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There's no golf quite like links golf, which makes the Open Championship that starts today at the Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England, the major of majors.
Never mind that the course is green and softer than the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews would like it. The ball will still bounce and the wind will still blow and players will still need to cope with a course the likes of which they don't see from one Open until the next.
"It's different," betting favourite Sergio Garcia said. "It brings so many different parts of your game that you have to [use] and with a lot of imagination, which is always good when you get challenged on the course."
Birkdale is staging its ninth Open. At 7,173 yards, the par-70 course isn't exceptionally long. But if the wind blows, as it often does on a links, throw par and the yardage out the window and into the nearby sea.
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- Stephen Ames
- Ernie Els
- Sergio Garcia
- Jack Nicklaus
- Justin Rose
- Vijay Singh
- Tom Watson
- Mike Weir
- Tiger Woods
When he first played links golf, Tom Watson didn't like it that a par five could play driver, fairway wood and some kind of iron into the green, and that it might take only a driver and 8-iron the next day. So it goes when the wind blows and the ball bounces.
But Watson got it, and he went on to win five Opens. His last came at Birkdale in 1983. He came to the last hole needing par to win. As soon as he hit his second shot, a 2-iron — yes, a 2-iron to a par-four — Watson knew it was perfect. The ball soared over the top of the flag and finished 15 feet behind the hole. He two-putted for par and the win.
Watson had gone from somebody who loathed links golf to a player who loved it.
He, like Jack Nicklaus before him and Tiger Woods now, accepted the vagaries of golf on the ground as well as in the air. Golf was never meant to be a game played on manicured, seamless surfaces. It was never meant to be played in conditions approaching indoor turf under the cover of a roof.
For climate-controlled golf, there's the PGA Tour. For golf the traditional way, there's the Open.
That said, links golf is most enticing when the course is firm and fast. But rain has softened Birkdale and more rain is expected. The ground game will still be more of a force than during PGA Tour events. The player who has enough game to play a variety of shots will stand a chance. The one-shot player who hits the ball high and curves it only one way, or straight for that matter, won't have as much of a chance to win.
Woods isn't at Birkdale as he recuperates from the knee surgery he had after winning the U.S. Open last month. He's won three Opens, each with a vast array of shots. Ernie Els, the 2002 Open champion, said the atmosphere is different and added that the thought of Woods "is quite ominous, especially coming down the stretch or even preparing yourself for a last round when he's in the mix."
In Woods's absence, golf watchers might take the opportunity to appreciate the quality of world golf. The Open is, well, open, and includes players with whom most people are unfamiliar. For the moment, forget familiar names such as Els, Garcia, Vijay Singh, Mike Weir and Stephen Ames. Examine instead the many players from around the world, at least one or two of whom are certain to make a name for themselves on golf's biggest stage.
Consider what happened 10 years ago when Justin Rose, then 17, holed out his third shot on the final hole at Birkdale to finish fourth in the Open. Rose thereby announced himself to the world at large, and though he has yet to win a major PGA Tour event, he's considered a strong possibility to take the claret jug that will go to the winner Sunday evening.
Who will announce himself to the world this week at Birkdale? Will Garcia win his first major? Will Els recapture the form with which he won three majors? Will either Ames or Weir become the first Canadian to win the Open? Woods's absence hardly precludes a compelling championship, which will surely transpire.
It's the nature of links golf and the Open, the game's most appealing combination, to allow that to happen. Open golf asks for open-minded golf. PGA Tour golf is one-dimensional by comparison.
Truly, there's no comparison.
