Officials come out fighting over course set up

Open officials came out fighting on Wednesday in the debate over whether Carnoustie has been set too tough this week.

"No way in the world would we have set out to embarrass the best players in the world," said championship committee chairman Hugh Campbell.

"It is quite the opposite. We set out to present them a test on one of the toughest links in the world and the weather has chipped in to make it an even more severe test than we imagined it would be. The best player will win.

"I would feel seriously guilty if we had deliberately set out to grow wheatfields off the edge of the fairways. That has not been the case - nature has been the major factor.

"Our strategy is to present Carnoustie with the same degree of difficulty as it was for previous Opens - as a good test of driving.

"Between April and the summer there has been huge rough growth and that has been natural, not induced by us or the club.

"If the players get a certain lie where they are worried about injuring themselves the rules allow them to do something about that. They can take an unplayable lie and drop under penalty."

The last Open that comes close to comparing to Carnoustie was Turnberry 13 years ago.

Greg Norman won after equalling the Open record of 63, but American Craig Stalder withdrew after injuring his wrist and there were other similar tales of woe.

"I would not regard a winning score approaching 300 as an embarrassment. Par is a notional number. We did not have a winning score in mind when we were setting up the course," added Campbell.

Asked if it might discourage players from coming to future Opens - a number of Americans have not come to this one - he said: "I think it might be that it has an opposite effect.

"There is a masochistic view that might say 'This is a really tough golf course - I must go and play it.'

"It has surprised me just how quickly the heavy rough has grown and in the last week or so we have been thinning out certain parts."

He agrees conditions are so tough that a 20-handicapper, playing off the same tees, would probably not even finish the 18 holes.

Only last September an American 20-handicapper was playing in a competition at the club. He used forward tees - and shot 118.

Last Friday the Duke of York, an eight-handicapper, played with Campbell, Sir Michael Bonallack and Peter Dawson, who in September replaces Sir Michael as Royal and Ancient Club secretary.

"We were playing a match, so I don't have an exact score for the Prince, but he was probably in the nineties."

Bonallack, who shot 45 for the last nine holes when in contention for the 1968 Open, said: "We are not worried about what scores the players do. they are all relative.

"As long as the best player comes out at the end of the championship we will have achieved what we would want to achieve.

"And whoever wins will not mind what their score is."