ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Despite what you might have heard during the pre-tournament mumbling and rumbling, it wasn’t impossible after all. Just really tough, especially for the morning wave of players. And really slow, rounds taking in excess of six hours to compete by the end of a really long day on the Old Course.
Still, the golf was worth watching. In winds that gusted to more than 40 mph, as many as 16 members of the 144-strong field gathered in the Home of Golf for the AIG Women’s Open Championship managed to eke out scores in red figures.
Best of all was the Charley Hull’s five-under-par 67, although the 28-year-old Englishwoman enjoys only a one-shot advantage over the formidable duo of defending champion Lilia Vu and World No. 1 Nelly Korda. Slow and wind be damned, the cream of the women’s game tends to make their way to the top no matter what.
“Before my round I was in there watching it on the television when I saw the scores, and I thought, how is she (Ruoning Yin) four under par?” said Hull. “That was an unbelievable score. I'd have taken that right then because it was gusting a lot on the range. I said to my coach it felt like they could call it at any minute because I don't know how the balls are staying on the greens. So to go out there, shoot five under, play pretty solid, it was a lot of fun.”
As Hull went on to make clear, the speed of play was an issue, players sometimes forced to huddle on tees—the short 11th a prime culprit—for as much as half an hour before play resumed its snail-like pace. Just about everyone was affected. And not in a good way.
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“When I got there, six groups were waiting on the 11th tee,” reported Leona Maguire.
“Just staying warm was the problem,” said Vu. “Especially for me with my back stuff, I am constantly stretching even when the pace is good. Definitely had to do a lot of that.”
“There was a lot of waiting on that back nine,” confirmed Korda. “The front nine was kind of flowing a good bit. Obviously in the tough conditions you have people stepping off and the flow to the round is a little slower, but you're kind of expecting that. But then once we hit the 11th tee box, it was just full-on brakes. I just tried to stay really present and to have a good attitude with the weather that we had.”
And the leader?
“It took ages,” said Hull. “I had a bet with my caddie. I said, ‘I reckon it'll take six and a half.’ He said, ‘no way, five hours 30.’ I was right. But you've just got to be patient. I knew what it was going to be like before the round. So I was mentally prepared for that.”
The other dominant story of the day remained the conditions that were not as bad as advertised but were still clearly foreign to many of golf’s best players. A home player too, as it turned out. En route to a birdie-free 79 and after claiming her ball was moving on the notoriously exposed 11th green on the Old Course, Scotland’s Gemma Dryburgh was moved to utter the damning phrase, “don't know how it was playable to be honest.”
Well, it was, even if there were more than a few tales of woe along the way. By way of example, Solheim Cup player Linn Grant committed one of the cardinal sins at St. Andrews when she missed one of the world’s widest fairways and drove the ball out of bounds at the storied 18th. Another Swede, past champion Anna Nordqvist, racked up a quadruple-bogey on the ever-perplexing par-4 12th. And there were almost more 7s and 6s than one could count, eight of those on the Road Hole 17th alone.
Then there was the putting, what is often the most difficult aspect of play in in high winds. Just about every player had something to say about just how tricky it was to stay stable over the ball. Choosing the line wasn’t any easier, the wind coming into play on even the shortest putts.
“I had a two-footer for par on the ninth that was just straight across the wind,” said 2009 champion Catriona Matthew after completing a birdie-free 77. “I was grinding over that. Even though there was no real break, I still had to aim outside the hole a little bit.”
It wasn’t impossible though, the R&A deserving credit for the decision to produce greens slower than normal and to place the tees in places that left every hole sensibly playable.
No one, however, was more enthusiastic than Georgia Hall.
“I was very glad we didn't stop play,” said the former Open champion, who shot 71. “I looked out my hotel room window at 5 a.m. and saw the flags on the range. It was blowing a gale, and I was like, ‘that's great; hope it stays like that.’ Not sure many players would agree with me. But I hardly get to play like this. I play in America a lot, and to me it's more of a wooden form of golf. This is natural, raw golf.
“I love those conditions, whether I play bad or not,” she continued. “This is a true Women's Open. I believe this is how it should be every day. Part of the battle is with the weather and I just tried to make the most out of that out there. I was a bit worried a few times but I think the R&A are very clever with letting the greens be a bit slower so the balls weren't rolling. I think if they cut them to a certain length, we would have to stop. So credit to the R&A for that.”