Not everyone buys into the accepted wisdom that Carnoustie is the toughest of the courses on the Open rotation and Justin Rose, a man who knows a thing or two about links golf, feels that the venue for the championship this week may be suffering from a case of its reputation preceding it.
Rose is preparing for his 17th now, with a missed cut at Carnoustie in his first Open as a professional in 1999 when the fairways were pinched and the rough on the tough side of brutal, and a tied 12th on his return in 2007 when the weather was again inclement. The Englishman takes the view that the course, any course, is what you make of it.
“In 1999 it got a reputation for being incredibly tough because of the setup,” Rose says of the one Paul Lawrie won in a play-off reached at six over par. “You can make any course as tough as you want if it’s set up like that. It’s a fair golf course.
“All links courses are tough but I don’t feel it’s much tougher than Birkdale, Muirfield or Turnberry. These four might be among my favourites because I see them as very fair venues. You know you have to hit shots, there are certain creeks and hazards you need to avoid, you can’t always rely on a bit of luck to get your ball up on the green.
“But I think especially with where the rough is and how burnt out it is right now, it’s as fair as we’ve ever seen it.” And on a difficulty scale of one to 10 compared with the other Open venues? “I’d say it’s a six or a seven.”
Lawrie, who is from Aberdeen, 60 miles away, is injured with a foot problem so not in the field. Like any links course, he says, the degree of difficulty is contingent on the weather and when conditions are benign he rates it a five or six, though when they are fierce then an eight or nine. “It’s the toughest on the rota when it’s nasty weather. It’s not got any longer [been extended] over the years, which to me is a great test of how a golf course has stood the test of time. It’s just a great golf course. I think someone will be very good this week, the ground’s hard and the greens are in great condition. I don’t know which course is the best, but it’s one of the best.”
Tommy Fleetwood is preparing for his fifth Open, with only one cut made, but he grew up playing links golf in and around his native Southport and holds the course record at Carnoustie with a 63 in last year’s Dunhill Links Championship, which is played in the autumn, when the course is usually soft and more receptive. He acknowledges that there have been horror stories here in the past but agrees that the toughness of a links is as much a result of setup and climatic variables than anything topographical.
“Generally in the Open, the weather makes it,” he says. “It kind of doesn’t matter how it plays. It’s calm then as soon as the wind picks up and the conditions get you, then any Open venue can play really tough. But historically, yeah, Carnoustie has definitely been one of the toughest. But I’m maybe not qualified enough as yet to answer it.”
Ian Woosnam, the 1991 Masters champion and now a member of the Seniors Tour, threw his name into the suitability?of?links debate from afar this week by asserting that the R&A should commission a purpose-built super course at St Andrews as he considers the out-and-back Old Course “all but obsolete”. He would then like to see the game’s oldest major played at the new place every year, Masters style, with the R&A in a position to tweak the conditions and getting the players to use every club in the bag.
Clearly it is not going to happen, and given the popularity and pride of the current 10 venues on the rotation and their localities, that is no bad thing. But Woosnam does have a point, however minor, in that the capricious nature of the British weather often has a big say in who ends a four-day stint by the seaside as the champion golfer of the year.
Then again it was ever thus and Padraig Harrington was that man the last time the roadshow visited Carnoustie, when he won in a four-hole play-off from Sergio Garcia in 2007. To his mind it is the toughest of the Open venues, though he did play in damp, difficult conditions when he prevailed, then followed up at Royal Birkdale in 2008 in tough winds.
As evidence the Irishman, soon to begin his 22nd Open, cites the fact that Carnoustie has 13 par?fours and only two par?fives, so birdies and eagles generally are harder to come by, and feels the final four holes, the last two with the meandering Barry Burn a major influence on strategy, are among the very best of tests.
“They can be brutish at best,” he says. “No matter how you’ve done in those first 14 holes, where you might have played well, you still have to get home to the clubhouse in those four holes. I’m quite familiar with Carnoustie. I’ve been back every year at the Dunhill Championship. It’s a difficult stretch in golf, and to have them the last four holes of a championship really is what makes Carnoustie as tough as it is.” Keep them guessing, Padraig.
US golfer Jordan Spieth plays from the 6th tee during a practice round at the Open in Carnoustie, Scotland, yesterday. (AFP)
