The 150th Open has been a magnificent celebration of all that is great about golf. But the game has a problem.
A large chunk of the afternoon wave took more than six hours to finish Thursday’s opening rounds.
The final group, which teed off at 4.16pm, did not finish until 10.25pm in near total darkness. On the 14th tee alone, they waited for 35 minutes. The group containing Tiger Woods, Matt Fitzpatrick and Max Homa took six hours and five minutes.
On the Old Course, this week of all weeks, there are reasons for things to take slightly longer than they normally would. The course is firm and fast, so players are waiting longer to avoid hitting into the groups in front.
Shared greens and fairways also play their part, along with myriad bottlenecks.
On Thursday, the course played tougher later in the day, players with morning tee times shooting an average of 71.97 while in the afternoon it was 73.41. More shots being hit inevitably leads to longer rounds.
Scoring by tee times today:
Early half – 71.97, 17 rounds in 60s
Late half – 73.41, 9 rounds in 60s— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) July 14, 2022
But there is, frankly, no excuse for a three-ball taking six hours to play 18 holes of golf.
I spent an hour beside the 16th fairway on Thursday afternoon. In that time, just three groups came through….
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