Nicklaus is main event once again
By Tim RosaforteST. ANDREWS, Scotland -- American tour pros, with entourages in tow, started arriving at the 134th Open Championship Monday, bringing with them American weather.
In the London Times, John Hopkins described the North Sea as being as calm as a millpond. The Auld Gray Toon felt more like Doral in March than St. Andrews in July, but so be it. They say it will start getting ugly by Thursday, just in time to begin the world's oldest golfing championship on the links of the Old Course.
That's when the Old Lady gets nasty.
This promises to be an epic British Open. Tiger Woods has finished 1-2 in the majors this year, in case you haven't noticed. Jack Nicklaus is playing his last British. You've got Ernie Els trying to make something out of the year, Vijay Singh's shot at No. 1 slipping, Sergio Garcia looking like he's ready to step up -- and the specter that a Michael Campbell is out there in the field of 156, ready to raise the Claret Jug Sunday in front of the Royal and Ancient Clubhouse, on the Eden Estuary, along the Firth of Forth.
Nicklaus arrived Sunday evening after a golf-course visit to Ireland. He's staying up the hill from the Old Course at Rufflets, the little inn that's been his home for this tournament since 1964. He's got a small circle around him: wife Barbara, sons Jackie, Steve and Gary, along with Jackie's son, Jack. The Great Man Himself -- as Sir Henry Longhurst used to call him -- played a practice round Monday with Fred Couples, Nick Faldo and Memorial Tournament champion Bart Bryant. Jack and Freddie took the cash, the pounds, or in more local vernacular, the quid.
There's been a queue lining up to play these last practice rounds with him, and Tuesday the honor went to Kenny Perry, Mike Weir and appropriately enough, Tom Watson. Jack left Wednesday open, waiting to decide whether to rest or play nine.
Then it's on to Thursday, when Ivor Robson delivers the introduction, and we hear the words, "And now on the tee, from the United States, Jack Nicklaus."
Will it end Friday or Sunday for Jack? There were many reasons for making this his last British and quite possibly his last major, one being that Nicklaus feels he can be competitive on the Old Course. Even with the changes and the lengthening, it's still a layout in which strategy plays the most important role. Jack knew this course, had the disposition to play it, work it, and recorded two of his three British Open victories here. He will walk across the Swilcan Burn Bridge Sunday, we hope.
"I wish he'd keep retiring," Woods joked on Tuesday, when it was noted that Tiger won a major at every stop on the Nicklaus retirement tour. "I won at Valhalla and Pebble Beach and then here [in 2000]. … And then Augusta this year."
Even if Jack makes the cut, Woods will be the story. He will go at this thing with the type of focus that will take us back five years. He's got momentum, confidence and a track record on his side. It's hard to think of his not winning, but never forget this is golf. That's how Byrant got into that foursome with Nicklaus, Couples and Faldo. Anything can happen. Just look at what happened in three of the last six British Opens.
The names Paul Lawrie, Ben Curtis and Todd Hamilton don't exactly resonate with the likes of Woods, Faldo, Nicklaus and Seve Ballesteros, but if St. Andrews were ever to have an unusual winner, this could be the year.
Ballesteros was at the Old Course Links clubhouse Monday night, hanging with some old friends at a reception for Callaway Golf. The Spaniard pulled out of the Open while contemporaries such as Faldo, Bernhard Langer and even Ian Woosnam truck on, but that is golf, too. The three-time Open champion is working on a book that, like his life, should be fascinating.
Ballesteros took himself out of the competition out of respect to the championship. Coincidentally, his withdrawal opened a door for Jose Maria Olazabal.
"I just don't want any of you writing tomorrow and reading in the paper that this is the good-bye of Seve Ballesteros," he said. "I'll be back. I'll be back, but when I don't know. But I will be back."
Faldo also rolled through the "Press Centre" Monday, livening up an otherwise quiet news day with his thoughts on St. Andrews, the London Bombings, his Open Championship victory at the Old Course in 1990, and Tiger's surpassing his record by one stroke in 2000. It's interesting to see how much of that cold exterior has worn away and how humble he gets around St. Andrews. He couldn't wait to get to the bridge for that photo with Nicklaus and his son, Matthew. "Obviously I love this place," he says. "It's very special, simple as that."
St. Andrews is changing. On Market Street you can find signs of increasing Americanization and commercialism. A garish Subway sign hangs outside a storefront on a building that is centuries old. Down the street, you can walk into a Starbucks, which opened this week, and bump into Barbara Nicklaus and Hillary Watson. Out on the Old Course, length has been added, but if the wind doesn't blow, it won't matter.
Tiger can drive four, possibly five greens, but predictions by American caddies about players going around in 59 or 58 this week don't go far with the caddies who loop the Old Course every day. "The tour don't know crap," said one looper working at nearby St. Andrews Bay. "They don't know the Old Course."
Don't they? Players were reaching the 14th, lengthened to more than 600 yards, with a driver and a 6-iron. Sergio Garcia and Thomas Bjorn were 11-under through 14 holes in a better-ball match on Wednesday. About the same time Garcia and Bjorn were doing their dance, Royal & Ancient Secretary Peter Dawson was in the Press Centre answering questions about the Old Course's still being an adequate test in calm conditions. Dawson said he was "very, very satisfied that it is a sufficient test for today's golfers."
Will the new game destroy the Old Course? It depends on one factor -- and it's not the ball, the shaft, or turning the course from Grande to Venti, using Starbucks' vernacular.
It's the weather. Nae wind, nae golf, as they say.
Tim Rosaforte is a senior writer for Golf World magazine
