The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
A real major is over 72 holes
Saturday at the 2015 Open Championship was, at the same time, one of my worst and best days reporting this often excruciatingly maddening game. You’ll remember how high winds that day caused an 11-hour stoppage in play, and that after a three-hour delay for heavy rain and floods on the Friday.
In truth, the Saturday delay was not so much due to winds but largely because the greens had been cut to lengths more suitable for San Diego than St Andrews, but you can imagine my frustration – it was my day off, and I wanted to watch some golf. With beer, preferably.
The best part of it was being in the galleries that day. I learned the unquenchable enthusiasm of the Open golf fan, and their indefatigable patience. I remember most going over a crossing point at the 16th green/17th tee at about 1 pm – almost the halfway point of the delay – and seeing the huge stand there full. With queues to get in.
But of course, at no time in the delay was it even suggested that the Open should be changed to 54 holes. Nor was it ever suggested we tear up scorecards and start again.
In the end we played the final round that year on Monday, and would have played until Tuesday if needed. This is the world’s greatest golf tournament, a major championship, and we don’t play over anything less than 72 holes.
Last week in France the LPGA not only played the Evian Championship – their fifth major since 2013 – over 54 holes but actually scratched scores following a weather delay.
There’s plenty in golf who want the Evian reduced to what it was – a well-sponsored diversion tucked away at the end of the LPGA schedule, rather than a major. That’s another debate, but those who want it retained are hardly helped by last week’s debacle.
Firstly, no matter what the conditions, there should be no starting again. The tournament director has taken a decision to play, then they play, until such time he or she decides it’s not fit for play.
If the weather turns nasty, that’s bad luck but it’s also part of the sport; weather, and the ability to adapt to it, is one of the essentials of the game.
That applies to wind, rain and also, on the other side of the coin, extreme heat.
No-one’s doubting it was unplayable when they called the players off. But the scores should stand. Golf isn’t meant to be fair.
Secondly, if it’s really a major, you play until it’s a 72-hole result. Anna Nordqvist is an outstanding player – she was brilliant in the Solheim Cup – but her title will have an asterisk next to it forever, because every other modern major championship went the full distance and this one didn’t.
An end of LET’s troubles? Who knows?
The statement from Ladies European Tour chairman Mark Lichtenhein on the current state of the beleagured circuit at the Evian said almost nothing.
Discussions continue between the LET and LPGA and “other commercial partners” (I’m led to believe the R&A is one) in an attempt to gain some sort of stable footing for the tour after their rapidly diminishing schedule this year. Whether this will be a takeover we’re still not sure.
Lichtenhein added “over 20 enquiries and proposals” had been tabled to the LET “from Lisbon to Moscow”. That sounds great, but where were these when the LET was floundering with basically no events between May and July? Did the tour really have to run up the flag of peril before anyone responded? The “play-offs” still don’t thrill There’s been some serious good play, some seriously good winners – not least Marc Leishman this weekend – but the FedEx Cup play-offs still struggle to push the needle.
It’s golf’s annual struggle to prove itself relevant after the last major has been played. From 2019, that’s going to be mid-July, of course.
By then, the FedEx Cup will have moved to avoid clashing with the nasty NFL (although plenty empty seats there this year, surprisingly) and reportedly reduced to three events with the Tour Championship having a shootout not entirely dissimilar to Golf Sixes.
What, even the PGA Tour having to innovate? Times are a-changing indeed.
No matter what the conditions, there should beno starting again... golf is not meant to be fair
A new hero for our times Apart from Marc Leishman’s victory, quite the most interesting thing in the BMW Championship was Welsey Bryan’s final round 69, where he played alone and took just 88 minutes.
The Hilton Head winner was 25 shots back with no way into the Tour Championship. So he set about breaking the PGA Tour’s unofficial record for fastest round – previously held, in glorious irony, by none other than Kevin Na.
Running between shots, exchanging clubs on the fly with his caddie and even – horror – tending his own flag, Bryan mock collapsed on the final green at the end of it all.
The group behind were on the ninth when he finished, which sets a new definition to being out of position.
Naturally, however, his plane home was delayed... for three hours.