Carnoustie Is Most Definitely ‘Carnasty’
Carnoustie is a beast. The Open Championship’s brutal venue in two weeks promises to make the pros scamper to the local pubs and drown their scorecards. If you think Shinnecock Hills was a tough watch, brace yourselves for similar struggles, cussing and downright exasperation.
GolfWeek posted the 25 toughest major venues the past 25-years. Carnoustie is the leader of mayhem, scores in the 80’s and Average Strokes Over Par (ASOP). In fact, this alarming stat during Jean Van de Velde’s doc “Go Down Swinging” on GolfChannel last night is most telling. How about 101 scores not breaking 80 and +6 earning a playoff spot?
One lasting image of the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie is a 19-year-old Sergio Garcia in tears while walking with his arm around his mother, Consuelo.
Garcia fired an 18-over 89 in the opening round, a score that helped set the table for the toughest major championships of the past 25 years.
“The Open is always difficult, but this year is too tough,” Garcia said back then.
Alistair Tait tells us the players are bracing for golf Armageddon.
“In terms of toughness, you couldn’t go past it,” said two-time winner Padraig Harrington, who won the last Open at Carnoustie, in 2007. “It’s the toughest, not only because of all 18 holes, it has the toughest finish in championship golf. You’ve got a very tough 14 holes and an extremely difficult last four.”
Of course, Carnoustie’s fearsome reputation was enhanced in 1999 when the R&A let the course get out of hand. Knee-high rough just off narrow fairways and rough in spots where players could normally putt from led to the layout being dubbed “Carnasty.”
“I feel like I just fought a war,” Hal Sutton said after an opening 73.
“Hitting the fairways is like driving the ball through the door of my hotel bedroom,” two-time Open winner Greg Norman said.
Thailand’s Prayad Marksaeng had an opening 91. Michigan’s Tom Gillis shot 90 and withdrew. Australian Rod Pampling suffered the ignominy of taking the first-round lead with a 71 only to be 15 shots worse in the second round to miss the cut.
“The finish is just brutal. Sixteen is always a good short par 4 the way I played it,” Casey joked about the 248-yard, par-3 16th. “If you need to play catch-up on those holes, then good luck. Level par over the closing stretch is a good effort.”
“It is the toughest on the rota,” Bjorn said. “I think the first 15 holes at Carnoustie are the finest 15 holes in links golf, and then the next three are maybe not quite there with the rest of the golf course. Opens we’ve played there have been extremely tough. Some of the pin positions they can use, you think, ‘Oh my God, how am I going to get close to that?’ They can make that golf course extremely difficult.”
Should be ball-buster.
