Scottish Our
Sojourn
In honor of the 136th Open Championship, we traveled to Carnoustie and other famous links from Montrose to St. Andrews for a six-day golf holiday.
or those of you who don’t believe in surfing the Web, the opportunity to play the same course where Tommy Armour, Henry Cotton, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, and Tom Watson won the Open Championship would have gone unnoticed. To play the famous course where Jean Van de Velde floundered in the Barry Burn on his way to a triple bogey on the 72nd hole in 1999 — opening the playoff door for the opportunistic Scot Paul Lawrie — was a spectacular offering that six of us could not pass up. The fact that it was a scant two months prior to 136th Open Championship added more luster to our opportunity to play the Championship Course at Carnoustie Golf Links. Ca r n o u s t i e While we never considered playing the course from the Open Championship tees, which measure an imposing 7,421 yards, we certainly got a feel for what many of the world’s best 156 professionals and amateurs will face at Carnoustie. The Carnoustie Country Classic, held each May, provides mortals the chance to traverse the same fairways (more likely gorse) as professionals qualifying for The Open have this spring and early summer. Participants play four rounds of golf, one each at the Monifieth Medal Course, Panmure Golf Club, the Montrose Medal course (the fifth oldest in the world originally routed in 1542), and Carnoustie. Experiencing these Scottish links helped us understand their real difficulty. The 72-hole Stableford competition attracted golfers from Pinehurst to Atlanta, Liverpool to Newcastle, and even Sweden.
Photo courtesy of carl danbury
Carnoustie was easily the most difficult, yet each course posed its own perils. In mid-May, the Carnoustie greens rolled true. The greens were not difficult to read, nor was it hard to gauge their pace. We played on a sunny day in what was described to us as a gentle breeze (10 to 15 mph), not in cool, blustery, and rainy conditions, which may have complicated all facets of the game near the coast of the North Sea.
In July, the gorse does not retain its golden buds and is an annoying brown. With a generous amount of rain prior to the Open, however, the gnarly rough will cause wayward approaches or unwelcome hacks back into the relative safety of the tight fairways. During the first round of the 1999 Open, only Rod Pampling managed par on the Carnoustie Links and the average score that day was seven-over-par in a round plagued by blustery winds. Despite improved July
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August 07 | SUmag.com |
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