Great Views And Fine Links Golf At The Birthplace Of The Open. What More Do You Need?

The Open Championship sprang into life in October 1860, when seven Scots and one Englishman did battle over three loops of Prestwick’s original 12-hole course, with Willie Park Senior emerging the inaugural Open champion.

Much has changed and much has stayed the same on today’s 18-hole links at Prestwick, with the gloriously rumpled and, at times, quirky terrain providing a tangible link with the challenges faced by Old Tom Morris et al 165 years ago. This is especially so on the par-3 5^th, which plays blind over a sand hill from 200 yards, and in the cavernous bunkers such as the sleeper-faced Cardinal on the 3^rd.

The overriding goal on the 1st is to avoid blocking or slicing it onto the adjacent Ayrshire Coast railway, hence the sign in the photo above. I followed the directions perfectly until the end of point two, misreading ‘into landing area’ for ‘onto the train tracks’. My reload was almost identical but this time the ball miraculously ricocheted back onto the fairway, from where a 6-iron to 15ft left me a putt for the unlikeliest of bogeys. I missed.

Nothing compares

Prestwick is one of a kind in many respects. It is also occasionally bewildering, sometimes a tad unkind, but always great fun and a voyage of discovery. Having now played it a handful of times, my discovery on this visit with a group of golf club secretaries was that threading the needle to split the fearsomely narrow 15^th fairway means little if you hit a poor wedge in, and possibly relatively little even with a good wedge, such is the severity of the downslope you’re landing on.

Double there followed by bogey on 17 after what I thought were two perfect, but ultimately fractions-out, shots sums up the Prestwick challenge. At least I took advantage of the must-birdie short par-4 18^th via two putts from the front edge.

I didn’t have time to play Prestwick St Nicholas this time, half a mile south along the promenade, but did walk a few holes to rekindle memories of my round 20-odd years ago. At the time, I wrote, “The 16th sweeps down towards the clubhouse, with street and houses unnervingly adjacent, but this pales into…