WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
Winner must tame toughest rough for years if he is to collect the Claret Jug
THE return of The Open Championship today is like a reunion with an old friend.
The cancellation of the tournament last summer because of coronavirus has meant a long wait for the 149th instalment and a long stint on the mantelpiece of Shane Lowry, right, for the Claret Jug.
But absence makes the heart grow fonder. There was something both comforting and exhilarating yesterday about the sight of the grand yellow scoreboard towering over the 18th green at Royal St George’s, a marker to Opens past and a signpost to the unknowable swings and roundabouts to come over the next four days.
No Open Championship is predictable – that is part of its attraction – but this uneven slice of the Kent coastline offers a particularly compelling uncertainty. The random bumps and runs of its humps and hollows make it a test of mental fortitude as well as golf.
The R&A are prepared to water some of the more rounded fairways to dampen their fire but, with the most savage rough since Carnoustie in 1999 – jungle that still triggers flashbacks for those who fought through it – there will be casualties.
The winner on Sunday will need skill, patience and a large slice of luck.
This will be the
15th Open at Sandwich and the cast list of previous winners ranges from golfing
Oscar winners to am-dram understudies.
There are giants of the game such as Walter Hagen, who won two Opens here – the first of which 99 years ago spawned the legend of Duncan’s Hollow.
His rival, George Duncan, found the depression to the left of the 18th green in the final round and blew his chance. Harry Vardon also won here twice with Henry Cotton, Bobby Locke and Greg Norman other titans of the game to lift the Claret Jug at the most southerly stop on The Open rota.
Then again St George’s also spawned winners of the dubious calibre of Bill Rogers and Ben Curtis.
And while the victory of Darren Clarke at the age of 42 a decade ago on The Open’s last visit was a great story, it also reinforced how the truth at St George’s can turn out stranger than fiction. The place has always had a literary bent. Ian Fleming, the writer of the James Bond books, was the captain-in-waiting at Royal St George’s when he died and the course inspired the setting for the clash between the suave British super spy with Goldfinger. He called it Royal St Mark’s and Bond defeated Goldfinger despite the gold smuggler’s chicanery.
Perhaps if Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau – kept apart in the first two rounds – find themselves in the same group some time over the weekend there may be a similar edge in the air.
There will be 32,000 crowds each day to ooh and aah, whoop and cheer and add the familiar ripples of applause. For the players, operating from within strict bubbles, the presence of such numbers may be somewhat strange but it will be a joy to have them there – top-level sport without fans has been 2D rather than 3D.
The 156-strong field will have more immediate concerns, however.
Sandwich can be an infuriating place and it will require a somnolent state of mind to master it.
It was a vision of tranquility looking out across Pegwell Bay yesterday. Anyone unable to mirror that calm outlook over the next four days is finished before they start.