Royal St. George’s
Preps For The Open
It may be three summers since Tiger Woods
won his last major but it was still “Tiger this” and
“Tiger that” when the R&A held its Open Champi-
onship media day at Royal St George’s last week.
Apart from questions born of the spitting in-
cident in Dubai, there was the matter of whether
the first fairway had been widened in response to
Tiger’s lost ball in the right rough in 2003.
Peter Dawson, the CEO of the R&A, replied in
the negative: “Tiger’s lost ball was not an influ-
ence. It was the overall statistics of only 27 or 28
percent of players catching the fairway.”
What Dawson did not volunteer was that
Tiger’s missing missile had in fact detonated a
new rough management programme. Graham
Royden, who was promoted from assistant head
greenkeeper to head greenkeeper toward the
end of last year, explained that it was only after
the 2003 Open that they realised that something
had to be done. Though the rough looked fine, it
was too thick and green at the base – and far too
inclined to conceal golf balls.
“Under the programme, we cut it, removed
the clippings and applied sand to break down the
organic matter,” explained Royden.
Glorious though the course was looking under
the spring sunshine, it needs some rain now –
and some more at the end of May. That will make
the rough relatively tall and wavy for the time of
the Open while, shorter-term, it will ripen the
asparagus that augments the members’ Sunday
lunches.
Tiger was not the only player to get a men-
tion on the R&A’s media day. J.H. Taylor, Harry
Vardon, Jack White, Walter Hagen, Henry Cotton,
Reg Whitcombe, Bobby Locke, Bill Rogers, Sandy
Lyle, Greg Norman and Ben Curtis, the illustrious
past champions at Royal St George’s, all had their
names read out, with the R&A running some old
film of Cotton’s win in 1934.
Cotton, who would win the championship
three times, had a 10-shot lead after three
rounds which was cut to five in a somewhat
nervous last round in which he suffered from
stomach cramps. Had he been alive today, this
great player would have had more understanding
than most of what happened to Rory McIlroy at
this year’s Masters.
When Jim McArthur, the chairman of the
championship committee, described St George’s
as “a thinking-man’s course rather than one
calling for brute force,” the comment was one to
back up Royden’s suggestion that Luke Donald
could be the man for the job.
Dawson also made reference to Thomas
Björn. In running through changes to the bun-
kering since 2003, the CEO noted that a bunker
at the back of the short 16th had been removed,
with a tricky swale left in its place. Nothing,
though, had been done to what he described as
“Björn’s bunker,” the right-hand hazard where
the Dane, who was in the lead at the time, took
three to escape.
Flattered though Björn might be to have a
bunker named after him, you would have to think
that so catchy a label as “Björn’s bunker” is not
one he will want to have ringing in his ears when
he tees up at the 16th in July. l
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