This year’s Open Championship at Royal Birkdale is the 18th I’ve attended. My first was Padraig Harrington’s play-off win against Sergio Garcia in 2007 but the most recent is my favourite for a few different reasons. Here’s why.
1. The Golf Course
Royal Birkdale has long been one of my favourite courses and this week it posed a brilliant test for the world’s best at the Open Championship. There’s no faking it at Birkdale – you either strike the ball well or you miss the cut. What’s more, it was a pleasure to see a well bunkered links play so firm and fast. When Ryan Fox’s iron for safety off the 71st tee chased over 300 yards only to trickle into a fairway bunker, it proved the best way to push the top players is to take control away from them. With this as the landscape, we got to see a full suite of golfing skills.
2. The Weather
To my mind, the Open is always better when the fairways are white and the long fescue is golden brown. What you lose in wet, juicy rough, you gain in atmosphere as the fans bask in the seaside sunshine. As an advert for the best of golf in the British Isles, it doesn’t get better.
3. The Winner
I interviewed Ryan Fox back in 2018, just after he broke through on the DP World Tour. The meeting took place in his flat just outside London (he even played the guitar for me). My memory of that experience was that he was as unassuming and down-to-earth a golfer as you’ll ever meet. Last night’s winner’s press conference, in which he talked about filing the Claret Jug with red wine, has confirmed the same thing.
4. The Fans
Golf is growing and with that, a new bread of sports fans are attending major golf events. It’s good to see but there have been some unwanted behaviours, such as the booing of Wyndham Clark during the final round of the US Open. This year’s Championship, was an example of modern golf fandom at its best. Lively, vociferous and at times amusing but when push came to shove and the leading contenders were jostling for position, there was nothing but respect from the crowd. When Fox holed his winning putt, the crowd that I was with celebrated as if he were one of their own.
5. The Drama
Not every Open is exciting – remember Scottie last year? This one was on a knife edge throughout the final round. The final cast of contenders (Young, Burns, Kim and Fox) didn’t have a major between them but had, in different ways, all paid their dues. You could feel the gravitas of the moment with each of them. It had nothing to do with the huge winner’s cheque on offer. Bravo.
And my one bugbear…
There is no such thing as perfection and if I had one bugbear it would be the golf course setup. It played fast and the rough was thin and whispy. So far, so good. The sadist in me however, was disappointed to see the greens so green. I understand that when it comes to windy, seaside golf you have to be cautious but I’d have loved to have seen the greens turn brown and run slick enough to be truly scary.
The slogan of the Open is ‘Forged By Nature’ but if the greens are a different colour to the rest, I’m not sure that’s truly natural.
