Women's Open: Carnoustie Will Be Tougher This Time Around

Matt Cooper previews the AIG Women’s Open and its return to Carnoustie after ten years.

This time around, it seems the players should expect a much tougher test.

Five years before that, Carnoustie made its debut on the Women’s Open rota and once again the tee boxes were in the wrong place. The final hole, as we all know, is a brute, with the Barry Burn threatening both the drive and the approach. Those too fearful of the water risk dragging the ball into rough on the left (or, worse, out of bounds), taking the green out of the equation for the second shot.

It’s unquestionably one of the toughest examinations in world golf and yet the field didn’t face it. The tee was moved up, the drive became straightforward, and the burn was more or less irrelevant for both the first and second bunt.

It was a little like plotting a route for the Tour de France that ignored both the Alps and the Pyrenees, instead just faffing about on the flat.

Lydia Ko already confirmed, reports The Scotsman’s Martin Dempster.

“Seventeen is a beast. Eighteen is also a beast,” declared the two-time major winner, expressing a view, of course, shared by most people, even though Paul Lawrie birdied both of them in the play-off in his 1999 Open win.