He was excused - he had won by three strokes
He was excused - he had won by three strokes.Back in 1933, Gene Sarazen, defending his title and thinking he needed to win back strokes, went for broke in Hell Bunker and stayed in it. And in 1957 Bobby Locke replaced his ball a club-head away from where it should have been. Watson missed his putt.On that same huge 18th green sloping severely from back-right to front- left, Doug Sanders missed from three feet a putt that would have won the 1970 Open Instead it meant a losing play-off with Nicklaus. At that moment Ballesteros, up ahead, birdied the last hole from 15 feet. Asked if he had lost concentration, he said: "No I lost count." And it was at this hole in 1984 that Tom Watson "lost" the Open.
Tied with Ballesteros in the very climax of the championship, he hit his long iron approach over green and road, scrambled the ball back, and stood over a 10-yard putt for a par-four. There is a lack of definition.The hugeness of the greens provides satanic pin-positioning. There are also man-deep caverns such as "Hell Bunker" on the long 14th and the "Road Bunker" at the 17th, the Road Hole, which is possibly the finest single golf hole in the entire world.In that bunker in 1978, Tommy Nakajima of Japan ran up a nine on the hole. It is a place of shelves and swales and deep depressions in the ground Tees merge into fairways, fairways flow into greens.
Some have become antiques, such is the length and soaring flight of the modern champions' shot-making The terrain flows and surges. All have met its demands.Jones, given the freedom of the town in 1958, said that if he had taken everything out of his life but his St Andrews experience, he would still have had "a rich, full life".Pot bunkers are strewn across the course, you could say at random. As the locals might well say: "No wind, no rain, it's no golf."Yet the Old Course has its defences. It has produced a list of Open winners that thunders out of posterity at us; J H Taylor twice, James Braid twice, Bobby Jones - surely the greatest of all golfers - Sam Snead, Peter Thomson, Jack Nicklaus twice, Ballesteros, Faldo among them. Curtis Strange, who scored 62 round the Old Course in a Dunhill Cup match, made the game seem preposterous. There will be much talk going into the championship of the current anguish of Severiano Ballesteros, of the relentless will of Nick Faldo last time round in 1990; of Colin Montgomerie and Sam Torrance; of whether Nick Price can repeat last year's victory; and of the Masters champion, Ben Crenshaw, and the prodigy Tiger Woods. But at the end of the week when one man has achieved his immortality, the course, timeless, will remain.The power and precision of the modern championship golfer, when the weather is tranquil and the ground soft, will devour any golf course Then it will become a putting competition. The famous links will stage the Open Championship for the 25th time this week, and once again will emerge as the best-loved and most widely detested of all the world's golf courses.
"The on-course bookmakers say that it was a strong betting market," David Henson, the clerk of the course, said "So they are happy too.". The course, the Old Course at St Andrews, is all things to all men. Non Runner: Taibhseach.RICHARD EDMONDSONNAP: Tropical Dance(Windsor 8.00)NB: Charnwood Queen(Windsor 9.00). Yarmouth's first Sunday meeting yesterday produced a crowd of 5,854 paying customers, the best seen at the Norfolk seaside track in recent years. Russian Snows M J Kinane 13-23 Valley Of Gold L Dettori 4-1Also: Musetta 14-1 (4th), Larrocha 9-4 fav (5th), Asterita 16-1 (6th), Bluffing 50-1 (7th), Riyama 14-1 (8th), Crystal Bird 200-1 (9th), Alisidora 10-1 (10th).10 ran (Trained by M Stoute, at Newmarket, for R Barnett) Tote: pounds 4.50; pounds 1.80, pounds 1.70, pounds 1.70 Reverse forecast: pounds 20.10 CSF: pounds 29.99. PURE GRAIN bay filly Polish Precedent - Mill Line J Reid 9-22. "I pick the trainers," he said, "they pick the races."THE CURRAGH3.45: (1m 4f, Group One Irish Oaks)1.