British Open in Sandwich gets a lot of talk about the weather

The British Open, which kicked off on Thursday, was the missing piece of the pandemic golf disruption. The Masters has been rescheduled. The US Open has been delayed. But the British never arrived in 2020, leaving Lowry with the Claret Jug for another year.

The return of the British Open means the return of the great links of golf, endless lectures on the history of the sport and another chance for the English to miss out on their homes.

It also reintroduces the weather during a golf tournament unlike anything players know in the United States.

Almost every British Open is affected by the weather. The British Opens at Royal St. George’s are defined.

There are famous stories of torrential conditions turning this patch of grass into the golf equivalent of a horror movie. But even if the weather is nice, as the current forecast predicts, that could be the problem. Royal St. George’s is filled with blind shots and wavy fairways which, especially when the course is dry, can take a magnificent shot and send it rolling into a miserable place. The players started the action in the first round with rarely pleasant middle ground: The rain at the start of the week had softened the course, but the sun had yet to wash away the humidity.

“That’s the goal of this golf course,” said Martin Slumbers, R&A Managing Director. “It plays with your mind, and I think it’s wonderful. I think it’s a big challenge.

The weather depends on the location. And the location of this Open Championship is a small town in the south-east of England which gave its name to put something between a few pieces of bread.

There are sandwiches almost as big as Sandwich. It is home to around 5,000 people, which means its population sevenfolds as more than 30,000 fans flock to watch golf. There might not be a smaller place in the world that regularly hosts such a big sporting event. This is the 15th time the Royal St. George’s has hosted. For this, the train platform was enlarged to accommodate 12 cars.

It is a town that is home to medieval history, international culinary traditions and, more importantly for these golfers, it is the only British Open rotation course in this part of England.

“As a coastal location, the weather can be temperamental here, especially combined with the proximity to the canal and the nearby mainland,” wrote Lawrence Howard, senior operational meteorologist at the UK Met Office integrated into the Open, in a th -mail.

Howard and others can keep a close watch on the weather at a temporary weather office, part of the UK’s National Weather Service, located in Royal St. George’s. This also happens at other major events, but the readings are particularly important for this British Open, not only because of the conditions that could arise, but also the alternative. Sandwich’s nearest static weather station is miles away, in another town, and the micro-climates mean conditions could be totally different there.

Like many other cities that host British Open, Sandwich is close to the water, which often results in higher wind speeds. Unlike the others, it is about as close as it gets to mainland Europe. This changes both the direction of the prevailing south-westerly wind in UK and the actual weather. Already this week, a thunderstorm plume has arrived from the nearby mainland to the south to wreak havoc.

Golfers in 1938 discovered how miserable the weather in Sandwich can be.

Heavy flooding that year displaced the Open Championship from a nearby course, Royal Cinque Ports. Either way, it could have been better than what happened at Royal St. George’s.

“Never in memory has there been such a wild wind during the opening,” a 1938 Associated Press article subsequently read.

At the end of the tournament, an Englishman by the name of Reggie Whitcombe won 15 above par in a tournament that was both absurd and terrifying. One player drove the green on a 384-yard hole, and that was long before such long practices were possible. Another player watched his shot cross a water hazard, then explode in it. Whitcombe’s 78th Final Round was one of seven scores below 80 in the Final Round.

Scoring was so hard because standing was it. The wind broke the flagpoles. He blew the sand out of the bunkers. The exhibition tent was torn up and so completely destroyed that pieces were found at another Sandwich golf club about a mile away.

The last two Open winners on this course reflect how unusual this can be. Ben Curtis (2003) and Darren Clarke (2011) both won their first and only major at Royal St. George’s. When the wind, along with cruel, rolling fairways that can take a perfect drive and send it somewhere miserable, can torpedo the best golfers in the world, it can happen that one person can stay afloat over 72 holes.

The course may be lenient. Greg Norman, in 1993, won at 13. And Lawrence Howard, of the UK Met Office, said after Monday’s storms, there is a chance that “rather favorable conditions will develop this week, with many dry and sunny spells.”

Yet even too much sun can be unsettling. Rory McIlroy recalled Curtis’ victory in 2003, when the course was so “crisp” that on the hilly terrain, normal looking shots were sent askew. This type of cooking effect can only occur on this open course as it is in the south.

“It looked a bit like a pinball machine there,” McIlroy said.

He doesn’t expect that to be the case this week. But that’s because he expects a different kind of problem. “You have very thick, juicy rough on either side of the fairway, which you just have to avoid,” he said.

“It’s pretty devilish,” said Bryson DeChambeau.

McIlroy was lucky because he arrived on Sunday and got to do a full practice round. Lowry was not so lucky. He only did 12 holes on Monday due to the weather and found the course to be soft. Too soft.

Lowry, an Irishman, then planned to play late practice rounds on Tuesday and Wednesday so he could get a taste of what this British Open could be like. He understands that between the wind and the lack of rain, the course could be played quite differently once started.

“I was just trying to get a feel for how fiery the course could really play on Thursday,” he said.

Write to Andrew Beaton at [email protected]