The Open Golf Championship
It was fantastic to experience The Open Championship from a spectator point of view this week. Having watched The Open on television since the early nineties, it was interesting to experience the practice day on Wednesday and the first day of the tournament on Thursday from behind the ropes.
Royal Liverpool Golf Club was in a lovely setting on the coast, with breathtaking views of the sea and long stretches of sand. The course appeared to be much more undulating than it did on television, having many humps and bumps, making you realise the treacherous task the players faced of landing their ball in the right spot on the green, to prevent sliding off and facing the prospect of taking many more shots to recover. The holes also looked a lot longer – I remember standing in the middle of the 18th fairway whilst walking across a walkway and looking up and down the hole, and not being able to see the tee or the green. Realising the hole was 599 yards, I wondered how many shots I would need to get anywhere near the green, and then remembered that some players were considering getting on in two, which seemed remarkable. This reinforced what I had witnessed when watching the players hit their ball so crisply, which was the vast distances they can hit a golf ball, but with a smooth swing and such apparent ease. Scanning the golf course also made me realise the scale of the event, and the huge number of marquees and structures that are added to the normal course. The Open shop, food outlets, large TV screens, the ‘Swing Zone’, toilets, grandstands, scoring areas and corporate facilities make it a very different place to what members are used to, and my dad and I wondered how long it must take to prepare the course and build all of this additional infrastructure. The course was even modified, with the members normally playing their first hole on what was the 3rd hole for The Open Championship apparently.
The two favourite players were definitely local boy Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy. Whispers would circulate amongst supporters in the stand about their progress, and conversations would regularly be heard about when they plan to see them during their round. It was amusing to see McIlroy come through on the 3rd on Thursday, with not only caddies for company on the course, but multiple marshals, media presenters, photographers etc, creating a group of 25+ people walking up the hole. We heard a nearby NBC on-course commentator describe it ‘like it was in Tiger’s day’ and we realized the extra pressure and scrutiny this must put on the very top players. This contrasted a few minutes later, with lesser-known players walking the same hole a while later, with just their caddies for company in a small group of 6 and far fewer fans standing behind the ropes. Wherever we were on the course, sitting in grandstands or out on the course, it was impressive to witness so many people become eerily quiet when players addressed their ball and take their shot.
As the leaderboard started to take shape over the weekend, in some ways it was unsurprising to see names like Rahm, McIlroy, Fleetwood, Day and Hovland queuing up behind Harman the leader, as these were players that supporters (including us) were clearly so keen to see. However, I had to remind myself of Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Justin Rose, who were also players we had on ‘our list’, but who had underperformed, missed the cut and been outstripped by players like Alex Fitzpatrick, Nicolai Hojgaard, Antoine Rozner and Sepp Straka, potential Ryder Cup heroes of the future and perhaps players who we should have paid more attention to. McIlroy and Fleetwood slipped back, finding it hard to sink any putts, whilst Brian Harman continued to be too good for everyone else, regularly rebounding from setbacks to maintain a clear lead and leave too much for others to do in torrential rain on the last day on Sunday. As world number 26, the AMERICAN wasn’t perhaps as much of a surprise winner as Ben Curtis, Paul Lawrie or Todd Hamilton, but he probably fooled quite a few quizzers this year. Brian Harman will take home the Claret Jug, as I dream about the potential of visiting Troon in 2024.
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