The Open Championship: Rains, undulating topography produce unfathomable challenge for golfers

By Anand Datla

Over 150 years ago, during a long-lost past, a motley collection of eight professional golfers came together in Prestwick to establish who among them might be a Champion golfer.

All these years later, little if anything has changed in the magical world of The Open Championship.

The Claret Jug remains the most venerated prize in golf and this July week remains one of the most coveted journeys on the calendars of itinerant golfers. A field of 156 golfers will contend for honours in the final major of the season, pursuant to a revised golf calendar that sent the PGA Championship into May.

On Sunday, at the end of this week, the winner will not merely be champion. He will be a gladiator with a steely nerve, an icy mind and the right club for every occasion.

The Dunluce Links plays a million different ways with the changing weather and the undulating topography combining to produce a nearly unfathomable challenge to the men that tread it this week in the 148th Open Championship.

The fact that the tournament has returned to Northern Ireland after 68 years has turned it into a carnival with as many political undertones as there are promises of nuanced athletic brilliance.

The course inside the Royal Portrush Golf Club hugs the coast. The wind and sea mist from the Atlantic could make life decidedly uncomfortable for the players. The rain, plenty of it on offer this week, will surely drench the players and soil their clubs. The bunkers are everywhere, along the fairways and around the greens. So are the insanely undulating mounds that could slide the ball farther than your imagination into inconvenient corners on the course. It will take enormous patience and calm execution at every turn to navigate this course without shredding holes into your card. The punters have installed Rory McIlroy, born and raised in these climes, as the odds on favourite at 7/1. Things haven’t gone too well in the past for Rory, when expectations were high. We have seen him go to Augusta year after year, chasing an elusive career grand slam.

“One of my mantras this week is to look around and smell the roses. This is bigger than me and I think if you can look at the bigger picture and see that, it takes the pressure off. Having that perspective might just make me relax a bit more,” said a hopeful McIlroy. The major monster, Brooks Koepka, is showing no signs of cooling down. Koepka has won four of his last nine starts and finished inside the top six in three others. He has already won the US Open this year and came second in both the Masters and PGA Championship.

In the lead up to this event, he suggested that practice might be the answer to his success at the majors, while admitting, tongue in cheek that he rarely, if ever, practiced for the regular tour events. You can put down a few quid on Koepka contending again this week. “Yeah, it would mean a lot. I enjoy links golf. It’s fun. I see so many different shots. Every time I’m over a golf ball I see about 20 different shots you could play. To me it makes it interesting. It makes it fun,” said Koepka, when asked to look ahead to winning the Open.

“Being able to play so many different types of shots and get it close to the hole, using your imagination, that’s what I enjoy. And luckily my caddie has played this golf course, I can’t tell you how many times, so that’s a big advantage. It’s nice to have him on the bag this week and hopefully have a good week.”

There is a lone Indian in the field, Shubhankar Sharma. He sailed into Portrush on the wings of some strong golf in the Scottish Open. After an opening round 71 left him scrambling for survival, Shubhankar made a spotless 67 on Friday to secure his weekend. The fact that it came off a clutch putt from outside 40 feet on the 18th hole gave the young man tremendous confidence. “The course is in great condition. You can never really have a strategy on a links course. We will need to adapt as we go, based on the wind and weather,” Shubhankar told ET Sport.

The Indian turns 22 on Sunday and with a new caddie — Dean Smith — on the bag, a good finish would be the best way to celebrate the passage of time. Smith has recently joined Shubhankar’s team. The South African has previously worked with Byeong-Hun An and Ryan Fox. Smith was on the bag for the Korean when he won the BMW PGA Championship in 2015. Shubhankar believes that his familiarity and experience of links golf will come in handy as the two men walk the course together this week.

While Indian golfers might be short in supply this week, there are as many as 16 Asian Tour professionals in the field, a new high in major tournament golf. There are four Thai golfers, including Kiradech Aphibarnrat and Jazz Janewattananond while there are three men each from Japan and Korea.

But nothing will excite Indian golf fans more than a rousing run by Shubhankar to offer them much needed balm to soothe their famished souls.

The writer is a columnist with Golfing Indian