Global Golf Post - June 21, 2010

GULLANE, SCOTLAND | Tommy
Fleetwood, the leading qualifier in the
Amateur, was summoned for a ran-
dom drug test after his opening 70 at
Muirfield. The test should have been
completed in the space of 30 minutes
or so. Instead, it lasted for all of four-
and-a-half hours.
Michelle Verroken, the drug-testing
specialist doing duty at Muirfield,
admitted that it had been an unusual
case and the most taxing she had come
across in golf. That she had been un-
able to obtain the required readings
apparently owed most to the fact that
the player was “too hydrated.”
Fleetwood, to his credit, took this
loss of four-and-a-half hours from his
life in good heart and said that the fact
that he had been allowed to watch the
World Cup on TV had made it all rela-
tively bearable. There were apologies all
round at the end of the ordeal, with Ver-
roken heading off to talk through events
with Peter Dawson, the CEO of the R&A.
Presumably, adjustments will be made.

his golfing days and, prior to coming to
Muirfield, he and his father visited the
MacLean clan’s ancestral home – Duart
Castle – on the Isle of Mull.

A student at Xavier University in
Ohio, MacLean made the match-play
stages after rounds of 142. Then, in
the first round, he affected the kind of
dramatic escape from a bunker short
of the 17th green that would have
made his ancestors proud. With his ball
hard-up against the mammoth face, it
seemed that he had no shot.
Eventually, though, he found a way,
lifting his left leg outside and above the
trap in way which made him fear that
he had “yanked my hip from its socket.”
To everyone’s utter astonishment, the
ball flew onto the green’s right flank and
he was down in the two putts he needed
to complete his win over New Zealand’s
Ben Campbell. Where the little town
of Gullane boasts Muirfield and seven
other courses virtually within walking
distance, the whole of Bolivia has no
more than four in the entire country.
was no water on any of the Muirfield
tees that year – and went so far as to
point out that his playing companion in
the qualifying rounds was so badly de-
hydrated that he was swaying all over
the place (the opponent in question was
somewhat taken aback when that piece
of information was relayed to him).

taunting his brother, Phil Mickelson,
whose only round at North Berwick was
an 80 shot in the dim and distant past.

Mickelson, whose 16 fellow
Americans were all ousted from the
championship by the end of the first
round of match-play, explained that
Muirfield was among several courses
Matthew Nixon explained that Anja’s
death had helped him to put his golf into
perspective. “People will often ask why
I look upbeat even when I’m playing
badly. I tell them it’s because I’m alive.”
Before too long, John Prideaux, the
club secretary of the day, was called
upon for a quote. Prideaux gently
explained that there had never been
any call for water at Muirfield before,
explaining, “The members all get by
perfectly well on whisky.”
Bolivia’s Sebastian MacLean turned
out to be the descendant of a Scottish
sea captain who settled in Peru after
his vessel had been captured in the
mid-1800s and from there moved on to
Bolivia. The 20-year-old MacLean had
dreamed of playing in the Amateur all
When Sergio Garcia won the 1998
Amateur at Muirfield, competitors in
the U.K. had still to catch on to the new
American trend for golfers to drink bot-
tles of water as they played. John Har-
ris, the former U.S. Amateur champion,
felt compelled to complain that there

Tim Mickelson, the head golf coach
at the University of San Diego, had
rounds of 81 at Muirfield and 68 at
North Berwick to miss out on qualifying
for the match-play stages. The 68, how-
ever, was going to allow him the fun of
on his list of “things to do.” He had
already crossed off St. Andrews and
Carnoustie, along with such American
gems as Pine Valley, Cypress Point,
Pebble Beach and Augusta. Next stop
after the Amateur was a trip to Pebble
to watch his brother in the U.S. Open.