The seven big Open questions
7. How big a part will the elements play at St Andrews?
For all the talk of reworked bunkers, the Old Course’s greatest defence remains as joyously unpredictable as ever.
On Thursday, July 16, the first players will tee off in the Open Championship at 6.25am. The last will go out at 4.06pm. What happens in the clouds above them in those hours between may well decide everything.
“Being on the right side of the draw always plays a part in the Open,” says 2011 winner Darren Clarke, who began his Saturday round dressed head to toe in rain gear and ended it in short sleeves and squinting sunshine. “You get good sides, bad sides and the scoring can differ massively because of the weather. But that’s the Open.”
Indeed it is, and it always will be.
In 1973 at Royal Troon, Tom Weiskopf bemoaned a late tee time on the opening afternoon, until a raging storm early on put paid to the hopes of many of his rivals. By the time Weiskopf teed off, the storm had passed. He shot a 66 to lead, went wire-to-wire and never complained again.
At Muirfield in 2002, 30mph winds blew Tiger’s Grand Slam charge off course – his 81 (+10) in horizontal rain was the worst of his professional career.
Rory McIlroy’s first-round 63 on the Old Course in 2010 was followed by an 80 in wind so fierce play had to be halted. The next year, having been blown around at Sandwich, he announced: “I’m not a fan of tournaments where the outcome is predicted so much by the weather. I’d rather play when it’s 80 degrees and sunny and not much wind.”
It’s unlikely to be 80 degrees or sunny at St Andrews this year, and there will almost certainly be wind. So whoever wins will need to stay on the right side of the draw and of Mother Nature herself.