Carnoustie presents a fast look for British Open

Jon Rahm had heard about a dry summer in Scotland. It didn’t really hit home until he checked into the Carnoustie Golf Hotel and caught his first glimpse of the course with a reputation as the toughest links in golf.

“I forgot the fact the R&A lets Mother Nature set up the course,” he said July 15. “It wasn’t until I got to my hotel room when I looked out and said, ‘This is baked. This is brown.’ I’m just glad they water the greens.”

This is a different look than the previous two times the British Open came to Carnoustie.

The rough was dense, thick and crowded the narrow fairways in 1999. It was wet and long in 2007. It is bone dry this year, the grass brown on the fairways, almost the same color as the sand filling some of the divots. The ball is running forever.

Rahm said he can still see why the links has been nicknamed “Car-nasty.”

“But I think with this year’s setup — the lack of rain, the fairways being firm, the fescue not being thick at all — it almost seems like a completely different golf course from what I’m used to hearing,” he said.

Padraig Harrington got everyone’s attention on Saturday when he tweeted that he hit into the Barry Burn again on the 18th hole.

“This time it was the one at the green, 457 yards away,” he tweeted. “The fairways are a tad fast.”

Harrington hit into the first burn in the final round in 2007, and then hit his next shot into the burn by the green. He salvaged a double bogey and wound up beating Sergio Garcia in a playoff.

The Irishman tried (and failed) to post video . His caddie, brother-in-law Ronan Flood, posted video of the swing , though not the ball bouncing along the turf and dropping into the 6-foot wide stream where Jean Van de Velde was so famously standing in the final round of 1999.

Brandt Snedeker tweeted that he hit one 427 yards on the 18th.

“Never seen an Open this firm,” he said.

That brings in a different set of dynamics, which for the Open, which starts Thursday. Controlling distance is never more difficult when players don’t know how far the ball is bouncing. Rahm was skeptical about Harrington’s tweet as he played the 18th on a warm, dry and breezy afternoon.

“It’s 360 yards to that bunker,” he said, pointing to the right.