When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
I don't want to rain on Ernie's parade, but this was a question brought up by my colleague John Huggan when we thought Adam Scott would win and make it three of the last four majors claimed by a player anchoring a putter against their torso.
A major is a major, and I would contend Barry Bonds was facing fellow steroid users when there was no drug testing, so no asterisk. And Ernie has won the Open along with two U.S. Opens with a traditional stroke, so his credentials are hardly suspect.
Still, with all the talk of a rule change, a career resurrected admittedly by an act of "cheating" in Ernie's view and the increasing likelihood that we may see something happen by 2016, will this and other recent wins be viewed differently by history because the winners used a non-stroke stroke?
Charles Sale talks to caddies who are in a rage over having to use Strokesaver yardage guides and the R&A's ticket policy.
Mick Donaghy, caddie for Jamie Donaldson who was two under par after the first round, said: ‘The way we’re treated here is nothing short of a disgrace. The R&A are sipping their gin and tonics in the clubhouse and we’re having to pay full price to get our wives in. The other golf organisations give us proper respect, but that’s never been the case at The Open.’
Dave Clark, who carries Vijay Singh’s clubs, said: ‘There’s still a stigma around caddies. We’re regarded as the lowest of the low. Surely we shouldn’t have to rely on the players to help us out with passes all the time.’
R&A chief executive Peter Dawson countered: ‘Our pass policy is generous and caddies have a fantastic time here.’
Always smoothing things over, Peter is!
The R&A's Jim McArthur yesterday. Well worth reading again:
I have to say to you, we are intent on doing what we can to improve the pace of play in golf. I mean, I think we feel that particularly maybe not so much at professional golf but certainly amateur golf that slow play is, in some ways, if not killing the game, is killing the club membership because of the time it takes to play. And whatever we can do in our events, and bear in mind that we are not seeing the players week in, week out. We see them two or three times a year, professionals once a year, amateurs two or three times a year, we're doing whatever we feel we can in the circumstances to contribute to improving the pace of play.
But it needs to be a concerted effort, not just the R&A, not just the Tours, but the golf unions and other golf organisations to, I think, come to a coordinated effort to improve the speed.
And I think we should ‑‑ personally I think we should be aiming in club amateur golf for three and a half hours maximum for a threeball, perhaps elite amateur four hours. These should be maximum times, and we should be trying to improve these at all times.
Tim Finchem in May at The Players, talking about how the PGA Tour is a different beast than the everyday game:
Anything we can do from‑‑ we reach all of the fans. Anything we can do from a communications standpoint to encourage people playing faster, we will do. But clubs have got to take the initiative to drive play, and the average player has got to take the initiative and say, guys, let's go out here and play in three hours and 45 minutes, and that doesn't happen too many places.
So if I'm watching‑‑ I'm giving you a long answer, but I've been talking about this for a long time. If I'm watching a PGA TOUR player, and I'm going to go through the same pre‑shot routine that that player takes, and he's hitting it 69 times and I'm hitting it 93, I'm going to be playing a lot longer than that guy. So it's a different game from that perspective.
At least one of the Five Families talks a good game.
Phil Casey in the Belfast Telegraph:
A successful staging of this year's Irish Open at Portrush was expected to boost hopes of the Open returning to the venue for the first time since 1951.
But R&A chief executive Peter Dawson put a dampener on those expectations ahead of tomorrow's first round of the 141st Open at Royal Lytham, revealing a lot of hard work and "a huge amount" of money still needs to be spent.
Team Ralph Lauren, a.k.a. the Royal and Ancient's Peter Dawson, Jim McArthur, Johnnie Cole-Hamilton and Malcolm Booth held court sporting great Polo sweaters fresh out of the package (the standards today...manufacturer creases...dreadful). 
Some highlights from the annual R&A press conference. Starting with the British press letting no mundane detail slide by…
Q. Do you have more bunker rakers than usual? If so, could you put a number on the bunker rakers, and also can you tell us where these bunkers are that are causing concern?
JIM McARTHUR: Good questions. Peter?
PETER DAWSON: No, I don't think we have more bunker rakers than usual. Each group has a bunker raker that walks with them, and that should be adequate for the purpose. The bunkers that are causing concern at the moment are on the 16th and 17th holes in particular, and there is some concern also on the 14th and on the right of the 2nd green.
When I came here myself ten days ago, thereabout, on a Friday evening, it was much wetter then after the cloudburst than it is now. And two days later of good, drying weather you would think the golf course was in normal summer condition. It was very firm and there was no standing water anywhere.
Dawson called fairways ranging from 18-28 paces on windy linksland...reasonably generous.
The champion on Sunday I doubt will have won from the rough. I think he'll be winning from the short grass, so there's a premium on hitting fairways this week, obviously. But if you stray a long way off the fairways, and the fairways are reasonably generous. If you stray a long way off, then you're going to be penalized.
I later asked about that as a few players who know the course have grumbled about narrowness.
Q. You mentioned that the fairways are generous. Some of the players have noted that the course is narrower than last time and some of the landing areas are under 20 yards. Why has it been narrowed, and does it concern you if we get some of the high winds forecast that it will be too narrow?
PETER DAWSON: I don't believe it's factual that it's been narrowed since last time, I just don't think that's the case. I don't know where that comes from. We have not narrowed any fairways here that I can think of in the setup of the golf course.
It seems the security this week is being handled by the same security firm under fire for their handling of London 2012. And we know how that's going.
JOHNNIE COLE‑HAMILTON: All the managers, the supervisors, the guys in charge who we've been using for many, many years are back with us. The numbers that myself and my team asked for are all here. We have no issue whatsoever with the group force coverage of the golf course. As I understand it, it's a separate part of the business, and it's the event's item. We have no issue at all with the coverage that we've got, and everybody is present and correct.
Here's your first of a few answers on Royal Portrush-as-Open-venue-in-the-future questions that spell its doom.
The Championship Committee looks at many, many factors in determining the course choice for The Open Championship. And we'll just have to see how we go.
There is a great deal and a huge amount of money would need to be spent, in my estimation, to make Royal Portrush a sensible choice.
It requires The Treatment! Go on...
That's not a criticism of Royal Portrush; it's a wonderful golf course. But the commercial aspects of it are quite onerous. And obviously The R&A would need to be sorting those things out as well as just simply the logistics of the whole affair.
It's going to take some time to come to a view, and the view may be no. We'll just have to wait and see. I can't give you a time scale.
JIM McARTHUR: Not before 2016.
Or ever!
And another blow to Portrush hopes here from Dawson:
We don't feel short of Open venues now, let me say. We're not rushing to look for more; we don't feel that pressure. But what did impress hugely about the Irish Open was the logistics worked well, the traffic flows and all of that. But above all, I thought the enthusiasm of the spectators was something not to be forgotten, and that's a very strong point.
Some fantastic stuff here from McArthur, in stark contrast to the other governing body and the tours when it comes to understanding the role of slow play in the game, as influenced by tournament golf.
I have to say to you, we are intent on doing what we can to improve the pace of play in golf. I mean, I think we feel that particularly maybe not so much at professional golf but certainly amateur golf that slow play is, in some ways, if not killing the game, is killing the club membership because of the time it takes to play. And whatever we can do in our events, and bear in mind that we are not seeing the players week in, week out. We see them two or three times a year, professionals once a year, amateurs two or three times a year, we're doing whatever we feel we can in the circumstances to contribute to improving the pace of play.
But it needs to be a concerted effort, not just the R&A, not just the Tours, but the golf unions and other golf organisations to, I think, come to a coordinated effort to improve the speed.
And I think we should ‑‑ personally I think we should be aiming in club amateur golf for three and a half hours maximum for a threeball, perhaps elite amateur four hours. These should be maximum times, and we should be trying to improve these at all times.
You go Jim!
Of course, the R&A also has to stop adding back tees and suffocating setups that slow down play, and also make it so that not ever par-5 and a shocking number of par-4s are driveable, therefore clogging up courses.
Dawson on Twitter, rescued sturdily by spokesman Malcolm Booth.
Q. Peter, do you have any concerns about the players' and caddies' use of social media, such as Twitter, given that it seems to be causing more and more travesty in other sporting fields? Will you be monitoring this Championship?
PETER DAWSON: Malcolm, can you take that? This whole subject is entirely beyond me, I must confess, why people feel the need to Twitter, but I'm old‑fashioned. Malcolm, I will hand this question to you.
Q. Do you have an account?
PETER DAWSON: I couldn't afford it.
MALCOLM BOOTH: Well, we do monitor Twitter. We have our own Twitter handle that is pretty successful out there. And of course, we keep an eye on what the players and caddies and connections throughout the game of golf are saying. I can't say I've noticed a huge influx of tweets from the golf course, and I suppose if that started to happen we might take a look at it, but we haven't observed that at this stage.
In an refreshing twist, the R&A is more bullish and proactive then the other members of the Five Families when it comes to people watching coverage on their phones, but they also understand the limitations of current technology. Booth again:
But for the first time people up and down the UK will be able to watch the BBC's domestic coverage wall‑to‑wall Thursday through Sunday on our apps and website, and in America they'll be able to watch ESPN's coverage on our website, and I think that allows us to work closely with our television partners to engage with our audience globally.
And then on a local level, ultimately that will lead to people being able, we hope, to watch television pictures on their mobile devices in the grandstands. That's not something that we will expect to happen for this week, because they'll be reliant on a 3G network, which will only have a certain capacity to watch video, but we hope they'll be able to get live scoring on their devices, as will you, we hope, as you walk round the golf course, but there is every chance that the 3G network ‑‑ we'll have to see how that works.
But over time, as we see how this performs, it's going to become a much‑valued tool to spectators and media around the golf course, and we're very optimistic that it can be a real enhancement at the championship. We're trialling Wi‑Fi on one of our grandstands on 18 to see what the capabilities are of putting Wi‑Fi out in a manageable way out on the golf course, where it actually performs well. And that's something we'll observe over this week, and see what we can do for future years.
And finally, a question about Team Ralph Lauren's matching sweaters! This should make for fun reading in the tabloids tomorrow.
Q. You're all looking very smart. Was there a bidding war to outfit The R&A? Just how much did Ralph Lauren pay to take over the merchandising tent?
JIM McARTHUR: Peter, could you answer that for me, please?
PETER DAWSON: Well, I'm not sure we're all looking very smart. No, we're delighted to have Polo, Ralph Lauren as a patron of The Open Championship. And it goes without saying that when you have that sort of commercial relationship, you do expect officials, referees, volunteers, et cetera, to be clothed by them. And that's terrific. Their support of the game of golf, not just here, but other events has been strong, and we're delighted to have them as a partner.
In terms of the financial number, that's obviously confidential and would actually depend on the outcome in the merchandise sales this week, anyway. So I couldn't give you a number even if I wanted to, which I don't.
Q. How many complaints have you had from other merchandisers so far?
PETER DAWSON: Personally I have had none, but I would be surprised if there weren't some flying around.
**Rex Hoggard on how the pace of play situation will be enforced by the R&A, with "words of encouragement."
“We have a pace-of-play policy which we intend to apply stringently,” said Jim McArthur, the chairman of the R&A’s championship committee.
Officials will allow for rounds of 4 hours, 30 minutes for Thursday and Friday’s three-ball groups and 3 hours, 45 minutes for the weekend’s two-ball times, which are ambitious by PGA Tour standards.
After an initial warning, or words of encouragement, players will be penalized a stroke for the second bad time. The third bad time will lead to a two-stroke penalty and a fourth penalty will result in disqualification.
James Donaldson broke through to win his first European Tour event but was overshadowed by the stunning success of Royal Portrush and the supportive galleries.
James Corrigan in the Telegraph:
The Royal & Ancient observers can’t have failed to have been impressed by the numbers, commitment and course. Let us pray this wonderful venue soon appears on the Open roster. It deserves it; Portrush deserves it.
BBC's Mark Simpson was a bit more skeptical, though he noted the biggest questions had been answered:
But transport links coped remarkably well with the golf fan invasion, despite frequent cloud bursts.
So has Royal Portrush done enough to clinch the British Open? Too early to say.
More questions need to be answered about the course's ability to cope with the biggest tournament in European golf.
Alistair Tait was more definitive in his assessment:
This felt like an Open Championship. The event ran without a hitch, and was a fantastic test run for a future Open.
The first available slot for the game’s oldest tournament is 2017. The R&A should seriously consider Royal Portrush again. The course deserves it, the fans will support it and it would be a fantastic Open venue.
Brandon Tucker also declared it a victory for those hoping to see the Open Championship return to Northern Ireland for the first time since 1951, but he leaves the last word to winner Donaldson.
"I don't think we've ever played a better golf course on the European Tour," said Donaldson. "It's that good. The course is incredible. The crowds are unbelievable."
The European Tour website has a nice Getty image gallery from the week, including a few nice scene shots capturing the huge crowds like the one embedded above.
**Dermot Gilleese with all sorts of interesting behind the scenes info on what plays into Portrush hosting an event and getting an Open.
While the tournament was still taking competitive shape, that objective had already been richly realised. It was achieved through the extraordinary enthusiasm of spectators who clearly adopted Kenny McDowell's philosophical attitude towards often cruel conditions. Having come to honour their golfing heroes in an event they had waited years to stage, they weren't about to let wind and rain deflect them from relishing every moment.
And their enthusiasm spilled over the fairway ropes. "I've been very pleasantly surprised at the warmth of the crowd, given that I'm in Graeme's back yard," said Pádraig Harrington. "By turning out in such numbers, they have ensured that the Irish Open will be classified in future by the players and public as very definitely an 'A' event."
All of which came at a considerable cost to the host club. "We've been closed totally for three weeks," said secretary/manager Wilma Erskine. "And we didn't take any new visitor bookings since last January. Then there are lost sales in the pro shop and a drop in the bar and catering, all of which would come to around £200,000.
"But I believe it's money well spent. In fact, it's fantastic value when you consider the television exposure, especially in America, which is why we wanted the tournament in the first place. In the meantime, the guaranteed success of the event through advance ticket sales has already brought increased business for the next six months, which are fully booked.
"And we should continue to benefit from the Irish Open factor over the next few years when we would expect our world ranking to go up as a much sought-after venue."
Against the background of Irish Open costs, one imagined possible concern at the sort of outlay involved in bringing the Open Championship back to Portrush. "In that event, the Royal and Ancient would carry the financial can for everything," she replied.
**In Golf World Monday, John Huggan suspects the low scoring may give the R&A reason to pause.
Alistair Tait, reporting from the Irish Open at Royal Portrush where the Open Championship has not been played since 1951, says the players are giving the course rave reviews despite facing an unusually soft links due to heavy rains.
“It would be great for an Open Championship,” two time Open champion Padraig Harrington said. “It’s awesome. It is a joy to play this golf course. It’s got a lot of testing golf shots on it but it also gives you something when you hit a good shot.”
Anyone who questioned whether or not the Northern Irish would support big time golf only had to turn up at Portrush to find the answer. It is a resounding yes. But that’s always been the case. They turned up in thousands when the 2007 Walker Cup was played at Royal County Down. And that was before the economic downturn.
“For the crowds to turn out in the middle of a recession, pay big money like they are paying makes me proud to be Irish,” Paul McGinley said. “We go to a lot of countries around the world, a lot wealthier than Ireland and not going through the economic downturn that we are in, and yet we have record sell outs here.”
Tait also says the R&A has been present, scouting out the logistics. Let's hope the low scoring is not a deterrent.
...but not a word about distance issues from the former U.S. Open champion and member of the Masters Cup and Tee Marker Placement Committee.
Jim Achenbach says Graham believes amateurs should be able to carry as many clubs as they want, with as much loft as they'd like to allow them to hit flops like Tiger and Phil (even though that takes special skill) and he's for the long putter too.
“If we examine long putters, it’s easy to see they have allowed a lot of people across the board to get more enjoyment from the game,” Graham says. “Absolutely the long putter has helped the game. It’s a good thing.
“Besides, even with a certain amount of opposition to the long putter, it may be too late to change it. Many golfers thoroughly depend on these putters. With this kind of passion, I think the game itself becomes the benefactor.”
As for the real issue at hand? Mum's the word!
Nick Rodger talks to R&A head honcho Peter Dawson about the 2016 Open Championship announcement involving Troon, and gets some clarification on the likely date during the Olympic year.
"The condition was pledged that no major golf event – men's or women's – would clash with the Olympic Games in 2016," explained Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the Royal & Ancient. "That will be the case. Just exactly how the schedule will pan out to make that happen is still under discussion. The Open will definitely take place before the Olympics, as it normally would be.
"The question is, with the juggling that has to go on in August to keep the pledge, does that have a knock-on effect? We're still in discussion. It will definitely be in July but it might be a week earlier."
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
