The Ailsa bites back - Preview

In terms of Opens, it always seems too long, between visits to Turnberry. The last time the claret jug was raised on the west coast links was 15 years ago, when Nick Price triumphed with a blistering final round of 66. Before that, Greg Norman won his first major in 1986 and nine years earlier the triumphant Tom Watson overcame the gracious Jack Nicklaus in the fabled Duel in the Sun. All brilliant spectacles played on a remarkable course.

But things have changed since the Ailsa Course last hosted the grandest major of them all, and the course has been asked to follow suit. To combat advances in technology, and the silly distances players hit the ball these days, six new championship tees have extended the course by 250 yards, while a total of 23 bunkers have been added to place greater emphasis on strategy. But simply stretching the links and adding more sand would do little to avoid the trouncing the course took on its last Open outing, when Turnberry won the dubious honour of recording the greatest number of rounds under 70 in the modern era (albeit a slightly skewed fact given the par of 70). As well as more traps and added length, the course needed tweaking.

Enter Martin Ebert, an English architect with a track record of fine-tuning Open Championship venues. His CV boasts the reworking of Royal Liverpool, Royal St George’s, Royal Lytham and now Turnberry, which although beautiful clearly needed its teeth back.

"The Ailsa is one of the most scenic Open venues, but there was some concern about how well it would stand up and the focus had to be shifted to make sure the players were tested and had to make the right decisions," says Ebert. "We started working at Turnberry with Donald Steel on the Kintyre course, but in 2003 we were commissioned by Turnberry, in conjunction with the R&A, to write a report on the Ailsa Course."

Like many great links courses, Turnberry suffers from climatic anomaly that means when the wind drops below a teeth-chattering squall, the course rolls over like a kitten. Calmer conditions effectively extend the target areas in the wide, open fairways to such an extent that pars become bogeys, and with only 65 bunkers and greens that collect rather than repel balls, the course needed something else.

"Turnberry’s courses and estates manager, George Brown, made the point that compared to other links courses, quite a lot of Turnberry’s greens do help to gather rather than deflect the ball," says Ebert. "From that respect it was important to tighten the course in other areas without resorting to changing the greens."

You’d have to say that’s a big ask – and one that comes with the added pressure of tinkering with a course initially laid out by Willie Fernie in 1901 and subsequently redesigned by Cecil Hutchinson and Mackenzie Ross, with greater accolades each time.

The picture-postcard 10th hole features two new fairway bunkers, while the fairway has been cut closer to the beach. The fast-track is down that left side: classic risk and reward golf

"It’s a great honour to work on any course," says Ebert, "but especially one with the standing and the fame of Turnberry. It was nerve-wracking. Working on the 16th and deciding to strip away an entire area of fairway and use modern machinery to create something that looks as natural as possible was a nervous time. When you start off with a relatively flat piece of fairway and try to turn it into something that people naturally believe the hole doglegs around, it is tricky. In fact, it was only as the project progressed that we became confident of the results."

The modern-day 16th is a risk-and-reward hole where driving the ball as close to the right-hand side of the fairway will open up an approach shot to the raised green which is protected by a moat-like burn. Ebert and his design partner, Tom Mackenzie, have complicated matters by moving an existing fairway bunker to the right of the landing area and creating ball-swallowing crater in the nearby dune system. The result is that a tough hole is now a whole lot tougher, and one that will almost certainly prove pivotal come the closing stages of the championship.

The changes at 16 are some of the most dramatic at Turnberry but they are by no means alone. As Ebert explains, to force players to consider their strategy more carefully, wholesale changes were required elsewhere especially in respect to tee shots.

"Fairway bunkers need to fit into the terrain that surrounds them, which often defines where they are located," says Ebert. "Obviously, placing them at the right distance from the tee is key if you’re going to challenge the golfer to carry them or flirt with them as closely as possible to get the best line into the green. We certainly didn’t want to take the driver out of the players’ hands, but we also wanted to make sure the driver wasn’t always the best option."

The new-look 17 has also seen changes, although not as dramatic as those on 16. A new championship tee will stretch the hole to 560 yards, making it a proper par-five according to Ebert. "It’s become more of a three-shotter," he says. "Not only has 60 yards been added to the tee but the old drives used to land on a downslope, so effectively it’s now 100 yards longer. It will be interesting to see how aggressive the guys are off the tee because the shape of the fairway will throw the balls towards the existing fairway bunker. It should be fascinating."

Perhaps the most telling change is at the 10th (pictured). The aptly named Dinna Fouter (Don’t Mess About), the hole loops around the craggy coastline to a sheltered green. Looking back, the scene is framed by Turnberry’s wonderful lighthouse and Ailsa Craig, but don’t be fooled by the picture-postcard vista. New fairway bunkers and a stunning new tee will make this one of the sternness tests on the course.

"Taking the tee over to the rocky shoreline has created a spectacular drive compared to the old line, which looked spectacular but when you stood up on the tee you didn’t really get an impression of the coastline to the left of the hole," says Ebert. "We had to make it sensible for the old and new alignments which led us to putting in two central bunkers and one on the right-hand side. It really challenges the players to decide whether they want to take the fast route down the left-hand side between the bunkers and the coast, play up short or flirt with the bunkers down the right-hand side, which could leave them 150 yards to the pin. If they’re brave, they could get to within 100 yards of the green off the tee, but they’ll certainly have to take some risks to do that."

Reproduced with kind permission of Golf International.