Saturday, July 13, 2002

British Open site features grand ol’ tradition

By Brian Murphy
San Francisco Chronicle

It is time, fans, to introduce ourselves to Muirfield, site of next week’s British Open and host to golf history as Tiger Woods continues his compelling stalk of the Grand Slam.

Truly, a special place to host a special moment.

By that, we mean, it is not only a links course 20 miles east of Edinburgh that draws hushed reverence from history’s greatest players — it is also a place so exclusive as to make Augusta National look like Woodstock.

Take, for example, this tale from the 1980 Open Championship.

Tom Watson, the brilliant American who adapted to British golf so stunningly that he won five Open titles, had secured the claret jug with an artful 271, 13 strokes below par and the best winning score in Muirfield’s 14 Open Championships. Surely, a crowning achievement for one of the game’s most creative players and a man who appreciated the meaning and history an Open Championship carried.

What better thing to do, then, but to bask?

The tale, as related by Watson’s good friend Sandy Tatum, went as follows:

That night, Watson and fellow Yank Ben Crenshaw fell into a “celebratory mode,” as Tatum said. The revelry led to the Muirfield clubhouse, where Watson and Crenshaw procured old clubs from a case. Naturally, the two men took to the course in the gloaming, to play out a few wonderful shots of golf.

Their spontaneity was rewarded with a “considerable gallery,” as Tatum relayed. The mirth continued. What a memory.

Until . . .

“Old Paddy Hamner, the secretary of the club,” Tatum said, “came out and ran ’em off the course.” Ran the Open Champion and Ben Crenshaw off the course?

You better believe it.

Muirfield tolerates no high jinks.

That shaggy dog tale is all by way of asking: Will Muirfield chase away Tiger’s bid for the Slam? Or will, a week from Sunday, the world’s No. 1 player have the run of the place in the gloaming — for who would dare “run off the course” the man who had completed three legs of the Grand Slam? Besides, old Paddy Hamner doesn’t work at Muirfield anymore.

“He was an odd duck,” Tatum said.

At any rate, here is the scouting report on Muirfield, in a nutshell:

There is hope for the rest of the world’s players.

Muirfield is not a particularly long course, at 7,034 yards. By contrast, Augusta National stretches 7,270 yards and the U.S. Open at Bethpage Black covered 7,214.

A significant difference. At Augusta and Bethpage, the field of potential winners narrowed to a handful even before the first ball was struck, as only a few players in the world can handle that length over four consecutive rounds. Not coincidentally, the player who can best handle that length won both the Masters and the U.S. Open.

But at Muirfield, where epic champions such as Nick Faldo (1992, ’87), Watson, Lee Trevino (1972), Jack Nicklaus (1966) and Gary Player (1959) have won, a ballstriker has a chance.

One such ballstriker is Jose Maria Olazabal, who played the course this week and gave an analysis to whet appetites for a brilliant tournament.

“Without question, a bigger number of players will be in contention,” Olazabal told the Scotsman. “Muirfield is more of a shotmaker’s course than one where pure length matters the most.”

So, a different challenge. None of this is to suggest Woods cannot win on a ballstriker’s course — he has proven he can win anywhere, anytime — but the number of tested players who can contend might make the leaderboard, which inevitably will contain Woods, a more interesting pack of names. Olazabal drew an analogy between Muirfield and Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, where Ben Hogan made his name and where Nick Price, one of the world’s great ballstrikers, won this year.

“On that type of shotmaker’s course,” Olazabal said, “Nick Price came out on top. You have to hit all kinds of different shots, but you don’t have to be long off the tee to attack the flag. That’s the simple difference.”

A word of caution: Rain, that ubiquitous Scottish commodity, is apparently having a bull market of a summer in East Lothian, home of Muirfield. Reports say the area has received four times the amount of normal rain, and the result is a changed golf course.

What is usually a links course built around funky bounces from dry fairways and baked, brown greens to test approach shots has become a lusher, softer course. Both Olazabal and Faldo — who, parenthetically, will be a man to watch next week — noted this difference, and were somewhat alarmed. Soft fairways and greens could change the nature of Muirfield, normally considered a paragon of links golf. But, as Faldo chirped optimistically, “A few days of sun could change all that.”

In sum, a classic test awaits. Aside from lengthening two par-3s slightly, the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, the men who run Muirfield, have left their course in the same shape as the last time it hosted an Open, 10 years ago.

Lengthen the course, like Augusta National? Please. At Muirfield, you don’t trifle with brilliance. If you suggest it, they just might run you off the course.

British Open Facts & Figures

Associated Press