget to take a quick glance around the metaphorical corner to see what is in store for next year.

The Open will be heading to Royal Liverpool. Easily accessible for millions, the venue is a huge favourite with golf fans – around 230,000 people visited to watch Tiger Woods in imperious form when the course hosted its first Open for 39 years in 2006.

The Championship also came to this corner of the northwest in 2014, when Rory McIlroy emerged as a worthy and very popular winner.

England will also be the venue for the AIG Women’s Open, which will be taking place for the first time at Walton Heath Golf Club in Surrey.

You could hardly wish for a more historic venue. Founded in

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Preview 2023

1903, the club’s first captain was the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII). Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George were members and five-time Open Champion James Braid was the long-standing professional.

Not only that, and perhaps pertinent to its role next year, in 1912 the course was the venue for a 72-hole “Man versus Woman Challenge match” in which Cecil Leitch defeated twotime Open Champion Harold Hilton 2/1. Leitch would go on to win the Women’s Amateur Championship on four occasions (as well as five French Ladies Amateur Championships).

The Senior Open meanwhile will be going west – to Wales and Royal Porthcawl, a course that was dubbed “absolutely spectacular” by former world number one and 1992 Masters champion, Fred Couples.

Opened in the 1890s and South Wales’ first-ever 18-hole course, Royal Porthcawl will be welcoming The Senior Open for the third time, having hosted the Championship previously in 2014 and 2017. Bernhard Langer was victorious on both those occasions and, knowing the German maestro’s peerless record in this event, he will no doubt be one of the favourites again in 2023.

Dates for the diary Scotland passes the golfing baton to England and Wales next year – as the UK’s premier golf Championships head to three compelling venues Words: Angus MacDonald

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Royal Liverpool: an arena to challenge the best in the world

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Make your dream a reality

By Chris Bertram

A

luxury beachfront hotel with year-round sunshine and a beautifully manicured golf course within a fiveminute walk of your sun lounger… could a golf holiday get any better than that?

The answer is, remarkably, ‘yes’. Add in competing in a tournament with players you grew up watching play on television or idolised as a fully-fledged golf nut, and the level of appeal is nudged up at least one notch.

Sound too good to be true? It isn’t. It is actually a thing, because Constance Belle Mare Plage in Mauritius is the final venue for the EU Legends Tour, which offers opportunities via either the Pro-Am tournaments or the alliance for amateurs to play with the likes of Paul Lawrie, Thomas Bjorn, Paul McGinley and Ian Woosnam.

So you’ve got the sun, sea and sand of Constance Belle Mare Plage, a European Tour Destination, and some of the biggest names in the game over the past two decades.

Playing in a Pro-Am is hardly unheard of you might say. True.

But in addition to your rounds with Lawrie, Bjorn or whoever being played under Mauritius sunshine and on a world-class course such as the Legend, there is another seriously tempting reason to get involved.

The pros are also all staying at Belle Mare Plage too, so you find yourself having a chat with Lawrie as you order your breakfast omlette. Or talking on the 10-minute bus transfer to the resort’s other course, the Links, with former Ryder Cup star Joakim Haegmann. You get the idea.

There’s more. Belle Mare Plage is the final stop on the Legends Tour schedule and that means there are also eight top celebrities competing for a prize too. Guess where they are staying? Yes, Belle Mare Plage. So as well as having the chance to play golf with one of them, you might also find yourself having a beer at the pool bar with Liverpool football icon Robbie Fowler. Or

having lunch on the next table to exLions rugby captain Gavin Hastings and his wife.

The pros and celebrities are all trying to win a tournament and win money for themselves or a charity respectively. But they’re all on holiday too, just like you are, and the vibe happily really reflects that.

It’s impossible not to feel holiday vibes at Belle Mare Plage.

The soft, white sand and the warm turquoise water are without peer anywhere in the world. The accommodation is luxurious, classy and comfortable. There are so many activities you’ll never fit them in in a week. The food is sumptuous and the wine cellar one of the finest in the Indian Ocean.

Oh and did I mention the golf courses? They are happily very different, with volcanic rock and blind shots characterising the tricky Legend while the Links is a risk-reward test on flatter ground punctuated by water hazards.

You get a chance to play both as part of the Alliance week, when you’re not chilling out with Fowler or quizzing McGinley for his Ryder Cup best stories. That’s the kind of week it is when the Legends Tour arrives on the east coast of Mauritius.

Chris Bertram has been Golf World’s Top 100 Courses and Resorts Editor for 12 years. He has played more than 600 courses worldwide, as far afield as Nicaragua and Norway. His tally includes all of the Top 100 in GB&I and 92 of continental Europe’s 100.

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Constance, stepping gently through the Indian Ocean

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