Turnberry and the British Open

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This year we attended the first round of the British Open at Turnberry, on the Ayrshire coast, southwest of Glasgow. (The officials do not let spectators bring phones or cameras onto the course, so we had to reenact the key moments on the pitch and putt course near our Edinburgh flat.)

It was a lot of fun. Thursday was a lovely, sunny day, and the course was beautiful. We camped at the par 3 #6 and saw a bunch of big names come through, including Tiger Woods, Camilo Villegas, Justin Leonard, Vijay Singh, Darren Clarke. Then we went to the par 4 #16, which was a brutally difficult hole on Thursday. The green is bordered by a creek on 2 sides, and the pin placement led about 25% of the 30 players we saw to hit it into the water, including Kenny Perry, Tiger, Adam Scott (twice), Sergio Garcia, and more. We saw Tom Watson (on the way to his remarkable performance) and Greg Norman there. Watson out-drove both his playing partners, and then was the only one in his threesome to par the hole.

Then the kids went off to the tent village (to play free golf games at the corporate tent) while I went to the par 5 #8, which was an eagle hole on Thursday. I saw 3 or 4 eagles there.

A very long day but lots of fun. What a story it became when Watson almost won it.

Dave

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