6-hour rounds?! 4 teams on a tee?! How Girls’s Open became slog

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — We’ve all seen gradual play earlier than however nothing fairly like what the Outdated Course doled out through the first spherical of the AIG Girls’s Open Thursday. 

Think about you’re Leona Maguire, recognized on your ferocity and steely nature. You grew up in Eire — the wind doesn’t hassle you a lot. You’re grooving photographs on the observe vary right into a 30- to 40-mph crosswind, prepping for a depraved spherical. You begin on the tenth and make a irritating bogey, however head to the eleventh tee and discover one thing a lot worse: not one, not two, not three however at the very least 4 teams are ready to play the 148-yard par-3. 

4 teams on a tee?! (Maguire really advised reporters she thought there have been six teams, although we had been unable to substantiate.) Tempo of play turned such a grind that gamers had been instructed to wave up the group behind them to play into the inexperienced earlier than placing out themselves. You generally see that on drivable par-4s however nearly by no means on par-3s. However Thursday was an irregular day.

Right here’s why.

Holes 7 by 11 on the Outdated Course make up what is called The Loop, the place holes not solely share greens but in addition fairways. The seventh and eleventh really intersect, which causes all kinds of points for when amateurs are on the hyperlinks. However it could actually power awkwardness for the professionals, too, who wish to play freed from distraction, and are sometimes ready longer than regular for winds to calm earlier than taking part in forward. (Spectating may even show tough on this loop as followers can solely transfer to the again 9 as soon as gamers cross the crosswalk on 12.)

Up forward of Maguire on the eleventh had been Bailey Tardy, Wichanee Meechai and Nicole Broch Estrup. Broch Estrup had a downhill, 20-footer that she had marked on an uncovered part of the eleventh inexperienced. That a part of the property is as far-off as you may get from Auld Toon buildings or the hills of Fife that would function shields from the wind. What felt like 40-mph winds tore by the close by Eden Estuary and thru the eleventh inexperienced. Broch Estrup merely couldn’t get her ball to remain nonetheless. 

This case on the eleventh wasn’t distinctive. Gamers talked about their balls falling off tees and oscillating in fairways. “It’s not solely your ball-striking that you simply’re frightened about however simply even a three-, two-footer the place you’re attempting to hit the middle of the clubface,” Lydia Ko stated. “It sounds silly since you’re like, how might you miss the middle of the putter, nevertheless it’s so windy it’s blowing us over.”

All of this explains why an Open spherical that sometimes takes about 5 hours stretched towards six. And even past that mark. The wind wasn’t simply harsh — it was additionally taking part in throughout the golf course. Professionals can deal with taking part in downwind or into the wind, however they hate a crosswind, aiming 30 or 40 yards away from their goal. 

Again to the eleventh: Broch Estrup positioned her ball subsequent to her mark at the very least 4 instances and watched it trickle away from its place. A couple of official got here in to evaluate the state of affairs, which lasted at the very least 20 minutes, and almost definitely a full half hour. That threesome was practically two holes behind the group forward of them and had been attempting to play ahead, however Mom Nature was having none of it. 

As a result of the Girls’s Open is going down this week, at the very least three weeks later than ordinary, because of the Olympics, we’ve about an hour much less daylight in St. Andrews. Event organizers determined the one strategy to get all 144 gamers round 18 holes every day is to make use of each the first and tenth tees on the identical time, so having an unplanned delay on the eleventh simply as teams had been starting to tee off the tenth is the way you get 4 (or possibly six) teams backed up on the identical tee field. 

“We practically waited an hour on the eleventh tee,” Maguire stated, later admitting she wished they had been referred to as up even earlier. However the place would they go? The twelfth tee sits proper off the eleventh inexperienced, and gamers crowding that tee field aren’t in any higher place. For teams to play as much as the eleventh whereas others are on the inexperienced pushes them into the intersection with teams taking part in the seventh. 

All in all, it was simply the sort of chaos that may happen at main championships the place the stakes are immense, the setup is tough and the situations are brutal. Andrea Lee, pictured on the prime of this text sitting on the eleventh tee, had six hours and quarter-hour between her 1st tee shot and assembly with the media to speak about it. The marquee grouping of Nelly Korda, Lilia Vu and Charley Hull was on the alternative facet of the property, and even they ran right into a log-jam, leading to a 6-hour, 8-minute spherical. And all three shot within the 60s. 

The crawling tempo was irregular however not surprising, particularly given the gale-force winds. Tiger Woods’ afternoon spherical on Thursday of the 2022 Open Championship on the Outdated Course was simply as gradual — and it was performed in a lot simpler situations. Woods, Max Homa and Matt Fitzpatrick looped across the Outdated in 6 hours and 10 minutes that day. As we wrote on the time, anytime the tempo stretches that lengthy, it’s a mix of about seven elements, and fixing considered one of them received’t essentially resolve the others. 

As for Maguire, she labored on from that brutal wait on 11, sniping the inexperienced within the wind, making a par and taking pictures one-over 73. A effective rating. The weekend forecast requires barely higher situations. Higher scoring, too.