“I need to lie down in a dark room. It’s brutal out there,” said England’s Matthew Southgate on Friday afternoon, realising how it feels to play like any club golfer at the weekend.
Little did we know, that was the calm before the storm and much worse was to come on Saturday afternoon with the likes of Dustin Johnson and Justin Rose proclaiming the final nine holes to be the toughest nine holes they’d ever encountered.
The 152nd Open Championship was a refreshing change from the modern target golf mumbo jumbo and has lent itself to the aristocrats, the creators and the steady Eddies of golf.
One of the big questions post Troon however, is whether the standard of play had been appalling or had Troon acted as a leveller and thus exposed the modern game as being a one dimensional limited style?
Conditions on Thursday were not that difficult yet big names like Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Äberg, Cameron Smith and Bryson DeChambeau all laid the foundations for their missed cuts, while Tony Finau and Viktor Hovland saw their chances gone with the wind during the 30mph gusts on Friday afternoon.
Dotted around the links here are Open signs reading ‘Forged by Nature.’ The modern game is not built for Mother Nature. It’s not built for gale force winds, firm and fast terrain, hazardous bunkers or knee high fescue.
It’s tailor-made for wide and soft fairways, receptive and quick greens and generous rough.
How often do the top players in the world play on links courses? Once? Twice in a season maybe?
It’s amazing what a little wind can do.
Had the wind not switched for Thursday and maintained its direction from the three days of practice, we might have seen a different story. But with the easier front nine playing into and off the right and the more difficult back nine playing down off the left it has negated the benefit of long hitting.
Big hitting into the wind on the difficult back nine would have been an advantage over rounds one and two, instead the non-prevailing wind at Troon limited the advantages and brought the field closer together.
Scrolling through the top-10 of the Open Championship leaderboard after 36 holes, it could’ve been argued that nobody under par is known for big hitting.
Scattered at the top were some of the best players at plotting their way from tee to green, we had creators, steely competitors and in Shane Lowry we had an artist.
This Open was a retro edition of golf. Old fashioned was back in style, and it came as no surprise that Lowry was sitting top of the pile at the halfway point.
In full flow he really is one of the great golfers to watch live. He can hit it low, high, left right, stinger cuts, hooky draws. He manoeuvres the golf ball in a variety of ways and he almost always looks in control.
Unfortunately, even Lowry succumbed to the elements on Saturday afternoon. By the time the final group reached the back nine, the driving wind was back in it’s natural ‘straight into’ position, and the driving rain meant that par-4s were barely reachable, the par-5 was playing like a par-6 and he’d even have to hit driver to be par-3 17th.
Only a series of miraculous up-and-downs from the likes of Billy Horschel, Xander Schauffele and Justin Rose kept the scoring high, but Lowry’s putter cooled, and he didn’t get the breaks necessary in the conditions.
Lowry’s response to the bitter disappointment was to go out and shoot a three-under in the final round, but it wasn’t to be. Regardless, he showed that when artistry, shot shaping and battling the elements are required, there aren’t many better.
You see, there was no hiding place at the Open. While the likes of McIlroy and co. whiffed and whacked their way through the fescue rough, often looking embarrassing at times, the likes of Justin Rose had to come through Final Qualifying a fortnight ago to book his spot in the Open.
And having not missed a Claret Jug week since 2007 he is still a steely competitor and in truth, played the best golf on Friday in the worst of the conditions to muscle himself into second place, and kept the foot down over the weekend, plotting his way round in sublime fashion only to see a couple of putts slide by that would ultimately be the difference between himself and Xander Schauffele.
There are concerns that with modern technology and how far the golf ball travels that some links courses may become obsolete but if the weather lends a hand, links golf will always be a great leveller.
Pádraig Harrington self-confessedly barely made a putt all week but finished just outside the top 20 just a month shy of his 53rd birthday, and it wouldn’t have taken much to see him inside the top 10. But Harrington is built for this kind of challenge and the youngsters are just not used to it. And what’s more, it’s great.
If the field were to have played a combined worst ball on Friday they would have shot a collective 128 of 57-over-par. One player failed to break 90, carding an inexplicable 91. On Saturday, it was even worse.
While golf has become increasingly a young man’s game, it was a great week for the over 50s club with Harrington’s T22, 55-year-old Darren Clarke making his first cut at the Open since 2016 while 53-year-old Alex Cejka, the Senior Open champion made it to the weekend for just the second time in his career after doing so in his first appearance since 2008.
Phil Mickelson who became the oldest ever major championship winner when he won the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island in 2021, also made the cut aged 54. The old dogs may not have won the day, but they stood up and were counted which is more than can be said for some of the young guns.
Only at The Open.
