Ryo Ishikawa played along with Tiger Woods in the first two days of the 138th British Open (The Open) at Turnberry (The Open started in 1860, just before the Meiji Restoration), so I assume that many of you watched the game on television until late at night. Unfortunately both players did not pass preliminary. Looks like Tiger was not in tune this time.
This year’s Open was held at the prestigious Turnberry. This is the 4th time that Turnberry hosted The Open. The white lighthouse standing nearby holes 9 and 10 is the symbol mark of this links. Tom Watson who performed wonderfully this year won over Jack Nicklaus after a heated match at Masters in 1977, and also pulled off his 2nd victory at The Open.
The Open at Turnberry last time was in 1994 and the winner was Nick Price.
By the way, I once played golf in Turnberry, too. And amazingly enough it was in July 1994, just one week before The Open.
When I left the hotel at Glasgow in the morning with my friend, although it was July, the weather was cold, windy and raining heavily. We put on thick sweaters. I asked the driver "Is it possible to play golf today?" and he replied "This is exactly the weather for golf." But as we went on for about an hour, to our delight, the weather turned out to be fine by the time we arrived the links.
The course was tough just as you have seen on television, grasses in roughs, etc.- very challenging in many ways. I don’t even remember how many shots I’ve made. Many lost balls, too. I watched The Open on TV news (not live, as I recall) after I returned to Japan.
Wasn’t Tom Watson wonderful this time? It was a pity about the play-off. Of course, it would have been a historical record had he won the major championship at the age of nearly 60 years old. And pulling off victories 6 times at The Open would have been a tie-record (in numbers) to Harry Vardon, the hero of 19-20 century.