Open returns to test golf’s best
AFTER A YEAR’S ABSENCE, TOURNAMENT SET TO TEE OFF ON LINKS COURSE STEEPED IN HISTORY
When: Thursday-sunday
Where: Royal St. George’s Golf Club, Sandwich, Kent, England
Course: 7,211-yard, par 70
It’s impossible not to get swept away by links golf. Not necessarily by the wind or the sea, although either can do the trick, but rather by the game itself, which surely is golf in its purest form.
In a sport played at its highest level largely by a group of tightly wound perfectionists, nothing reminds players golf is not a game of perfection like the vagaries of links golf.
Standing on a tee box as coastal elements further punish an already uncomfortable climate, watching your golf ball trundle and skip randomly across lively sandbased turf, is to know that the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.
The year’s final major begins Thursday at Royal St. George’s Golf Club on England’s southeastern coast.
After being cancelled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 149th Open Championship belatedly arrives in the town of Sandwich, Kent, population 5,000. As far as the seemingly endless corners of the golfing world go, this is quite a famous one. Royal St. George’s was founded in 1887 in southern England with plans to rival St. Andrews in Scotland, and this will mark the 15th time the course has played host to golf’s oldest major championship.
In many ways, Royal St. George’s epitomizes links golf. The sprawling course plays down crumpled fairways over and around sand dunes and features several blind shots, although not as many as it did in 1894 at the first Open held at the club. A stark contrast to North America’s famous tree-lined parkland courses, Royal St. George’s features just a single tree found right of the green on the par-3 third hole, as if proof one can survive the elements. The interesting course routing features holes running seemingly every which way, forcing players to battle different wind directions from hole-to-hole.
With England pushing hard to reopen from the COVID-19 pandemic, Royal St. George’s is set to allow 32,000 daily spectators at the championship. That number raised a few eyebrows among some players, who found the strict protocols asked of them this week at odds with the festival atmosphere expected outside the ropes.
There have been an unusual number of withdrawals ahead of the championship, including Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama, who tested positive for COVID-19 at the beginning of the month. Despite reportedly having zero symptoms, the Japanese star continued to test positive and was forced to withdraw. Bubba Watson was another high-profile withdrawal on Sunday after having direct exposure to someone who tested positive.
The field will still feature nearly all of the world’s best players, including three Canadians. Corey Conners, Mackenzie Hughes, and Adam Hadwin will represent the Maple Leaf at Royal St. George’s. Conners and Hughes have both contended at majors this year, with Conners finishing inside the top 10 at the Masters and Hughes playing in the final group on Sunday at the U.S. Open.
Jon Rahm is the betting favourite and will be looking to win back-to-back majors and cement his status as the best player in the world. Rory Mcilroy and Dustin Johnson have hopes of jump-starting disappointing seasons ahead of the PGA Tour playoffs in August and the Ryder Cup in September.
The star power at Royal St. George’s goes beyond top golfers. The golf club was the thinly-cloaked site of the golf match between James Bond and Goldfinger in the 1959 novel and 1964 movie. The course was called Royal St. Mark’s in the movie but author Ian Fleming was a member at Royal St. George’s and made it clear that the course Bond often played 36 holes a day as a teen at was, in fact, Royal St. George’s. Club pro Albert Whiting was changed to the fictitious Alfred Blacking; Bond’s caddy in his match versus Goldfinger went by the name of Hawker, a not-so-subtle nod to real-life St. George’s caddie Alf Hawkes.
If it feels as thought the history at an Open Championship is a little richer and more whimsical than its major counterparts, it’s because it almost always is. All of this might sound a little too colourful for a sports story, but that’s what links land does to golfers, it carries them away.
Some will embrace the journey and succeed, others will fight it and fail.