Even though this is my 27th Open Championship, trust me the buzz, the nerves, and the excitement, are still strong. I wouldn’t want it any other way!
This is the biggest week in golf, no question. We arrived on Sunday afternoon and already I’ve been out and played the course a couple of times. Hats off to everyone at the R&A; they’ve done a great job presenting us with a pure, fair test of links golf. The course set-up is superb.
Royal Birkdale really is a magnificent golf course. With tight fairways weaving through huge sand dunes, it’s a visual treat for the players and for the spectators. Also, rather like another of my favourite links courses, Muirfield, there are very few consecutive holes that play in the same direction so that makes it very interesting, especially when the wind blows hard off the Irish Sea. You definitely need all the shots out here.
This is the tenth time that Royal Birkdale has hosted The Open. For me, it’s my third trip to this great links. When we were here in 1998, the year Mark O’Meara won, the weather was pretty bad and an even-par score of 280 won. I was never really in the picture that year and finished tied-29th. Then in 2008 the weather was even more testing. Padraig Harrington won in 3-over par that week and the next best score was 7-over. I finished tied-7th, having started the week with an 80. I then shot a pair of 69s, on Thursday and Sunday, and remember being told afterwards that only Padraig and me had managed that feat all week. That tells you how challenging the conditions were, but that’s links golf for you. It can be brutal. We’re in for some tough weather this week as well, if the forecast is correct.
As changeable as the weather sometimes is in this great championship, though, the course itself is pretty much unchanged from that 2008 Open. They’d made the course longer in the build-up to that year’s championship and also made some significant changes across the entire layout. They built some new tees, tightened the bunkering in the fairways and around the greens and shifted some of the fairways to alter the playing lines on a few holes. It was all about rewarding good shot-making, a philosophy that I would always applaud. So basically, they didn’t need to do anything for this year’s Open other than get the course in great shape, which as I said, they have done.
Summing up, as most people know, links golf is my favourite style of play and I love everything about this week – the course, the history, the whole atmosphere. The fans are amazing. Honestly, there’s nothing else like an Open crowd. At times it’s as though the roar is coming out of the earth and, when you get something going, it’s the biggest buzz. I remember when I holed that birdie putt on 18 at Royal Lytham to win in 2012, the hairs were standing up on my arms. That’s what you dream about, that’s what you play for. If I can get my game together this week and the draw is kind to me…who knows, maybe we can make some noise again. The way links courses play, you don’t need to bomb it miles. You can be creative, use your experience and your imagination, play a bunch of different shots.
The draw for the first two rounds has been released and I’m paired with Ross Fisher and Bernd Wiesberger, teeing off at 12.42pm on Thursday and 7.41am on Friday. I can’t wait to get started.
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