Opinion & Analysis

Is the Open Championship really the truest test?

Published

10 years ago

Jul 19, 2016

What a tournament that was. Last weekend, golf fans were treated to the best of what professional golf has to offer. There was a guy named Beef in all his bearded glory, Phil the Thrill going for another major and Stenson closing it out with a tie for lowest final round in major history. The final two rounds saw two of the best players in the world go toe to toe with shot making, skill and sportsmanship.

I feel confident saying the Open is the most entertaining golf tournament of the year, with only the Masters offering much of a challenge. The U.S. Open is great, but you can only watch players hacking it out of six inches of rough for so long — and let’s not even get started on the rulings. The PGA Championship is fine, but with it coming two weeks after the Open this year, it seems a little anticlimactic.

And who doesn’t love watching players negotiate howling winds, freezing rain and weather more suited for November than summer. It’s television and entertainment at its best.

There is a larger question to ask about the Open, though; does it really do the best job of identifying the top-performing golfers in the field? Because we heard over and over this week how the Open was the “truest test” in major championship golf. Nick Faldo led off Sunday’s coverage on Golf Channel saying it was. The Open even calls the winner the Champion Golfer of the Year.

But we heard another subject from the players discussed more often before, during and after the tournament even started.

The dreaded draw.

If you weren’t on the right side of the draw at Royal Troon this year, you weren’t in contention. The top 10 heading into Saturday all played on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. For those counting at home, there was a seven-shot difference between Kevin Na’s two-round total of 139 in 11^th place and Mickelson’s 132 at the top. Who is to say Na’s two-day total wasn’t as good as the leaders? Yet he was nearly out of it, 7 strokes back. Stuck on the wrong side of the draw, Jason Day talked about “luck” and Justin Rose called it “frustrating.”

Rory McIlroy, after already making some incendiary comments early in the week, took the high road saying: “I’m not going to let being on the wrong side ruin my mood or ruin my week.”

The next day he did this.

Now none of this is to say Mickelson or Stenson shouldn’t have been in the final pairing on Sunday. It’s hard to argue when two golfers close out the Sunday of a major a combined 14-under par. But it doesn’t mean others couldn’t have been in contention on Saturday if they had the opposite side of the draw. So let’s stamp down the high praise and boasting of how well the Open does finding the true champion and golfer of the year.

You can call it the most fun major to watch, you can call it the most entertaining found of golf you’ve ever seen, you can even call it the best final round in major history… just don’t call it the truest test in golf. Because if a tournament is so reliant on when you tee off, how true a test is it really?

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Seth Kerr

Seth is an avid golfer playing year round in Florida.

15 Comments

Jim

Jul 24, 2016 at 5:11 am

Playing against the brunt of the nature is definitely a better test than going against USGA’s sadistic 6-inch rough made on purpose to make life difficult for no absolute reason.

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TGS

Jul 21, 2016 at 2:06 am

Calloway makes equipment that just goes straight and keeps you in play. I find that to be the case with their woods this year. Very straight

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- SirBigSpur
  
  Jul 21, 2016 at 3:53 pm
  
  Wut is Calloway?
  
  Reply Report comment
Nev

Jul 20, 2016 at 8:48 pm

I find it hard to fathom comments about the luck of the draw, when Thursday was a perfect day, yet none of the best golfers in the world failed to take advantage of it. Maybe it is more that some players find it hard to play links courses. I would rather watch golf played on this style of course, rather than watch players trying to hack their way out of 6 inch rough.

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Scott

Jul 20, 2016 at 4:44 pm

Seth, you whine worse that Sergio Garcia. Correct me if I am wrong, but 1/2 of the field played in identical conditions, yet the best anyone else could muster is 11 strokes behind 2nd place?

i guess the reason is that the golf gods wanted Phil and Henrik to be in one of the best mach play duels in recent history. The golf gods hated everyone else.

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matto

Jul 20, 2016 at 5:31 am

Phil was absolutely soaked to the bone on Friday. Didn’t look easy to me. A lot of this “bad side of the draw” talk seems to be because the OGWR top 4 didn’t fair well.

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Rich

Jul 20, 2016 at 4:54 am

Sorry Seth, you’re an idiot. You can’t conclude that The Open is not the truest test of golf if you are not going to define what the truest test is. How can you argue that something does or doesn’t fit the brief, if there is no brief. I’m not saying it is or isn’t, I’m just saying your article gives nothing except your opinion.

Seems like Golfwrx are just getting articles from more and more sources that are either cheap or rubbish just to fill their quota of new articles. Is golf really that uninteresting these days that we are subjected to rubbish articles like this? God I hope not.

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Uno

Jul 20, 2016 at 3:00 am

Truest test would be to put these Pros on some Muni track with crappy greens, un-raked bunkers and fairways that don’t run out at all

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Jack

Jul 20, 2016 at 2:45 am

Yup let’s just have the next Open played on a golf simulator so nobody needs to ever play from another player’s divot, and wind conditions can all be simulated to be exactly the same and fair for everyone. That’ll be a true test of skill. /sarcasm

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Pete

Jul 20, 2016 at 1:03 am

so 14 shot difference between winner and 3rd bc luck of draw???

that effect is practically standard in any 4 day stroke play event.

+1 on the sour grapes, next time cool off for a few days before writing an article!

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Rancho

Jul 20, 2016 at 12:36 am

Ok, having subjected us to this rubbish OpEd, what is the truest test? Send them all to Topgolf?

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RedX

Jul 19, 2016 at 8:28 pm

+1 to SV, Philip & Ian’s comments.

Too much has been made of the disparity in the draw in this Open. Any tee time Thursday was ideal as the course was defenceless all day (bunkers excepted) but highly ranked guys like JDay, Rors & Speith wasted their opportunities to go low. Friday was definitely more lopsided but not easy in the morning either.

Weather played a significant part in this years US Open through to the cut as it has in other PGA tour events during the year.

I do think the US players “feel” this a little more generally as they are often not called upon to play in wind and rain as regularly. Lighting is often a factor in the US under these conditions and (sensibly) play is suspended. It is rare in the Open and as such maybe they feel it more keenly when asked to play on and get on with it.

“Hats off” to Phil as a positive example, shunning the umbrella, donning the wet weather gear and the two gloves in the thick of it Friday and just getting stuck in.

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SV

Jul 19, 2016 at 2:48 pm

It may be more prevalent in The Open, but weather-wise the luck of the draw can/will have an affect at any tournament. It just happened that this time the current “names” got caught, so some think it is a big deal. Life is not fair. Golf is not fair. Deal with it.
Yes, The Open is the truest test of golf. It examines each player and asks them to answer the problems put before them. The questions change, but those that are able to answer them get a good grade. Henrik got an A+. Phil got an A. Others, those that missed the cut, got Fs.

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Philip

Jul 19, 2016 at 2:36 pm

And what tournament doesn’t have this aspect? Based on your argument not one tournament can really claim to offer the truest test of golf because seldom all of the golfers play in the same conditions – especially Thursday and Friday.

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Ian

Jul 19, 2016 at 2:33 pm

Grumble grumble grumble. Sounds like the sour grapes of realizing that a non-American Major stole the spotlight. Credit where credits due.

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