The 136th annual Open Champ-ionship tees it up this coming Thursday on Scotland”s eastern coast at the Carnoustie Golf Club. Of course, on this side of the pond, we call it the British Open, but to the rest of the world, it”s the Open Championship.
First contested in 1860 on Scotland”s western shore at Prestwick, the Open is the most different of the four major championships and Carnoustie is by far the most difficult of those links-style courses on the British rota.
Golf was first played at the links of Carnoustie in 1527. In 1842, St. Andrews professional and club maker Alan Robertson redesigned the course, somewhat to its current configuration. I wisely used the word “somewhat” because Robertson”s design included just 10 holes. By 1867, the game had reached the point of uniformity (the original St. Andrews was a 22-hole course) and Old Tom Morris added to Robertson”s work so that the links would entail 18 holes.
The Carnoustie area was a hotbed for accomplished golfers at the start of the 20th Century and it has been contended that as many as 200 local golfers relocated to the United States to take club professional jobs at the many new courses popping up in America. A noted foursome of Carnoustie-born golfers included Alex Smith, winner of two U.S. Opens, Willie Smith, holder of one U.S. Open title, MacDonald Smith, winner of some 40 professional tournaments, and Stewart Maiden, who won a handful of events but is best known for introducing the game to a young Bobby Jones at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
The Open was first contested at Carnoustie in 1931. The course had a reputation for being Scotland”s most difficult test of golf and such was the case that year as local hero Tommy Armour scratched out a one-stroke margin of victory over Jose Juardo. Armour shot an extremely high 12-over-par 296. It was his third and final major triumph as he had previously won the U.S. Open at Oakmont in 1927 and the PGA at Fresh Meadow in 1930.
In 1937, the Open returned to Carnoustie and the most gifted putter of that era, Englishman Henry Cotton, captured the second of his three British Open titles. Cotton came in at 6-over-par 290 to win by two strokes. R.A. Whitcombe, who would win the Open the following year at Royal St. George, came in second.
The onset of World War II meant that the Open Championship would be postponed for a six-year period of time. The next time the Open returned to Carnoustie was in 1953 and it turned out to be a most memorable event. At the encouragement of Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, who had never competed in the Open, entered it that year at Carnoustie. Hogan already had won the 1953 Masters and the U.S. Open.
Hogan arrived at Carnoustie two weeks before the tournament to acclimate himself to the cold, damp weather. Hogan survived a near fatal car crash four years earlier but still had difficulty with circulation in his legs. A final-round 67 by Hogan gave him a four-stroke win over a foursome of golfers that included Peter Thomson and Dai Rees. Hogan”s aggregate was a most impressive 2-under-par 282.
South African Gary Player would win the next Open played at Carnoustie 15 years later. Player fought intense winds all week and his 5-over-par 289 was good enough for a two-stroke win over past champions Jack Nicklaus and Bob Charles. Player”s 1968 Open triumph was his second of three titles at the British.
Tom Watson, winner of eight major titles, broke through with his first Grand Slam victory in 1975 at Carnoustie. Watson tied Australian Jack Newton with a regulation 5-under-par final score and then prevailed in the 18-hole playoff the following day.
From 1975 until 1999, the Open went to other courses on the rotation but ignored Carnoustie. It lacked the hotel space to host a major championship during that period of time. When the Open finally returned to Carnoustie in 1999, it was a regrettable week of golf. In fact, I contend that the ?99 Open at Carnoustie was the most poorly contrived major championship of the modern era (the 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock is a distant second).
Obviously a difficult course in its own right with the member”s tees course rating at 75.1 with a slope of 145, Carnoustie was set up to absurdly hard levels by its out-of-control greens superintendent, John Phillips. Phillips, who publicly proclaimed, “No one makes an arse out of my course,” grew the rough to knee-high length and narrowed the fairways to just 18 yards (the U.S. Open formula calls for 30-yard-wide fairways).
Of course, the ?99 Open is forever implanted in the golf fan”s memory bank as the scene of Frenchman Jean Van de Velde”s final-hole collapse. Van de Velde intertwined bad luck and poor decision making to record a triple-bogey on the final hole and then lost a playoff to Scotsman Paul Lawrie. Strange to say, neither Van de Velde nor Lawrie have had much of an impact upon the world of golf since that July day at Carnoustie.
Eight years later, the Open returns to Carnoustie. John Phillips is still the greens superintendent, but the R&A will completely oversee the setup of the 7,421-yard, par-71 links course. It will nonetheless be a difficult test of golf and one shouldn”t expect Tiger Woods to record an 18-under-par total to win the title the way he did at Hoylake last year. In 2006, senior golfer Tom Watson shot even par to tie for 48th place. That number might be good enough to win this time around, and it could be even higher should the winds blow.
The 136th version of the Open Championship commences Thursday at Carnoustie. It just might be like this year”s U.S. Open. The course will be the winner, 155 golfers will lose the tournament, and one man will be left holding the Claret Jug.
