Scott takes a week getting to know Royal Portrush course

PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Adam Scott already has spent seven days at Royal Portrush, three of them with Darren Clarke, and the advice was invaluable to the end. They stood off the 18th green Sunday as Scott listened intently to a British Open champion whose game was forged on these links.

How the course plays in different wind directions?

Whether it’s worth hitting driver down the steep hill on the 17th?

No, this was where to spend the next few days away from the course, with the Bushmills Distillery the leading option.

“I’ve seen enough now,” Scott said. “I feel ready.”

What he saw was better than he imagined. Royal Portrush hasn’t hosted golf ’s oldest championship since 1951 and has a mystique except for the few who know it well. Clarke is on that list, having made Portrush his adopted home. Graeme McDowell is the only player who was raised in Portrush. Rory McIlroy is famous for the course record he set (61) at the North of Ireland Amateur when he was 16.

It’s not usual for Scott to show up at the Open a full week ahead of time, as he did at Carnoustie a year ago.

“I was a bit surprised, my first look, at how demanding a golf course it is,” Scott said.

The strength of this Open might be the support. For the first time in 159 years of this championship, tickets for the competition days had to be purchased in advance (and since then, the same “all ticket” policy applies to Tuesday and Wednesday practice rounds). Tickets were even sold on Sunday, a rarity, and several grandstands along the back nine were filled.

The largest crowd in the morning made it clear that Tiger Woods was on site. Woods, who has not played since June 16 at the U.S. Open, arrived Sunday morning and played 18 holes with Patrick Reed.

“Where’s Tiger?” one fan asked a marshal, and he was told to find the big gallery across the way at the 17th.