Old Course Play Suspended Due To Wind...

And greens too fast for their contours. Again. This happened at the 2010 Open Championship and now at the 2013 Ricoh Women's British Open.

The irony? Greens are sped up to offset modern driving distances and to prevent low scoring, yet whenever we've seen modern elite players on slow greens they don't make many putts.

The official announcement:

Third round play was suspended at 12.33pm on Saturday due to high winds gusting at 38 miles per hour.

Balls were moving on the greens, with the 10th green particularly affected.

Play has been suspended until at least 4.30pm and tournament officials will make a further announcement at 4pm local time.

Update on 2013-08-04 05:56 by Geoff

**Martin Dempster's account of the strange day at St. Andrews.

In case you were wondering about how the greens were prepared with the strong wind forecast, Alistair Tait has your answer.

The LGU had already prepared for the strong winds by not cutting the greens as close as the previous day. “The 11th green wasn’t cut,” she said. “The greens were 9.4 on the stimpmeter as opposed to 10 the day before. They were really quite sticky.”

The weather forecast for tomorrow calls for strong winds again, although not quite as strong as today. If the wind gets up and play is affected, then a Monday finish is an option.

Only nine players finished their third rounds. Those nine players were 56 over par. Rikako Morita was the worst of that bunch with a score of 86, 14 over. Cristie Kerr and amateur Lydia Ko had matching 3-over 75s.

And To Wrap Up The 2010 Open Championship

Images from Darren Carroll's blog...

Third Open Championship Question: Could The R&A Get More Out Of The Old Course?

Okay the Open coverage will be winding down, but another question that's been on my mind involves the topic of course setup.

In my piece for Golf World summing up the Old Course's week, I get into the unnecessary rough throughout the course that eliminates key areas needed to attack certain hole locations. It appears to be a product of three things:

-Someone intentionally narrowing the place down

-Overall overwatering, leading to overspray unintentionally hitting native roughs

-Subtle mowing pattern changes over time

Because of space considerations, I also just mention but not detail the combination of some really edgy hole locations with redundancy of placements over the four days on some holes. The R&A theory on keeping holes bunched in small areas is due to the double greens and the desire to keep players moving. However, even with this situation carried out as planned, players still wait for their peers on the neighboring green.

The 7th (left) and (11th). Imagine swapping the hole locations one day to give players a fresh look? (Click to enlarge)So with that in mind, I'm wondering if the R&A is really getting the most out of the Old Course with their setup? This year things were not helped by a consistent wind direction over four days, but why not throw so major twists into the setup? Say, play the seventh hole to the eleventh green area and move eleven down nearer the seventh (this would require moving the scoreboard).

Or perhaps play the second hole to the sixteenth green one day and the sixteenth to the second? In other words, maximize the looks that players get over four days? After all, if there's any place you should be doing varied day-to-day setup, isn't the Old Course the one?

I did see one stellar mixing up move, when the 5th was played up front all three days, usually 12 to 15 paces from the front. Sunday, the hole was cut 85 paces deep into the green!

So should the R&A do more of that or would players and media howl when they fail to use the "traditional" hole locations?

Gigapan And Time Elapse-Video Of The Home Hole

Darren Carroll's Gigapan shot of the Home hole is up and while it's spectacular, I can't help but wonder how fun it would be to put one of these cameras up on a crane and shoot down on the Old Course's key holes so that we could zoom in and study the features.

Golf.com offers an alternative in the form of time-elapsed video. As great as it is, I think it'd be more fun to have one of these in the media lunch room to watch us scribes work the free buffet provided by the R&A (and it was quite good too).

"Is this the Road Hole?"

It's a week after the Open contestants were arriving in St. Andrews, but it's fun to read Steve Elling's extensive account of first timer Jeff Overton's adventure to get there and his efforts to figure the place out.

The highlight of the day was when Overton walked along the gravel path and a rock wall situated down the right side of the 14th hole and blurted out, "Is this the Road Hole?"

Yep, he's truly an impressionable, wide-eyed first-timer. The most famous par-4 in the world, the Road Hole is actually the 17th. Before we arrive, some of the oddly named bunkers along the way were pointed out, like the Hell Bunker on the 14th and Principal's Nose, a cluster of three pot bunkers on the 16th.

After a T-11, sounds like Overton got to know the place pretty well. And the $20,000 in plane tickets was worth it!

Scenes Of St. Andrews, Volume 2

And a few more scenes from the town and Home of Golf. I hope you enjoy them. I sure enjoyed being there.

Open Question Two: How Often Should The R&A Return To St. Andrews?

Put me for every five years. After seeing that it lives up to the perfect place for a tournament, more often would be great. But I understand the need to move it around.

Scenes Of St. Andrews Volume 1

Posting will be intermittent the next few days so there'll be lots of images to look at. Here are just a few shots from the town during Open Championship week. Click on the image to enlarge.

 

 

 

"As far as I can tell NOBODY is writing off Tiger Woods. And, frankly, by all the available evidence, we SHOULD be writing off Tiger Woods."

Joe Posnanski files a different take on the state of Tiger's game.

And frankly… there’s good reason to write him off. This may sound cruel but I actually mean it as the opposite of cruel: More people SHOULD be writing off Tiger Woods.

First, he will turn 35 at the end of the year. There has been talk that this means Woods will still be in his golfing prime for the next few years, but history tells a different story. Since 1970, the average age of major championship winners is 32, and things tumble off for golfers after age 35. Fewer than a quarter of the major championship winners have been 36 or older. The only players since 1970 to win multiple majors after 35 are: Jack Nicklaus (4), Gary Player (4), Ray Floyd (2), Nick Price (2), Vijay Singh (2), Mark O’Meara (2), Angel Cabrera (2), Padraig Harrington (2).

More to the point, Woods has been dominant for a dozen years — which is a long time to dominate in golf. The greatest golfers have had a fairly short window of time when they dominate, and when that window closes, they stop winning major championships.

First Open Question: All Time Great Performance, Or Luck Of The Draw?

The Champion poses at the Swilken Bridge Monday after a press conference (click to enlarge)Or a little of both?

I'm pretty sure if Tiger, Phil, Lee, Ernie, even Paul, Rory or Martin posted the winning margins Louis Oosthuizen did, they'd call it one of the great performances in the history of the game.

There's little question he ended up having a great draw, but remember back to Thursday it was thought to be the wrong end of the draw!

Thoughts?

"i did tell a reporter that the conditions were ridiculous , bc that is what they were."

Thanks to read Amol for spotting this Jason Dufner post about Friday's wind and the suspension of play:

just a note about the delay on friday, so everyone has a clear idea of what happened. not that it matters much now 2 days latter, but it clears my name a little bit

had a 10ft putt on the 7th hole, as i placed the ball down it rolled away aprox 2ft. At that point i called a official over to make sure on the rule. was told to play it where it was, remarked the ball. Went to put the ball down again, rolled away another half a foot. The official saw it this time and got on his radio to report to whoever in the rules department about what was happening. Told to wait for another official to come over. Tell the next official what had just happened, he then gets on his radio to report what has happened to who i assumed was the central rules office. He then tells me to wait while they figure out what they want to do. 3-5 mins pass, the 2nd rules official then tells me to putt. i take 30 secs to putt, and miss. Then i have a 6 inch putt to tap in, as i go to stroke the ball, it is rocking back and forth, i turn and ask if that is considered a moving ball??? He tells me to mark and then proceeds to blow the horn 20 secs later to suspend play. At no point did i tell anyone i was not playing or that i refuse to play in these conditions. just wanted to clear the air with the real version of what had happened, instead of what tv or everyone else may have assumed to happen. i would never quit or tell a rules department when we should play or not play. and i did tell a reporter that the conditions were ridiculous , bc that is what they were. hope that clears a little up to all that have followed or commented on this topic. all the best to golfwrx followers. jason dufner