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SOUTHPORT, England -- Edge of the sea, the edge of unplayable, not to mention the edge of our seats.
Three pretty good reasons why the third major championship of 2008 has been as riveting as any British Open in years, even without a certain somebody in the field.
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| Anthony Kim is among the many players to encounter problems on the 10th hole. (AP) |
Saturday at the 137th Open, as tournament officials tried to wrestle with the uncontrollable, Royal Birkdale and a teeth-chattering breeze blew nearly everybody away.
At times, it bordered on farcical, even though the host Royal & Ancient made several key adjustments in the setup to address the weather forecast. However, gusts up to 48 mph coming off the hypothermia-inducing Irish Sea made even the simplest acts a major-championship misadventure.
You know, like, putting.
"I thought it was probably one of the toughest conditions to putt in I've ever experienced, it really was," defending Open champion Padraig Harrington said. "There was no sense of preparation over any putt. By the time you got over it, you still hadn't got any clarity in the line.
"You still hadn't got any clarity in how hard you were going to hit it because you weren't sure what the wind was going to do to it."
Claret Jug clarity was missing across the board and chaos ruled the day. Well, that and Greg Norman, who called it one of the three toughest rounds he had ever played, given the circumstances and weather conditions.
The entire field seconded the motion. Delays in play were so plentiful, the 10th hole became a parking lot -- unless you were driving a golf ball, at which point it was a NASCAR speedway.
Though R&A officials didn't double-cut or roll the greens overnight as a concession to the predicted winds, and even moved the flags into more accessible areas, the greens were as slick as the mousse in Phil Mickelson's hair.
Sweden's Fredrik Jacobson stood, equally parts angry and amused, eyeing his ball in a pot bunker alongside the 10th fairway. Every time he got close to it, it moved, the wind was whistling through the sand so fiercely.
Wisely, rather than risk a penalty having the ball move at address, he backed off and waited. And waited. Finally, he said an official waived the rule and told him that if the ball moved after he addressed it, he would not be penalized.
"They let it go because I think they wanted to finish today," said Jacobson, who said he would have waited all day for the wind to die down before absorbing a penalty stroke.
An official R&A explanation wasn't offered, but if they were indeed drawing up rules in the dirt to get through the day, it seemed apt given the Cirque du Birkdale scene.
Rising American star Anthony Kim endured a carnival on the 10th green, when his ball kept rolling away from his marker as he attempted to begin his putting routine. After the ball moved a couple of times, he called for a rules official. "I went and marked it, and after putting it back down, as I was reading it, the ball was blown about a foot back," he said. "So I kept waiting and it blew another foot back and I called the rules official, and he said, when it stops, mark it and we'll call a rover (official) over.
"So I marked it and I put the ball behind my coin for the official to see and it rolled probably five or six yards off the green."
It took forever for the matter to get settled partly because communication was difficult above the wailing wind.
"The wind was blowing so much he (the official) couldn't really hear in his ear piece," Kim said. "I want to say it took about half an hour."
The wind was so stiff, as he waited for a determination, Kim put his cap on backward to keep it from blowing into the seas. When the wind briefly settled, he putted out.
Saturday morning presented a strange tableau. Trees that had popped loose in midsummer foliage were shorn of their leaves. British Open flags hoisted earlier in the week had become badly frayed at the edges. Not quite as much as the players, mind you.
Norman had a 12-footer into the wind for a bogey on No. 10 and left it two feet short, and the wind moved the ball backward before he could mark it. He had to wait 20 or 30 seconds to mark the ball because it wouldn't stop wobbling.
Playing partner K.J. Choi, faced with a 30-inch putt on the same green, stood over the ball for an eternity on his second shot, afraid to ground his club or formally address the ball, because he was afraid it would move and he would be assessed a one-shot penalty.
The rest of the field looked like a parade of beer brewers, out inspecting the hops and grain. There was Harrington, chopping the ball from a sidehill lie so steep, he almost fell down. Jim Furyk was spotted searching for his ball in hay so high, you could not see his knees. After he extricated his ball, Furyk stopped to pick the burrs out of his socks.
David Duval parked his second shot of the day into the gunch, had to take an unplayable-lie penalty and made a triple bogey. He skied to an 83. "It felt like we went through a war," Kim said.
Hope he saved a few bullets.
More high winds are expected for Sunday.