Royal St. George’s has seen British Open pain and agony. Now comes the joy of rebirth. - The Washington Post

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The 149th British Open is being played at the southernmost course on the rota, a course less revered than most of the others in the rotation, yet a course that has seen 14 previous Opens and untold pain mingled with sporadic joy.

Royal St. George’s is the course where 42-year-old Darren Clarke notched a wildly popular win by three over Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson at the 2011 Open, then met reporters the next morning and said, “I had quite a few pints and quite a few beers and quite a few glasses of red wine.” And: “I had 294 messages, and the writing is far too small for me to look at them in this state, so I may look at them tomorrow at some stage and figure them out.” And: “I may not be sober for the Irish Open, but I will be in Killarney.”

It’s the course where 26-year-old Ohioan Ben Curtis won as a 750-1 shot in his first major in 2003 but also where one of the most horrifying late-major sights yet seen happened on the par-3, 163-yard No. 16: Thomas Bjorn needed three shots to get out of one of the 106 bunkers, the one to the right of the green. Two of those shots reached the green and then diabolically boomeranged to the sand.

It’s the course where a 38-year-old Greg Norman topped a spectacular leader board at the 1993 Open, closing with one of the best rounds ever played, a 64 that bested a top 10 that managed to cram in major winners (or eventual major winners) Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Corey Pavin, Ernie Els, Paul Lawrie, Nick Price, Fred Couples, Wayne Grady and Scott Simpson, among others. That, plus Payne Stewart shooting a 63 on closing day and finishing 12th.

And it’s the course where a golfing comet named Bill Rogers epitomized his four wins in his stunning 1981 by claiming the Open by four shots.

It’s also where a 13-year-old Brooks Koepka once fell asleep.

That’s his story from the 2003 Open, when his mother took young Brooks and his brother on a trip from South Florida across the Atlantic, around the United Kingdom and to its golf major. “Tiger was playing on 13,” four-time major winner Koepka told reporters Tuesday at the course in Sandwich, England, “and my brother had said something, and Tiger said something back to him, and we thought it was the coolest thing at the time.”

“It’s kind of funny,” Koepka also told reporters. “I think with about three holes left, I remember Thomas [Bjorn] took a few out of the bunker, and I think Ben [Curtis] was maybe a group or two behind him, but I ended up falling asleep right in the little pavilion to the right of 18 and didn’t even see the finish. I remember getting yelled at by my mom — ‘I-didn’t-bring-you-over-here-to-fall-asleep’ kind of deal.”

Royal St. George’s began in 1887, and it became one of three courses in the county of Kent to conduct Opens, the others being Prince’s (which held it once, when Gene Sarazen won in 1932 and the sand wedge was a fresh invention), and Royal Cinque Ports, which had two turns at the major (1909, 1920). Royal St. George’s hosting the 34th Open in 1894 represented a sea change; it brought the first Open held outside Scotland. Then it yielded the first professional winner from outside Scotland, England’s John Henry (J.H.) Taylor, whose eventual five Open titles would help him combine with Harry Vardon and James Braid to win 16 of the Opens between then and 1920.

In something of a love letter to golfers worldwide, even if they lacked Twitter to follow it, Taylor shot 84-80-81-81. According to the Royal & Ancient history, the famed and St Andrews-born Old Tom Morris came south to watch that event, then wound up playing even at age almost 73. He shot a 100 on Saturday and withdrew.

Now, after planning to hold the Open in 2020 but having to wait for 2021 because of the pandemic, Royal St. George’s gets its turn, over near Sandwich Bay. “Even actually walking in our little, like, Open clubhouse here this week,” Rory McIlroy said, “there’s a board with the list of winners and the courses, and it says, ‘2020 championship not played,’ and you’re just so used to seeing that like 1941 or 1945, like war years and stuff like that. The fact that every time now you look at 2020 it’s going to say, ‘championship not played,’ it just sort of stuck with me.”

It’s two long years since the roars of Royal Portrush way up in Northern Ireland, a course Koepka proclaims one of his two favorites on the rota, alongside St Andrews. Often willing to supply the candor people claim to want but seldom actually do, Koepka knocked Royal St. George’s a bit Tuesday for its occasional blind shots but also minimized his own views as irrelevant to the task. The British Open has come back to life, with 32,000 spectators expected. As said Tommy Fleetwood, England’s three-time major contender and 2019 distant runner-up to Shane Lowry at Royal Portrush, “It was a long time ago now.”

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Royal St. George’s has seen British Open pain and agony. Now comes the joy of rebirth. - The Washington Post
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