This is a breathless time of the year for the golf scribblers. In fact, I just had to catch my breath right there, after the wheezing rigours of typing the word ‘breathless’.
Like a sumptuous, belching medieval banquet, Scotland’s feast of golf roars on as last week’s Scottish Open blends seamlessly into this week’s Open Championship and we all continue to thrash away at the laptop keys like Little Richard clattering out a piano-pounding epistle.
And, yes, some of us even wear colourful capes and blouse shirts. It’s quite a fevered scene.
Read more: The Open: Horses for courses but Tommy Fleetwood wary of different Carnoustie test
In this rapid-fire turnaround, the Scottish Open has just about become a distant memory already but, as an appetizer to the main course, it served up some fine fare. Brandon Stone’s sizzling acceleration over the finishing line with a closing 60 just about left scorch marks on the Gullane turf.
It will be a different challenge at Carnoustie. Given the perilous, punishing, nature of its exacting closing few holes, you’d be happy to get through the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th in 60 blows.
Carnoustie is looking great, with the prolonged dry spell evoking images of those sun-seared links of yore. Upon arrival, the brown fairways almost convince you that the R&A officials have just given them a coat of creosote.
Now it’s time to get down to business. Golf’s fight for relevance in a jam-packed sporting market continues to be a mighty battle. The Scottish Open was a terrific showpiece but, let’s face it, the event was always going to be up against the later stages of the World Cup and the closing rounds of Wimbledon all unfolding at the same time.
The fact those two huge events are splattered all over terrestrial television essentially leaves golf muddling on in the margins of its satellite domain. Throw in the hysterical return of Scottish football – the media centre at Gullane on Saturday echoed to spontaneous shrieks in the radio booths of goal updates from the bloomin’ Betfred Cup – and you have another added layer of competition for attention.
This week’s Open should spike interest and, hopefully, thrust golf back into the public consciousness. The challenge, of course, is maintaining that interest long after the Claret Jug has been paraded around the 18th green on Sunday
This is the first time a UK audience will get to feel the Tiger effect this year. His comeback in the US has sent the needles on the interest-ometer pinging into the red at all manner of tournaments and his come-all-ye lure remains unwavering as he continues to woo the masses into a quite giddy fankle.
The Tiger’s return to the Open for the first time since 2015 will, naturally, draw considerable attention while the multitude of other storylines should intrigue and excite.
Read more: The Open: Horses for courses but Tommy Fleetwood wary of different Carnoustie test
Can Rory McIlroy return to the major winning podium? Can the holder Jordan Spieth put his indifferent form behind him and prosper again in a links environment that always suits him? And could the hugely impressive Englishman Tommy Fleetwood, free from the shackles of expectation as local hero at Birkdale a year ago, make that seemingly inevitable breakthrough on the major stage?
For those of us on this side of the pond, meanwhile, we could do with a European golfer coming up trumps this week. The continent’s last major winner was Sergio Garcia at the 2017 Masters. Since then, the last five majors have been seized by the boys from the USA. With a Ryder Cup looming, it’s time to flex those muscles and Carnoustie may just provide some home comforts for the Europeans.
Tommy Armour may have been a naturalised American when he won here in 1931 but the Silver Scot was still as Scottish as the Oor Wullie annual. England’s Henry Cotton beat a field including the entire US Ryder Cup team over the Angus links in 1937 while our own Paul Lawrie and Irishman Padraig Harrington conquered in 1999 and 2007.
The last three Opens at Carnoustie have all been decided in a play-off. It could be another long week again. But it promises to be a cracker.
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