The way golf was meant to be played
It may have all the history and tradition but the golf courses
in the British Open rotation are nothing more than glorified cow
pastures minus the manure.
And it doesn’t matter which course the Open is played on. They
all look like 250 acres of random mounds, brown grasses and wispy
rough, which clearly the cows didn’t have time to get to.
The way golf was meant to be played
It may have all the history and tradition but the golf courses in the British Open rotation are nothing more than glorified cow pastures minus the manure.
And it doesn’t matter which course the Open is played on. They all look like 250 acres of random mounds, brown grasses and wispy rough, which clearly the cows didn’t have time to get to.
Yet since this is the region of the world that gets the credit for inventing golf this tournament gets a center stage pass.
This week the top golfers in the world will vie for the claret jug at the Royal Liverpool Club in Hoylake, England, which hasn’t hosted an Open since 1967 – the year Roberto De Vicenzo edged out a young Ohioan by the name of Jack Nicklaus to win the title.
My question is why would any national championship be hosted on any of these courses?
This isn’t golf. This is hit it and hope for plenty of luck.
Balls that land on the fairway at the British Open can either chose to stay in the fairway or hit a random mound and shoot dead left or right. Balls that land in the wispy rough can either get lost and disappear into Neverland or somehow manage to be sitting up perfect.
One day it can be sunny and 80, the next day 55 with howling winds and torrential rains.
The typical high shot that is critical at Augusta, the U.S. Open and on the PGA Tour each week is useless in the British Open since the prevailing insane winds force everyone to hit a bump-and-run shot.
The greens are so mammoth on these “historic” courses that often one green will be used for two holes, which can take the chipping game out of play – since 200-foot putts are now in the realm of possibility.
In the U.S., if you’re 200 feet from the hole you’ve got a sand wedge in your hand not a putter.
That’s because in America, the courses all have rhyme and a reason. In Britain, they don’t.
In America the holes have distinguished tee boxes, distinguishable rough, lush fairways and greens, planned undulation, strategically positioned bunkers and water, and holes that follow one another in succession. It’s clear that a licensed contractor who followed a well-thought-out blueprint made the courses here.
In watching the tournament over there, I picture two guys that stumbled out of a seaside pub some 150 years ago deciding to play a game with a ball and a stick on an adjacent pasture of land. Back then the ball and stick was probably a barstool leg or tree branch and a piece of ice from a highball.
The next day when the sun comes up and the headaches clear, the guys randomly map out the holes the same way that a child playing a backyard game would.
“Over here, we’ll make a tee and we’ll aim at that wispy dune down by the shore. After clearing the dune, the next shot must clear that heifer over there to the left. The first guy to clear the heifer can then decide where to place his ale mug down that will be used as the hole.”
Over time, these makeshift holes got played over and over again until the area was trampled down into what eventually became a fairway. The area that wasn’t trampled down by the golfers, cows or goats grew thick and became the rough. The tees and the greens just happened to be the flattest areas for the warped balls to roll on.
Over time clubhouses were built and others joined in the fun. No bulldozers, landscapers, sod, grass seed, drainage, sprinklers, fertilizers, fairway mowers – nothing. Just plenty of ale and hungry cows.
The way golf ought to be played, right? Wrong.
