We can’t just abandon the home of golf because it’s a nice day!

THERE are some who argue that this needs to happen. That if St Andrews offers up a round of 60, or even 59 this week, the furore it will cause will be good for golf.

The way the sport’s most historic venue can be overpowered, it is said, means that something will have to be done. About the clubs, about the balls, about the way modern technology has placed some of golf’s greatest courses on the brink of obsolescence. If St Andrews is humiliated by big hitting and benign conditions, the sport will have to act or risk losing its history and tradition, not to mention much beauty and charm.

And yet isn’t what may unfold at the 150th Open this week not the next step in the game’s evolution, another example of its delicate balance between risk and reward? Yes, there are greens on par fours that are vulnerable from the tee. But with that reward comes the risk of not hitting them. Bunkers, gorse, horrid undulating lies.

Turning a par four into a par three is rarely as straightforward as gripping it and ripping it. John Daly won with that gameplan on his lips in 1995 but the Old Course never surrendered: he was just six under par and needed a four-hole play-off to beat Costantino Rocca.

Still, fear looms large. Lee Westwood thinks the best players will murder the course unless a wind of 15mph or above is blowing, and one estimate is that six of 14 par four holes are drivable in calm conditions. The course record is 61, set by Ross Fisher in 2017, and it is there to be broken.

Yet is that such a bad thing? Aren’t all records there for the taking? Isn’t that sport? And

even if the leaders are all shooting scores in the 60s, one will do it better than anyone else, and he will be champion.

Equally, think of it like this: are we seriously contemplating abandoning the home of golf, or interfering with one the game’s great spectacles — big hitting — because it’s a nice day? What if it blows? It did in 2015 and the tournament finished on Monday because St Andrews became unplayable. So these are fine margins.

In 1999, Carnoustie was set up like a US Open venue with punitive rough and narrow landing strips, in parts 15 yards in width. Then the wind blew. The result: carnage. After day one, the leader was level par. By day four, Paul Lawrie won a three-way play-off of those finishing six over — and 10 over got a place inside the top 10. The last five winners of the Masters are a combined 68 under par. Nobody is talking of abandoning Augusta National.

The beauty of St Andrews is its capricious nature. First time visitors can find it bland, almost featureless, yet it has subtleties that leave other championship courses gasping. Westwood says that on the second shot at the Road Hole 17th, a player is confronted with three options: a six iron way left, a seven iron short right or a straight five-iron.

He makes the point that few courses demand thought in this way and that at many all will follow the same line. He’s right. Matt Fitzpatrick’s US Open win broke a run of, largely, American beef. Between 2016 and 2021 the winners were Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Gary Woodland, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm as measures brought in to restrict the big hitters actually worked in their favour. Conversely, as landing strips narrowed, so accuracy mattered less because everybody was in the rough. The longest drivers, however, were in it 50 yards nearer the hole.

That is the problem with trying to tame golf technology or guarding against low scores. Think this is a 21st century problem? The first person to drive the par four 12th in an Open at St Andrews was Craig Wood in 1933. Sam Snead then did it in 1946. As Snead arrived in the town by train that year, he is said to have looked out of the window and remarked: ‘Look, there’s an old abandoned golf course.’ He was politely told that it was the Old Course at St Andrews. The home of golf.

So leave it alone. And leave the game alone, too. You can hit it a long way? Great, let’s see that. And if it works for you, well that’s great, too. There should be an advantage gained for the boldness of big hitting. Snead wasn’t averse to it. Neither was Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods. And if 60 wins on the last day, so be it. Next time, it might be windy. And who’s your money on then?