This year’s Open at Royal Birkdale will be the first played there since 2017, when Jordan Spieth, at the height of his powers, prevailed in dramatic finish. Tied with Matt Kuchar on the 13th tee in the final round, Spieth blocked his drive very far right, unplayable in the tangled dunes. The complex ruling that followed lasted thirty minutes and involved, first, a penalty drop (for the unplayable ball) and then a free ‘line of sight’ drop away from interfering TV trucks, onto the in-bounds practice range. From 245 yards, Spieth made a fantastic bogey, before playing the last five holes in five under par to win by three shots.
Spieth was not the first Champion to win at Birkdale after a famous ruling. In 1998, Mark O’Meara, who became Champion Golfer of the Year after a tie with American Brian Watts, was the beneficiary. On a wild and windy third day, Phil Mickelson shot 85, Justin Leonard and Nick Price 82 each and Tiger Woods could only manage 77. On the 480 yard par four 6th hole, which
produced just 16 birdies in the week, O’Meara, who was contending at the time, hit a wayward approach to the right of the green near some whin bushes. Estimates vary but after searching for three to four minutes (the limit then was five minutes) O’Meara started to walk back to drop a ball at the spot where he had last played. As he reached that place, a ball was found. He then walked forward again, hopefully to identify the ball, while a senior Rules Official reviewed, methodically, but with some urgency, whether identifying the ball after five minutes was within the Rules of Golf if the ball had been found within five minutes of the search beginning. If that was not complicated enough, a young fan had meanwhile innocently picked up the ball and was about to walk away. It ended very happily for O’Meara, as the ball (once recovered) was adjudged not to be ‘lost’ and he was able to place it on the spot where it had originally been found. He made a valuable bogey, finished in 72, which left him two strokes back going into the final round.
I was working at my fourth Open as an R&A Rules Official in 1998. The Chair of the Championship Committee, Hugh Campbell (a fine Scottish amateur golfer who had lost in the final of the Amateur Championship to one of Britain’s best, Peter McEvoy in 1977) was my foursomes partner at our home Club, Royal Worlington & Newmarket GC and kindly asked me which game I would like to referee in round one! The grouping I chose – Seve Ballesteros (75), Steve Stricker (72) and Tom Watson (76) did not hit the heights, but it was certainly one to savour and there were no demanding rulings. Tom hit a lot of bunkers that day, but my main recollection is of Seve hitting a towering long iron from chest high on a bunker face to a green 220 yards away on the front nine.
The pay back for being with that group on Thursday was to be the walking Rules Official with the first tee time of 0630 on Friday morning. Under a gloomy sky, laden with heavy rain I arrived for my assignment, to be asked by Howard Clark if I had a light meter! I laughed out but immediately realised that Howard was deadly serious – he was sure it was too dark to play. That was a first for me, so after quickly checking that we were good to start on time, off we went. Howard was a six time Ryder Cup player with forthright reputation in the heat of battle and was already an unhappy camper that morning, but matters were to go from bad to worse. As we reached the 5th hole, the teeing ground was almost under water. I radioed to ask, as we were the first group of the day – if I could move the tee markers up to drier ground. Unfortunately we were in a total radio dead spot and I couldn’t get an answer, so without any authority, I did just that. Eventually the players were able to tee off. The 5th hole was played into a strong headwind and the ball spotters hadn’t yet worked out where to stand and were 40 yards beyond the drive zone. Thomas Levet sliced his drive and after tramping up and down in thick wet rough to look for it, had to return to the tee box to put another ball into play. More delay.
The instructions from the Championship Committee to the Rules Official of the first group were always to encourage the players to complete the round as quickly as possible and hopefully under ‘time par,’ so that saving was ‘in the bank’ before the whole field began to slow. But the group went from two minutes under time to 37 minutes over time in the course of one hole!
Whether I was demoted after this round is debatable, but on the final round I was the forward observer for the group following 17 year old Justin Rose as he attempted to be the first amateur to win the Open since Bobby Jones. As I left the 72nd tee, the biggest noise I have ever heard on a golf course exploded as Justin pitched in for a birdie and a 69. He finished fourth, two shots back but won the Silver Medal for leading amateur. I feel sure that the same sound would erupt, 28 years on, if only Justin could be the first Englishman to win an Open in England since Tony Jacklin in 1969.
How great would that be?
