Matt Cooper is our man at Royal St George's, where the 149th Open Championship begins on Thursday. Don't miss his Tuesday update.
Car-nasty style?
The debate about the winning score rumbles on. One thing we can agree on is that if Bryson DeChambeau is feeling shackled by the rough then it’s definitely tangly. "At 15, I hit my ball left," he said. "I could barely get it out. It’s pretty diabolical. If I get in the hay more times than not, I’m probably not going to have a good chance."
Earlier I’d bumped into Paul Eales, working for Open Radio this week, shortly after he’d completed a circuit of the course and he’d seen Danny Willett miss a fairway by no more than eight feet. The Englishman had 128-yards to the flag and I’m not entirely sure what you’d call the shot Eales described, but his arms demonstrated that Willett’s full-blooded whack ricocheted off the clubface like a reverse shank.
"I haven’t seen rough like this since Carnoustie in 1999," he said. "If the sun continues to shine, the fairways will dry out, fire up and the targets from the tee will be smaller at the weekend. It will get tough.
"If it doesn’t dry out, yeah, I could see double digits from someone avoiding the rough, but remember there’s still much about the course that’s tricky. The holes go in all directions which is why being alert to the wind direction and reacting to it really matters."
Big in Japan
As Hideki Matsuyama was pleased to note at the Masters, Covid protocols have forced a vast reduction in the Japanese media scrum at the majors and this week only one person has travelled over and sat through quarantine.
That leaves just three London-based agency workers and my friend Kozo Matsuzawa, who works for the R&A, to accommodate the clamour for details from back home (even with Matsuyama out of the field following his positive Covid test).
Kozo told me he was not too confident for his compatriots the week, but I wanted to know a little more about Ryosuke Kinoshita, who birdied the final two holes of last year’s Singapore Open to earn his spot here. At the time, he thought it would be a neat 29th birthday present, but because of the delay, he will instead hope to celebrate his 30th birthday on Friday with an extension into the weekend.
My interest was piqued for a couple of reasons. On the one hand, he may have missed the cut last time out, but in June he won the Japan Golf Tour Championship and Fukushima Open. On the other (rather more enigmatic) hand, I might have spotted something.
What do the modern winners at Royal St George’s have in common? Not a lot at first glance, but consider this. Bill Rogers, Open winner in 1981, won at Gotemba in the Japan Tour’s Taiheyo Masters in 1977. Greg Norman completed the Sandwich/Gotemba double in 1993. Ben Curtis travelled to Japan late in the year of his Open win – and finished second. Darren Clarke was already a two-time Gotemba winner when he won in 2011. Other golfers have thrived at both, notably Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer and David Graham. And Kinoshita? He shared the 36- and 54-hole lead ahead of finishing second there last November.
Kozo very kindly said he’d translated his Q&A with the Open debutant and it revealed that the fairways were wider and softer than he had been expecting and "if I can keep my tee shots on the fairway, I’ve got a chance to play well."
He’s been watching the DVD of the 2011 for the last few weeks and added: "I absolutely love it already. The clubhouse is so nice and what has surprised me most is the gym. There are machines that I've never seen before. DJ and the other top pros were there, too. They were working real hard and I wasn't going to workout that much, but seeing them right in front of you got me excited and I started working out so hard as well! It’s a great vibe here.
"I was looking forward to seeing Hideki so that’s a shame. As a Japanese person I will do my best and hope to do well for him, too. I would love to come and play at this tournament every year. So I need to play well and hope to finish in top 10."
He’s a big price to achieve that, but after those two wins I’m slightly surprised he’s third favourite to be the top Japanese golfer. If he isn’t stiff after all his working out he might complete the job.
The business of judging performance not wins
I also caught up with Robert Lee today and a question in the Jon Rahm press conference led to me recalling a chat I had with him and Gordon Brand Jr at Royal Portrush. I’d asked them if they ever patted themselves on the back for a near-miss or were they only happy with a win. Brand Jr was adamant that he judged performance not result. "Otherwise you’d go mad," he said. Lee, on the other hand, admitted that he was only ever happy with wins. "And that," Brand Jr. said with a typically impish look in the eye, "is why I won more than you."
It was a fascinating notion: that the focus on winning can both drive a golfer berserk and also block opportunities. Brand Jr absolutely understood the paradox and how it affected his peers.
It seems Rahm tends to agree with him. "When you're not winning, you still need to get the positive out of it," he said. "A second place is not necessarily a bad thing. Depends on how it happens. Did I have a six-shot lead and lose it? Or was I 10 shots back, shot nine-under and finish second? There's a big difference. If you're in-contention and you don't get it done, it's not necessarily a failure. You've got to see what happens and you can learn from it. If somebody finished with five straight birdies, you don't necessarily lose it, they won it."
Practice day giddiness
It’s a perilous business judging form ahead of the championship days. I once watched Christian Cevaer lose two balls off the tee and duff another at the London GC on the Wednesday afternoon. Five days later he won the European Open.
Shrewder judges can spot something. A friend recalls watching Darren Clarke nail shots low into the wind on the range 10 years ago. "Must back him," he thought, but forgot. Earlier today the same fellow texted me with news that Lanto Griffin was working with a putting coach and draining everything on the practice green. Later he revealed he’d recalled me mentioning that Clarke found something with his putting in the days before his Open win and that Martin Kaymer believes nasty par savers are the key shot at Royal St George’s. Eager not to make the same mistake twice, he’s backed Griffin.
Thai breaker
It’s Jazz Janewattananond versus Poom Saksanin in the Top Thai markets this week. I’ve got nothing on the former, but the latter was receiving a massage on his shoulder on the range and he was also handed a new driver. He didn’t appear entirely convinced by either the original or the replacement. Beware the Cevaer-style info.
Private Widdle update
I’ve not reached Charles Hawtrey’s residence in Deal yet, but I have discovered that Andrew Cotter shares my habit of referencing him. In fact, he did so just last week at a Wimbledon event and was met with blank stares from the audience.