British Open (Golf)

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      Furious at LIV Golf Defections, British Open Could Change Entry Rules

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      The R&A’s chief executive issued a stark warning to the players and did little to disguise his disdain for the new Saudi-backed series.ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — The British Open’s organizer pointedly warned on Wednesday that it might change its entry rules for future tournaments — potentially complicating the claret jug prospects of players who defected to the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf series.Although the R&A, which runs the Open, has not made a decision about how players will be able to join the 156-man field in 2023 and beyond, the organization’s chief executive, Martin Slumbers, left open the possibility that the pathway to one of golf’s most hallowed tournaments could soon shift.“We will review our exemptions and qualifications criteria for the Open,” Slumbers said at a news conference at St. Andrews on the eve of the Open’s start on the Old Course. “We absolutely reserve the right to make changes” from past years, he added.“Players have to earn their place in the Open, and that is fundamental to its ethos and its unique global appeal,” said Slumbers, who did little to disguise his disdain for the LIV series, which he condemned as “entirely driven by money” and threatening to “the merit-based culture and the spirit of open competition that makes golf so special.”Still, he signaled that a wholesale ban of players was “not on our agenda.”Slumbers denied that the R&A was coordinating with the organizers of golf’s other major tournaments to potentially exclude LIV players, whose ranks include Brooks Koepka, Sergio García, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Patrick Reed. But the chief executive of the United States Golf Association, which controls the U.S. Open, said in June that the group would “re-evaluate” the criteria it uses to set that tournament’s field.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 5A new series. More

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      Some Classic Golf Courses Have Fallen Off the Open Schedule

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      Clubs that were the foundation of this tournament no longer host. They are considered too small, too remote or too Trump.St. Andrews is hosting its 30th British Open starting on Thursday, in celebration of the 150th Open Championship. The Old Course there has hosted more Open Championships than any other venue, which isn’t too surprising. It bills itself as the birthplace of golf and is scheduled by the R&A, which oversees the Open, to host the event every five years.What is surprising is that the course in second place, Prestwick Golf Club, synonymous with the star player Old Tom Morris and the advent of the championship itself, has hosted 24 championships, but hasn’t had one since 1925.Prestwick is not alone in having been dropped from the rota, or schedule. Three other courses that have hosted Opens seem to be permanently removed: Musselburgh Links, Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club and Prince’s Golf Club. And there’s one more, Turnberry Golf Club, which has featured famous duels for the trophy, the claret jug.There is understandably a lot of focus on the courses in the rota. St. Andrews, Royal Liverpool, Troon, Royal Portrush, Carnoustie and Muirfield have all hosted memorable Opens. Still, what happened to knock those other, historic courses off the Open rota?Prestwick Golf ClubPrestwick, in Scotland, is where the Open began. Old Tom Morris, the first international golf star, designed Prestwick. He sent the original invitation to the best golfers in Britain to crown the champion golfer of the year. And then he won four early Opens there (though not the first one, which Willie Park Sr. claimed).The club helped steer the early formation of the Open, and it more than pulled its weight with 24 Opens from 1860 and 1925. It also played a role in creating the claret jug, which the champion takes possession of for one year. Limiting it to a year was important. Young Tom Morris, Old Tom’s son, after winning three Opens in a row at Prestwick, was entitled to keep the tournament’s prize: a red leather belt. Beltless, the organizers came up with the claret jug in 1872.Ted Ray playing in the 1925 Open at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. He tied for second place. The club has not hosted an Open since.Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis, via Getty ImagesBut in 1925, Prestwick’s run of Opens came to an end. It wasn’t dramatic; it was logistical. The storied club couldn’t accommodate the growing number of fans who wanted to watch in person.While Jim Barnes, an Englishman who lived in the United States, won the claret jug, it was more about who lost it — and how.“In 1925 it was horrible crowd control that cost Macdonald Smith a chance to win,” Stephen Proctor, a golf historian and author of “The Long Golden Afternoon: Golf’s Age of Glory, 1864-1914,” said of the Scottish player who was in contention. “He was loved to death by the crowd. They really wanted a Scotsman to win. The whole crowd followed him for the final round. The theory was the crowd just agitated him.”The problem of space, crowds and growing interest in watching the Open was an issue at a tight, small course like Prestwick. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, which organized the Open at the time, saw that interest was growing. (In 2004, the golf club created a separate group, the R&A, to oversee its championships, including the Open.)“The holes are tightly packed together, so movement of the crowds between holes would have been impossible in the 1940s and onwards,” said Roger McStravick, a golf historian.Despite its short length for the modern game — just under about 6,500 yards — and its out-of-the-way location, Prestwick has its backers.“It’s a mistake that it hasn’t hosted a major since then,” said Ran Morrissett, co-founder of Golf Club Atlas, a golf architecture forum. “It has some of the meatiest, biggest par 4s in that stretch from holes six to 10. But tastes in architecture change with time.”Mike Woodcock, a spokesman for the R&A, said in explaining the rota that the Open “requires a large footprint to be able to stage it as well as an outstanding links golf course, which will test the world’s best golfers and the necessary transport infrastructure to allow tens of thousands of fans in and out each day.”“That’s a high bar to hit.”Musselburgh LinksMusselburgh, also a Scottish course, was home to the Park family. Willie Park Sr., who won the first Open in 1860, hailed from there. He won the Open three more times, with his last in 1875. His brother Mungo Park won it in 1874. And his son Willie Park Jr. won the Open in 1887 and 1889.Willie Jr.’s win proved significant: It was at the last Open held at Musselburgh. The course had significant limitations, even in the 19th century. It was only nine holes, and it was tough to get to. As the format of the Open expanded to 72 holes, it was just too small.Musselburgh, also in Scotland, last hosted the Open in 1899.David Cannon/Getty ImagesIt was also St. Andrews and the R&A exerting itself as the new home of golf that led to Musselburgh being removed from the original rota, which also included Prestwick and St Andrews.“In 1892 it was the turn of Musselbrugh to host the Open,” said Mungo Park, an architect and descendant of the Parks. “But in 1891 the Honorable Company [of Edinburgh Golfers] had bought Muirfield. They had the right of running the Open wherever they wanted, and they took it to Muirfield.”“My uncle, having won the 1889 Open, was a man of some influence in the golfing world,” Park added. “And he wasn’t afraid to challenge the gentlemen. He said this isn’t right. You can’t take it from Musselburgh. But they arguably had the rights to take it with them and they did.”Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club and Prince’s Golf ClubBetween them, they hosted three Opens. Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club nabbed two and Prince’s Golf Club one.Royal Cinque Ports is in Deal, an English town with small, narrow roads. The modern Open is a large production. And there are other, more amenable venues in England. “It’s a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful golf course,” Morrissett of Golf Club Atlas said. “The fact that it can’t host an Open in no way detracts from the merits of the golf course.”In 1932, Prince’s Golf Club in England put on a show with its one and only Open: The great American player Gene Sarazen, who would win all four majors in his career, won his only Open there. He beat Smith, who had lost the last Open at Prestwick in 1925.TurnberryThe case of Turnberry in Scotland is different. It’s a stern test of golf that has hosted four championships. In 1977, the “Duel in the Sun” at Turnberry pitted Tom Watson against Jack Nicklaus, with Watson eventually prevailing. It last hosted an Open in 2009.But in 2014, Donald J. Trump bought Turnberry and renamed it Trump Turnberry. The course’s place on the rota was put on hold.In 2014, Donald J. Trump purchased Turnberry, a Scottish course that last hosted the Open in 2009. Its place on the Open rota was put on hold during his presidency.Russell Cheyne/Reuters“Turnberry will be missed because of the super television optics and sea views,” said David Hamilton, author of “Golf — Scotland’s Game.”While politics have often played a part in where the Open goes, today it’s also about convenience and infrastructure. And that’s what caused many of the other courses to be dropped.“The Open has got bigger and bigger, which ruled out courses over time,” McStravik said. “Some were too short. Some were inaccessible. Some clubs’ fortunes changed, so it went to a neighboring course.”He added: “You like to see the heroes of the day play on the same links that the legends played on. The magic of the Open is that it directly connects Old Tom Morris to Bobby Jones to Ben Hogan to Jack Nicklaus to Seve [Ballesteros] to Rory McIlroy.” More

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      To Win the British Open, You Have to Go Through the Road Hole

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      Some say the 17th hole on the Old Course at St. Andrews is the hardest in the world. Many championship dreams have died there.Forty-four summers ago, Tommy Nakajima of Japan was in the hunt during the third round of the 1978 British Open. On the Old Course at St. Andrews — where the tournament will be staged once again this week — Nakajima knocked his second shot onto the putting surface at No. 17, a par 4 known as the Road Hole. Mission accomplished.Nakajima would now likely make a par, or bogey at the worst, on one of the most intimidating holes in professional golf.His putt, however, made its way down the wrong slope, taking an unfortunate left turn into a pot bunker with remarkably high side walls. But his troubles were just beginning. From there, Nakajima needed four shots to get the ball onto the green. He ended up recording a nine on the hole, ruining any real hopes of winning the claret jug. He would finish the tournament in a tie for 17th.Tommy Nakajima’s putt found its way into the pot bunker beside the Road Hole during the 1978 British Open, ruining any real hopes of winning the competition.Peter Dazeley/Getty ImagesNakajima’s playing partner in that third round was Tom Weiskopf, who had won the 1973 British Open.Before Nakajima hit his first putt, Weiskopf said to his caddie, “He better be careful,” Weiskopf recalled.Nakajima’s collapse, as crushing as it was, has hardly been the only calamity on the Road Hole, so named because it’s next to a road.“There are a lot of things that can go wrong on this hole,” said Nick Price, who won the British Open in 1994. “It’s like walking through a minefield.”In 1984, Tom Watson found the road. He was aiming to win the tournament for the third consecutive time. Such a victory would be his sixth title in the Open; he would tie the record held by the British golfer Harry Vardon. However, Watson’s dream would soon be history.In 1995, Italy’s Costantino Rocca, in a four-hole playoff against John Daly, needed three shots to get out of the bunker. That was it for him.The first challenge for players at No. 17 — which was lengthened in 2010 to 495 yards from 455 — is to navigate a treacherous blind tee shot, meaning players can’t see the landing area on the fairway because the view is blocked by a green shed on the right.The preferred landing spot is on the right side of the fairway, but if the ball veers too far right, it might end up out of bounds. Players will typically set their target, depending on the wind, for one of the letters on a sign on the shed that reads: Old Course Hotel. Sometimes, balls hit the hotel itself.No wonder a lot of golfers play it safe by aiming left, but that approach isn’t foolproof, either.“There are a lot of things that can go wrong on this hole,” Nick Price, the winner of the 1994 British Open, said of the 17th hole. “It’s like walking through a minefield.”Phil Sheldon/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesIf you go into the rough on the left, “you’ve got a terrible angle to the pin and a terrible angle to the front edge of the green,” said David Graham, a two-time major champion.Wherever that first shot ends up, the next shot is just as daunting.“The last thing you want to do is go on the road,” Tony Jacklin, who won the 1969 Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club in England. “The best you can expect to do with a second shot is go for the front part of the green. I don’t care how in command of your game you are. You can’t guarantee hitting that green in two.”As Tom Watson knows too well.During the 1984 Open, Watson was tied with Seve Ballesteros when he sent his drive at 17 to the right. He hit it far enough to clear the wall of the hotel, but the ball wound up on a steep slope.“The shot you want to play to that green is a low-running shot,” Watson said. “You can’t do that from a severe upslope.”He flew his two-iron approach about 30 yards to the right, the ball coming to a rest on the road close to a stone wall. With an abbreviated backswing, Watson managed to get the ball to within 30 feet of the flagstick. He could still save par.Before he putted, however, Watson recalled, “All of a sudden, I hear this roar at the 18th hole. I look up and there’s Seve with his fist up in the air. I said, ‘Uh-oh, I’ve got to make this putt and birdie the last hole.’” When he didn’t make the putt, Watson knew it was over. He lost by two shots and never won another claret jug.Watson, who played in the Open at St. Andrews on eight occasions, strongly advises against challenging the back or middle part of the green.“If you really play it smart,” he explained, “you never try to hit it more than 20 or 30 feet onto the surface of the green. Try to two-putt for your par and get out of there.”Or maybe not go for the green at all.In the 1990 Open, which he won, Nick Faldo laid up short of the putting surface on 17 in three of the four days, including the final round. Leading by five shots and 215 yards away, he saw no reason to take any chances. Faldo walked away from the hole with a bogey. Earlier in that same round, Peter Jacobsen had needed three strokes to move the ball 30 yards from the rough at No. 17, recording an eight.In 1984, Ballesteros seemed to approach the hole as if it were a par 5, hoping to make no worse than a bogey. Price, the 1994 British Open winner, expressed a similar sentiment.“If it was really into the wind, I’d lay up with a four or three iron and then chip up,” Price said. “If I made 4, I made 4. I wasn’t going to make six, seven or eight, that’s for sure.”Players who strive to avoid the road over the green must also be wary of the pot bunker to the hole’s left.Andrew Milligan/PA Wire, via Associated PressThat the hole comes so late in the round, with a championship possibly at stake, makes the challenge even more formidable. In 2015, the last time the Open was held at St. Andrews, the Road Hole ranked as the most difficult hole, with the players averaging 4.655 strokes.Over the course of the entire tournament, there were only nine birdies on 17, while there were 217 bogeys and 32 double bogeys there.“It’s nearly impossible to make a birdie even once in four days,” Graham, the two-time major champion, said. “If you do, it’s a long putt.”Bernard Darwin, the English golf writer and accomplished amateur, perhaps put in best in describing the elusive green on the Road Hole. He wrote that it “lies between a greedy little bunker on one side and a brutally hard road on the other. Many like it, most respect it, and all fear it.” More

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      Q&A with the golfer John Cook about his near miss at winning the 1992 British Open.

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      He was leading late in the 1992 Open, but ended up losing by a stroke.In the 1992 British Open at Muirfield in Scotland, John Cook had his first major win within his grasp. Leading by two strokes in the final round, all he needed was to make a two-foot birdie putt on No. 17 and par No. 18, and the claret jug would, in all likelihood, have been his.He missed the putt and bogeyed 18, finishing a stroke behind the champion, Nick Faldo.Cook, who tied for second a month later in the P.G.A. Championship, won 11 PGA Tour events but no majors.An analyst for Golf Channel, Cook, 64, reflected recently on the 1992 Open.The following conversation has been edited and condensed.Can you bring me back to that week in Muirfield and what it felt like to come so close?I felt very confident. I was second or third on the money list and playing good. The problem was when I got over there, my clubs didn’t make it for two days. I walked around, hit shots out of Mark O’Meara’s [the American golfer] bag. Just kind of relearned the golf course. I played there in 1980, but hadn’t played any of the Opens from then on.Why didn’t you go during those years?I either wasn’t exempt or wasn’t high enough on the money list to take three weeks out, spend $20,000 to go. I had a young family. They couldn’t travel with me.When did the clubs arrive?I got them Tuesday evening, so I did get to practice on Wednesday with them. I was ready to go.Maybe not having your clubs took a little pressure off?You might be right. I felt refreshed. I felt like I knew the course by just kind of walking around, seeing things. Maybe, in a roundabout way, that’s the way to prepare. You’ve know what you got to do. You’ve got to keep it out of the bunkers, keep it out of the heather and go from there.So the key is to call the airlines and have them lose your clubs?Just make sure they’re there Tuesday night.On the green at 17, did you think you needed to make an eagle?I’m thinking, if this [30-foot] putt goes in, great. If it doesn’t, not a big thing. Just go up, tap it in and move on to 18. I hit a good first putt, just missed on the right edge. It went by a couple of feet. I went up and marked it. This was just a little two-footer that normally you pay attention. I didn’t. I took it for granted.What does that mean?I got up and didn’t think about exactly where I wanted to hit it. I hit it too hard. It went through the break and missed. There’s some pressure there. I didn’t really feel it, but when I think about it, I got out of my routine, and that’s part of not handling the pressure. Part of handling the pressure is you stay in that routine. The same walk, the same marking of your ball, the same putting it down. For some reason, I took it for granted that this was already given to me.How did you deal with such a heartbreaking loss?That night was not comfortable. I got back to the house we were renting with Mark. He came out and handed us [Cook and his caddie] a couple of beers. He didn’t really say anything. He was busted up.Thirty years later, is the pain still there?Quite honestly, it is. Everyone keeps reminding me: “You’ve had a wonderful career. You’ve won 20 plus times on both tours. You can be proud of yourself.” Yeah, I’m very proud of that. I’ve won a lot of golf tournaments.But I’m disappointed I didn’t win a major. I thought I had the game to win any of the majors.Who you picking for St. Andrews?I think Rory’s [McIlroy] game is just right. You’ve got to keep it out of bunkers, and you’ve got to stay away from hitting that one [disastrous] shot. He has that one shot in him. He can’t afford to have that one shot. And I think Xander [Schauffele, who has won his last two starts]. Those would be my two. More

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      Tiger Woods Criticizes LIV Golf, Greg Norman at British Open

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      Two days before the Open’s start at golf’s oldest course, the 15-time major champion said he worried about young players defecting to the LIV Golf series.ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Tiger Woods, conspicuously enchanted by his improbable return to his sport’s oldest course, on Tuesday offered a forceful rebuke of the players, past and present, who have aligned themselves with the rebel Saudi-backed LIV Golf series.He chided Greg Norman, the major champion-turned-LIV chief executive, for pursuits that are not “in the best interest of our game” and backed his effective banishment from this year’s British Open at St. Andrews. He said young players who were defecting from the PGA Tour had “turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position.” And he cast doubt on whether LIV’s model — 54-hole, no-cut tournaments for players making guaranteed money — would allow golf and its top players to thrive.“I can understand 54 holes is almost like a mandate when you get to the Senior Tour — the guys are a little bit older and a little more banged up — but when you’re at this young age and some of these kids — they really are kids who have gone from amateur golf into that organization — 72-hole tests are a part of it,” Woods, 46, said during a news conference two days before the Open’s scheduled start on Scotland’s coast.“I just don’t see how that move is positive in the long term for a lot of these players, especially if the LIV organization doesn’t get world-ranking points and the major championships change their criteria for entering the events,” he added.Woods avoided explicit condemnations of current players who have joined LIV in exchange for staggering sums, including Sergio García, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Patrick Reed, as well as an array of less prominent golfers.But he pointedly questioned Norman, who has grown so divisive in golf that the R&A, the Open’s organizer, acknowledged over the weekend that it had not invited him to Tuesday’s dinner for past Open champions.“I know Greg tried to do this back in the early ’90s,” Woods said of Norman’s quest to challenge golf’s long-established order. “It didn’t work then, and he’s trying to make it work now. I still don’t see how that’s in the best interests of the game.”Woods also embraced the R&A’s exile of Norman, who had previously called the decision “petty.”“Greg has done some things that I don’t think is in the best interest of our game, and we’re coming back to probably the most historic and traditional place in our sport,” Woods said. “I believe it’s the right thing.”Woods’s case against LIV came as he prepared for what he acknowledged Tuesday could very well be his final Open at his favorite course.“I’m not going to play a full schedule ever again,” said Woods, who has undergone an aggressive rehabilitation effort since a car wreck in February 2021 that led doctors to consider a leg amputation. “My body just won’t allow me to do that. I don’t know how many Open Championships I have left here at St. Andrews, but I wanted this one. It started here for me in ’95, and if it ends here in ’22, it does. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. If I get the chance to play one more, it would be great, but there’s no guarantee.” More

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      Rail Strife Shadows Plans for Record British Open Crowd

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      About 290,000 fans are expected at St. Andrews for this year’s tournament. Whether they will be able to get there by train is a different matter.EDINBURGH — For the 150th iteration of the British Open, organizers are expecting the thickest galleries in the competition’s history, with some 290,000 fans traipsing around to gawk at the Old Course at St. Andrews over the event.But there is no guarantee all of them will reach Scotland’s eastern edge: For this Open, labor strife has already taken more of a star turn than many of the golfers will have before the tournament’s end on Sunday.“We may not be able to get you to the course,” Phil Campbell, the head of customer operations for ScotRail, the publicly owned train service, warned would-be spectators.“There is a risk that fans who travel by train may find there are no services to get them home,” the R&A, the Open’s organizer, said.Discord and uncertainty around rail service have been staples of Scottish life since May, when a dispute over pay led many of ScotRail’s unionized drivers to decline the overtime and rest-day assignments that train operators in Britain have routinely used to fill out their schedules. The result has been a severely curtailed timetable that has fueled transit troubles across Scotland since the spring. ScotRail and its drivers struck a deal on Monday after a union vote, but that turmoil had already spread into Open week, an important period for Britain’s tourism economy.Making matters worse, of course, is that this year, of all years, is the one expected to draw the mightiest crowd in Open history.Audiences watched a practice day on the Old Course, in St. Andrews.Robert Ormerod for The New York TimesRobert Ormerod for The New York TimesThe R&A, which has pegged the previous attendance record at 239,000 in 2000, when Tiger Woods won by eight strokes at St. Andrews, said it received more than 1.3 million requests for tickets for the 2022 Open. It’s a reflection of the tournament’s milestone anniversary, the return to the Old Course and the seize-the-day sensibilities that have lately swept much of Western Europe.The specter of 290,000 fans seemed ambitious enough back in April, when the R&A made the announcement of the onslaught coming to a seaside town of about 20,000. Now, it just seems like a nightmare.The discontent around train service in the United Kingdom has not been limited to ScotRail. On Monday, fan-stocked trains traveling from London to Edinburgh faced hours of delays in the north of England because of an electrical failure. Last month, Britain faced its largest railway strike in three decades, and Britons are bracing for a summer of labor turmoil across several sectors.The union that represents ScotRail drivers said Monday that its members had voted to accept a new deal, but the rail service has said that it will take time, perhaps more than a week, to resume its normal operations. It told golf fans to be prepared for difficulties throughout the Open and went as far as issuing what it termed a “travel warning.”A seaside town of 20,000 will swell with visitors.Robert Ormerod for The New York TimesSo, perhaps improbably, the camping and glamping options around St. Andrews, or maybe even Gary Player’s 1955 strategy of sleeping on a sand dune, seem more appealing. But most everyone seems to agree — and in the era of LIV Golf, big hitters and the feud between Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau, agreement is in short supply around courses these days — that Leuchars, the train station closest to St. Andrews, will be a mess, and so will the roads funneling spectators in and out of St. Andrews.A ScotRail spokesman said the operator expected to run 25 percent of the trains it had planned for the Open, suggesting that many thousands of fans will fill the roadways from places such as Dundee and Edinburgh. The R&A, which is not offering refunds for Open tickets because of travel problems, has been scrambling to add parking areas.There is also an official helicopter landing site.What is all but certain, though, is that, transit chaos or not, the Open will have far more spectators this year than last. In 2021, when Britain was still wrapped up in public health protocols, just 152,330 fans were in attendance at Royal St. George’s in England, the lowest tally since 2013.A ScotRail spokesman said the operator expected to run 25 percent of the trains it had planned for the Open.Robert Ormerod for The New York Times More

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      Greg Norman Disinvited From British Open

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      Norman’s only major tournament victories came in Opens, but his role leading the Saudi-financed LIV Golf series has caused a rift with the R&A.LONDON — It was only this spring that Greg Norman, who twice hoisted the Claret Jug as the winner of the British Open, sought a special dispensation to play in this week’s tournament at St. Andrews in Scotland.The reply was unequivocal: No.And not only is there no spot in the field for Norman, whose role in the new LIV Golf series has made him a pariah in certain golf circles, it turns out Norman is not even invited to dinner.The R&A, which organizes the Open, over the weekend became the latest corner of golf to say it had cast Norman into exile, temporarily banishing him even from the traditional dinnertime gathering of past Open champions. The move has made this week’s tournament, the last of the year’s four golf majors, the newest flash point as players and executives openly clash over LIV Golf, the Saudi-funded insurgent league that has made a sport Norman once ruled decidedly factional.In a polite-but-firm statement, the R&A made clear it had chosen a side. It had contacted Norman, it said, “to advise him that we decided not to invite him to attend on this occasion.”“The 150th Open is an extremely important milestone for golf and we want to ensure that the focus remains on celebrating the championship and its heritage,” the R&A said. “Unfortunately, we do not believe that would be the case if Greg were to attend. We hope that when circumstances allow Greg will be able to attend again in future.”LIV Golf, whose main financial backer is Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Norman, LIV’s chief executive, told Australian Golf Digest that he was “disappointed” and thought the decision was “petty.”“I would have thought the R&A would have stayed above it all given their position in world golf,” said Norman, whose lone victories in major tournaments came at the Opens in 1986 at Turnberry and in 1993 at Royal St. George’s.The public tangle between Norman, 67, and the R&A began in April when he expressed confidence in the Australian news media that he could receive an exemption from Open rules — which allow past champions to enter on that qualification alone if they are 60 or younger — and play in the 150th iteration of the tournament, scheduled to begin Thursday at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland.Word soon came back that the R&A would offer Norman no such exemption. (The governing body has flexibility: It agreed to admit Mark Calcavecchia, the 62-year-old professional who won at Royal Troon in 1989, because the Open that was expected to be his farewell in 2020 was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic and he was recovering from surgery last summer.)But attention on — and scrutiny of — Norman has only increased in the interceding months, as he has lured past major champions like Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Patrick Reed to the LIV series, rupturing their ties to the PGA Tour and turning golf into a cauldron of acrimony. His statements in May dismissing Saudi Arabia’s murder and dismemberment of a Washington Post journalist by saying, “Look, we’ve all made mistakes,” prompted new criticism.Norman is not the first major champion to miss a gathering of past winners this year because of a furor tied to Saudi Arabia. Mickelson, a three-time Masters champion, was absent from the event when it was held at Augusta National Golf Club in April after he condemned Saudi Arabia’s “horrible record on human rights” but said LIV was “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”Mickelson is expected to play at St. Andrews this week. More

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      Gary Player Fears for the Old Course (and Probably Your Breakfast Order)

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      NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Surely, Gary Player could have long ago gotten away from being one of golf’s globe-trotting mascots.He is 86 now, with 160 victories — including nine major championships — and millions of dollars to his name. But Player, who secured the career Grand Slam when he was 29, has never seemed able to stop, never eager to surrender to age or outrage or the siren songs of privacy or retirement.So there he was one spring day, clad, as ever, almost entirely in black, cheerfully bobbing around Aronimink Golf Club near Philadelphia as he opined on whatever and signed autographs and played the game that made a young man from South Africa mightily famous.But one of his preferred stretches of any year will come with this week’s British Open, which he played a record 46 consecutive times. The 150th edition of the Open will begin Thursday on the Old Course at St. Andrews, which Player first visited in 1955 when he failed to qualify for the tournament.In an interview in May at Aronimink, where he won the 1962 P.G.A. Championship and still plays when he is in the area to visit his daughter, Player reflected on the state of the Open and the sport, and, of course, the physical regimen that has kept him on courses well into his ninth decade.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.You’ve called the British Open your favorite major. Why?The British Open is the greatest championship in the world. I think the U.S. Open is second, the P.G.A. is third and the Masters fourth.So, why?That’s where it all started, and this is the game that we all love and adore and what it’s done for us in our lives, irrespective of whether you’re a professional or amateur.But the Open Championship is the challenge of the mind like no other tournament. Remember there, because of the field, you tee off sometimes at 6:30 in the morning and the last starting time is 4 o’clock.So you play in the morning and you play in perfect weather and you shoot an average round of 72. In the afternoon, the wind comes up and a little bit of rain and you shoot 74 and it’s your highlight of the year you’ve played so well. So what it does is test you more — far more — than any other tournament at not feeling sorry for yourself, at getting in there and loving adversity and realizing if I can overcome this, I really am the champion of the world.I’ll never forget going to St. Andrews my first year and thinking, “What a crap golf course.” But it was immaturity, my lack of knowledge of the game.Player, center, after winning the British Open at age 23. He won nine major championships.Bettmann / ContributorYou slept on the dunes during your first St. Andrews trip, right?I leave South Africa with 200 pounds in my pocket. That’s my total asset in the world, and now I’ve got to play the Tour and if I don’t play well, go back home — not like today when you’ve got a sponsor and the guys are making millions and millions.I arrive at St. Andrews. I don’t have a booking for a hotel. So I go to these hotels — 80 pounds, 90 pounds, 100 pounds. I said, I’ll sleep on the beach. It was a great evening, right where they did “Chariots of Fire.” I went and lay there on the beach with my waterproofs on. I wake up the next day and I find a room for 10 shillings and sixpence, and that’s where I slept.It was right opposite the 18th green. Now I get on the first tee, and I’m very nervous and the starter says, “Play away, laddie.”Ray Charles can’t miss that fairway, it’s so wide, OK? So I get up, hook the ball, it’s going out of bounds, it hits the stake, comes back.As I’m walking away, he says, “What’s your name?” I said, “My name is Gary Player, sir.” He says, “What is your handicap?” I said, “No, I’m a pro.” He says, “You’re a pro? Laddie, you must be a hell of a chipper and putter.”Time goes by, I come back and I’m now the youngest man to win the Open. And he sees me, “It’s a bloody miracle! Actually, laddie, it’s a mirage. I can’t believe it’s you. You won the Open!”You never finished better than seventh in an Open at St. Andrews. To your mind, what makes St. Andrews as challenging as it is?The wind or the rain or whatever the conditions are, and staying out of the bunkers, which are fatal. When you get in those bunkers, you just get out. You don’t take a 4-iron and knock it out like you can in South Africa or America.And then you’ve got the greens, which are so big that they’re double greens.My goodness me, is it hard to judge second shots.Player during the British Open at St. Andrews in Scotland on July 20, 2000. His best finish at a British Open at St. Andrews was seventh.photo by Paul Severn/Getty ImagesGiven how long people are hitting, do you think the Old Course is irrelevant or headed toward irrelevancy?It is. That’s the tragedy, but that’s not the fault of the golf course; that’s the fault of our leaders. Our leaders have allowed the ball to go too far.You’ve got to have some vision in life. In 30 to 40 years, they’re going to hit the ball 500 yards. You know, on the second hole at Augusta, they’re hitting an 8-iron to the green. Jack Nicklaus, if you gave him this equipment and let him tee off in his prime, he’d hit it as far or farther as most guys. The best he ever did was 5-iron.So, it’s making a mockery of it.Now, can you afford to do what Augusta does? Keep going backward and buying land? No. And is it necessary? No, and it’s a waste of money. Young people should be getting the money to improve golf and conditions and giving African Americans a chance in the inner cities. They should be teaching kids about getting an opportunity to play golf.But no, that money’s being wasted because you now have the tees longer, it’s more irrigation, it’s more fertilization, it’s more machinery, it’s more labor.It sounds like it infuriates you.It burns. It destroys me. A guy like Bryson DeChambeau, he could drive the first green. He’ll definitely drive the third. He will drive seven to eight greens in the tournament.Seven? On the most famous golf course on the planet? All I pray is that during the Open they have wind and a little bit of rain. Otherwise, they’re going to annihilate the golf course.So if the course is becoming a mockery, should the R&A keep holding Opens at St. Andrews every so often?Yes, because you don’t want to lose something that is so famous — the greatest championship in the world — by stupidity.National apartheid demonstrations outside Manly Golf Club, Nov. 6, 1971.Photo by Edward Beresford Golding/Fairfax Media via Getty ImagesYou faced protests in the 1960s over your views on apartheid, which you later distanced yourself from.When you lived in apartheid like I did — you have no idea, young people have no idea. It was like living in Germany. If you said something when I was a young man about the government, you could get what they called a 90-day policy of jail.You were scared.But people did protest.In 1969, I was playing at the P.G.A. at Dayton, Ohio, and they threw telephone books at the top of my backswing, they threw ice in my eyes, they threw balls between my legs, they screamed on my backswing. They were all doing it to me to get at the South African government because I was the world champion.Do you think Phil Mickelson will face the same kind of blowback for embracing Saudi Arabia’s moves in golf?He could never face it to the degree that I had. I had it most places in the world, and had I not had all that, I could have won more majors.At Augusta this year, you go into the press facility after we opened the golf course. They asked a question about Phil Mickelson. Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus said nothing. But, no, I’m not going to be like that. Silence in the face of evil is evil.So there’s now Phil Mickelson, the greatest P.R. that golf ever had. He’s been ostracized because he said something in confidence to a man who’s doing a book. Incorrectly, he said something, which we all do.We all deserve a second strike. We say in our prayers, “Forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive them.” Are we adhering to that? No!With that public attitude in mind, do you think there is a path for public redemption for Mickelson?The American nation is a nation, more so than any other nation, that forgives. They will cheer him to the hilt, a guarantee. If he doesn’t, I’ll be shocked because he deserves it.Rory McIlroy didn’t get to play at St. Andrews in 2015 because of an injury. Is this his time?Rory McIlroy is the most talented golfer in the world today. Whether you use the talent and do it effectively, that’s up to him. To the standard of his ability, he has not delivered. Now, he’s won four majors, but with his ability, he should have won six by now. He should be doing way better.But Ben Hogan — the best player to ever play the game — only won his first major championship at 34, so Rory is in his infancy. But everyone, as we live in the world now, wants instant delivery, and it doesn’t happen like that in life.I’m a big Rory fan as far as his future is concerned. I don’t know if he’s nervous. I can only pass comment on the golf course.He’s so strong, and he’s so fit, and he’s a nice man.Collin Morikawa obviously had a tremendous Open last year. Do you see him as one of the dominant faces of the game years from now?Throughout history, you’ve always had someone who dominated. Ben Hogan was the best that ever played. Then came Jack Nicklaus. Prior to that, it was Bobby Jones. Then came Tiger Woods.I can’t tell you who the best player in the world is now. Nobody is warranting to say he is the best player in the world; he can say he’s one of the best players.Player in the locker room of Aronimink Golf Course in May.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesWhy do you still play? Is it for fun? For physical experience? To compete with yourself?I love people, and I learn something from everyone I play with.I had been trying for years to beat my age by 18 shots. I’ve done 17 shots six times. One time, I had it in my hand — there was no way I could not do it — and I quite honestly choked. It was the first time I really had adrenaline on a golf course since winning a British Open or the Masters.But I’m playing with Donald Trump with friends of mine, and I shoot 19 under my age. I go out the next day and shoot 18 under my age, and yet, for years, I’ve been trying to achieve it. [Asked whether Player had joined Trump for a round and scored a 67, a spokesman for Trump, Taylor Budowich, replied: “He did, and President Trump was equally impressed.”]My dream is to repay America for what it’s done for me.I want people, when I die, to say, “Gary Player, crikey, man, did he teach me to look after my body.” It’s a holy temple. People in America don’t worry about health. Two percent, maybe — I’m being kind — under-eat, exercise, laugh and have unmeasured love in their hearts.And yet what’s the most important thing in your life? Your health. People are just eating themselves into the grave. I had no breakfast today.Player taking the ceremonial tee shots at the Masters Tournament on Nov, 12, 2020.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWhat did you have today?I had a hamburger with no bun. I don’t eat the bun. The bun is crap. You might as well eat green grass.I don’t eat bacon. I don’t drink milk. I don’t eat ice cream. I love ice cream, I love bacon, but I took an oath to God I would never have it because if I want to live a long time, it takes effort, it takes work, it takes dedication.Given all of that, what did you shoot today?74. If I have a bad day, it’s 75.I’ve beaten my age 2,400 times, plus, in a row.Do you fear the day you won’t be able to do that, or do you think that day will never come?Age takes care of everything. If you’re reasonably well read and intelligent, you’ve got to accept those things.What goes through your head when you visit St. Andrews now?Gratitude.My mind’s going to go back to 1955. Sixty-seven years! A lot of people don’t live to 67. More