The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Open at St. Andrews about adding to rich history
History alone sets the British Open apart from the other majors. Stage it at St. Andrews and it becomes a celebration as much as a championship.
More than 500 years of legend and lore never gets old.
It’s what led Jack Nicklaus to say so famously years ago: “When the British Open is in Scotland, there’s something special about it. And when it’s at St. Andrews, it’s even greater.”
Tiger Woods remarkably returned to major competition at the Masters just 14 months after his right leg and ankle were shattered in a car crash. Even after making the cut, proving he could walk and compete for 72 holes, he was uncertain about where he would play next except for one week he had circled on his calendar.
“I am looking forward to St. Andrews,” Woods said in April. “That is something that is near and dear to my heart. I’ve won two Opens there, it’s the home of golf. It’s my favorite golf course in the world, so I will be there for that one.”
And then there’s Jon Rahm, the former No. 1 player in the world, who has seared into his memory that iconic image of Seve Ballesteros twice thrusting his arm into the air after winning the claret jug on the Old Course in 1984.
“To be honest, I don’t think there’s a bigger achievement in golf than winning The Open Championship at St. Andrews,” Rahm said. “I think it’s the biggest event.”
The one figures to be even bigger.
The Open Championship returns to the home of golf on July 14-17 to celebrate the 150th edition of the sport’s oldest championship, which dates to 1860 and was first played at St. Andrews in 1873. This will be the 30th time it’s on the Old Course, the most of any links on the rotation.
Festivities include Nicklaus joining Bobby Jones and Benjamin Franklin as the only Americans to be awarded honorary citizenship of St. Andrews. Nicklaus has not been back to the gray old town since 2005, when he chose the British Open at St. Andrews as the 166th and final major championship of his incomparable career.
“When they wrote and asked me if I would accept being an honorary citizen, I couldn’t turn that down,” Nicklaus said.
Woods, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy will join past champions — some of them who won the Open before they were born — in the “Celebration of Champions,” a four-hole exhibition Monday afternoon that takes place only at St. Andrews.