Cameron Smith in 2022 at the Open Championship at St. Andrews.
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The Open Championship returns to St. Andrews next year.
Enough said, right? But should you need a few more words, Jack Nicklaus can expound. Five years ago at St. Andrews, at the 150th playing of the Open, the 18-time major winner was asked what made the Scottish course so magical.
“When I came here in 1964, I couldn’t believe that St. Andrews was a golf course that would still test golfers of that time. Now, that’s, what, 60 years ago? Close. Anyway, I didn’t think — it still tests the golfers at this time,” Nicklaus said. “It’s a magical golf course.
“The conditions, the weather, where you actually choose to put the pins, whether the golf course gets dry, whether the golf course gets wet, all those things that make St. Andrews a magical place.
“And to believe the game of golf essentially started here, and it just absolutely is mind-boggling to me that it still stands up to the golfers of today. I tell you if you get a little bit of weather, anytime you get it, it will tell you real fast how fast it makes you stand up to it.”
Did he still get excited coming to the course?
“I’m thrilled and so forth about coming,” Nicklaus said. “I drove into town, first time I’ve driven into town in about 17, 18 years, and it was interesting. Coming into town, I said we used to go that way. No, no, we go this way. OK. But it was kind of fun just to come back to see where we were, see the gates, come into the little curves that we came into.
“I always said St. Andrews looked like an old gray town until the Open came around. All of a sudden, it just lit up like a light, and it was beautiful.
“And St. Andrews always the week of the Open Championship is always beautiful. I imagine actually probably from anybody who makes a pilgrimage here to play this golf course feels that way.”
Did Nicklaus have a philosophy of playing the course?
“Basically it’s by where the bunkers are,” he said. “First hole, I just made sure that I take a club and I can’t reach the burn on the left as it comes back. You can drive it down there, but you’ve got plenty of room to drive it down there. Why hit it there? You’re only going to play a wedge from just short of that.
“And the 2nd hole, you’re really dealing with — I can’t remember the name of the bunker that sits out on the turns on No. 2, but you’re playing by that. And of course on the right.
“You’re playing always, trying to play in between what your hazards are. St. Andrews — what is it, I think it’s only about 94 acres? … Very small piece of property. It goes out and comes back. Your width is what you have between two holes, every hole adds up to 18, every green does. So you try to keep it in between that.
“St. Andrews is played to the left. And if you’re going to miss it, you miss it left. And most of the time — occasionally there’s a bad problem left, but not too often. Most of your problems are right. Your out of bounds, bad bunkers and so forth are on the right.
“And so the philosophy is to keep the ball favoring the center of the golf course, play a club that you need to play off the tee that doesn’t get you in a bunker. As it relates to the greens, you’re going to get the ball on the greens. It’s whether you can putt or not.
“First time I played here in ’64, let’s see, I think I was 149, I think the first two rounds, and I had 41 putts. That’s what you have in the wind and the bad weather. And I shot 66, 68, the last two rounds. The wind dropped out, and I made some putts.
“But putting is really difficult in the wind, and particularly on this golf course because the wind just sort of pushes it across the green. You’ve got to figure out — you try not to leave a ball in a place where you leave yourself with an impossible putt.
“Like No. 2, you’ve got the Himalayas. I don’t think you want to leave the ball and be putting out of there. You want to try to keep the ball to the right of it so you’re putting back up into the hill. The same type of thing pretty much through the golf course. Third hole, I guess, has that little bunker on the left. You’ve got to hit the ball, you just don’t ever want to be in that bunker, short-side yourself, you want to be right of that little bunker so you’re not playing off of the slope.
“And all through the golf course it’s the same thing.”
As for other future venues, only Royal Lytham & St. Annes in 2028, has been announced. This year’s tournament started Thursday at Royal Birkdale.
Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.
