Steve Rockowitz heads to the Open Championship in Northern Ireland
STEVE ROCKOWITZ travels to the Open Championship in Northern Ireland and sits down with Rolex Testimonee TOM WATSON and DOMINIC WALL, the Asia-Pacific director of the R&A, to discuss the historic sport and the recent changes that it has seen
IN THE WORLD of professional golf, the Open Championship is perhaps the most desirable tournament in the sport and certainly the biggest of the year in Europe. This year, the
Open took place at the Royal Portrush Golf Club in
Northern Ireland; it has been 68 years since the Open has taken place there and the last time it was played was also at Royal
Portrush. Northern Ireland is home to several of the best golfers in the game, namely Rory McIlroy, Graeme McDowell and
Darren Clarke. Since McIlroy is one of the highest-ranked golfers in the world and currently holds the Royal Portrush course record (he shot a 61 when he was just 16 years old), he was naturally the hometown favourite to win.
What happened this year was a surprise to everyone who attended. McIlroy took a quadruple bogey on the very first hole of the tournament and never recovered. He eventually missed the cut – and Northern Ireland’s favourite was suddenly out of the tournament. He wasn’t alone, though; two of golf’s all-time greats, Rolex Testimonees Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, also missed the cut. Suddenly, it was anyone’s tournament to win. Over the weekend, the leaderboard was filled with some of the top players in the world, but in the end, an unlikely hero emerged – Irishman Shane Lowry. All of Ireland (and perhaps the world) couldn’t have been more proud of what Lowry accomplished by winning the Claret Jug.
Attending the Open and witnessing Lowry’s incredible tournament was beyond a thrill for me. Being a guest of Rolex, the iconic brand and primary Open Championship sponsor, there was probably no better way to experience the tournament. Spending four amazing days in the Rolex Hospitality Suite with the likes of Rolex Testimonees Tom Watson, Gary Player and Stefan Edberg was truly a surreal experience. Over the four-day period, all three sports #legends had an opportunity to speak to the attendees during lunch and dinner, where they shared their wisdom and inspiration. Listening to all three, you understood why Rolex chose these particular athletes to represent the brand. They each had a common denominator: a quest for excellence and striving to set the highest standards of performance for themselves. Sound familiar?
Fortunately for me, I had a chance to sit down with Watson to dig deeper into his thinking on the game of golf and get a better understanding of his relationship with Rolex, as well as how he’s supporting golf both on and off the course. Additionally, Rolex has a long-standing partnership with the R&A, the governing body that organises the Open Championship (amongst many other golf tournaments) and is responsible for monitoring the official Rules of Golf. I also had a chance to meet with Dominic Wall, the Asia-Pacific director of the R&A, and pick his brain on golf in the region and the R&A’s vast responsibility in the game.
TOM WATSON What has the relationship with Rolex been like for you?
My desire to wear a Rolex has been there ever since I got on the tour. When I got there, I was told to go watch and play golf with the best players – and the best players from the tour there were Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. And I watched and tried to emulate them. But I also I noticed that when they went to their golf bag, they took their watch out and they put on a gold Rolex – the President watch. When they did that, I said to myself, “You know, if I ever make enough money, I want to buy a Rolex.” And that’s what I did. But I always wanted to be a Rolex Testimonee and finally the call came – I said, “I’ve been waiting for this call for 20 years!”
And I’ve been very grateful. They are a wonderful company and they’ve done so much for the game of golf with various things. At the US Senior Open that I played two or three weeks ago, they were a major presenting sponsor. Of course, they’re one of the major patrons here and everything that Rolex does is first-class. Rolex has done anything other than elegance, which is part and parcel with the timepieces that they produce. And the people that I’ve been involved with are just great people to work with. It’s not even a work situation – it’s a relationship. Arnie, Jack and Gary Player – it’s quite a fraternity. It really is.
What are your thoughts on the new rules of golf?
I think most of the rules are very good. They’re good changes. One rule that I don’t understand is the drop, though. Why must you not just take the ball and drop it from here? Why must you bend down and drop it from your knee? From here to there is no difference, but they claim there is – that the ball will roll. That’s one rule. I love the spike mark rule. I love leaving the flag in; when you putt, you can leave the flag in now, whereas before you had to take the flag out. And there are other rules that I think they’ve made it easier to understand and get through it. Overall, it’s good.
You’ve maintained your high standard of performance throughout your long career. How is that possible? Can you share your secrets?
I got lucky! I say that because I got good genes. My mom and dad produced me and my body, and I got a long-lasting golf swing. I had a long backswing and a big move-through. And the older you get, you can’t make as long a backswing, but that was good because I had a longer backswing. Now it’s not quite as long, but I still generate power, and I’ve always had the ability to have good touch and feet – putting distance, chipping, things like that, which are key ingredients to being successful. The best putters are the people with great chances. You’ve never had a great champion who’s been a good putter; they’ve been great putters. Champions are always great putters.
“I think that golf is a great communicator. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, whether you’re a man or a woman, old or young – there’s a common bond with golf ” TOM WATSON
DOMINIC WALL How would you describe the current status of golf in the Asia-Pacific region and what can be done to help it evolve?
I think golf at this stage is growing more in Asia than in any other region in the world. In countries like China, Vietnam, Thailand and even Indonesia, the sport is growing and developing for a number of reasons. I think one the key reasons is the introduction of golf into the Olympics a few years ago. That’s made a big difference; a lot of countries now dedicate a lot of support to developing golfers from the grassroots all the way through. But you also have other initiatives, like in Vietnam, where the Vietnamese government a few years ago said that they identify golf as a major tourist attraction. So they gave authorisation for 100 golf courses to be built by 2020. They’re up to about 70-odd at the moment – and that’s brought people into golf. I think specifically in the Asia-Pacific region, golf is growing and more people are coming into the sport than probably any other region in the world. It’s probably one of the reasons why, from an R&A point of view, we established our office in 2009 in Hong Kong initially as the first office outside of St Andrews. We’re growing and doing more activities in the region, and we see a great future for golf.
There are some rules being amended for Olympic purposes. Are there any concerns about developing the rules and making golf more modern?
We introduced new rules at the beginning of this year. Our main concern was to try and make golf more accessible to the general population coming into it. We had 34 rules, but we’ve taken it down to 24. We want to try and encourage the sport to be taken up by a lot of younger people. We don’t want the rules to be intimidating – we wanted the rules to encourage faster play, so we’ve dramatically cut them back. And the response that we’ve had – initially there were some teething problems with people not understanding some of the rules – but it’s been overwhelmingly positive. We’re seeing quicker golf and we’re seeing people not so intimidated with the sport now. For example, in China this year, we introduced a Rules of Golf app in simplified Chinese and we’ve had 30,000 downloads so far. The rules app is fantastic because it shows videos of the rules, all in Chinese, and we found that to be really popular. There had never really been a major review like we’ve done for this year. And all the feedback that we’ve had, whether it be from casual players or very good amateurs, has been very positive.
How about the reactions to accelerating the speed of play?
I think a lot of the rules were aimed at trying to encourage quicker play and that has helped. It’s certainly one of our key initiatives to try to encourage golf to be quicker and more accessible. This week, for example, we had a nine-hole challenge on Saturday last week and we’ve initially started doing that all around the UK. So all four home nations have been competing and they send a team to the Open to play the ninehole challenge. This year we introduced Australia, and next year we’re hoping to introduce China and New Zealand – so bringing players from all those countries here. It would be the champion teams from Australia, New Zealand and China with champions from the UK. What we’re trying to do is set the course up so it’s a quick, affordable, easy course to play – and that’s been quite successful. Australia, for example, had more than 30,000 people play in their qualifying events for the two people to come this year. Here, we’re trying to do something similar. We’re talking to a couple of partners in China about having this introduced this year, so two champion players will come next year to St George’s.#
“One of the challenges we have, and we work very hard on this, is to show people who don’t know a lot about golf that it’s not just a game for the rich and the elite. It’s accessible and affordable” DOMINIC WALL