6-hour rounds?! 4 bands on one tee?! How the Women’s Open turned into a slog

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – We’ve all seen slow games before, but nothing like this The old course took place during the first round of the AIG Open Women’s on Thursday.

Imagine you are Leona Maguire, known for your ferocity and steely nature. You grew up in Ireland – the wind doesn’t bother you much. You’re going through shots on the practice range into a 30-40 mph headwind, preparing for a wicked round. You start on the 10th and make a disappointing bogey, but go to the 11th tee and find something much worse: not one, not two, not three, but at least four groups are waiting to play the 148-yard par-3.

Four sets to a tee?! (Maguire actually told reporters he thought he had six groups, although we were unable to confirm.) The pace of play became so sharp that players were instructed to swing the group behind them to play onto the green before going out. You sometimes see it on driveable par-4s, but almost never on par-3s. But Thursday was an unusual day.

Here’s why.

Holes 7 through 11 on the Old Course make up what is known as The Loop, where the holes not only share greens, but also fairways. The 7th and 11th actually cross, which causes all sorts of issues when lovers are in a relationship. But it can also cause discomfort for the pros, who want to play without distraction and often wait longer than normal for the winds to die down before playing forward. (Acceleration can also be difficult in this cycle as fans can only move to 9 when players cross the aisle in 12.)

Ahead of Maguire on 11th were Bailey Tardy, Wichanee Meechai and Nicole Broch Estrup. Broch Estrup had a downhill, 20-footer that she scored on an exposed section of the 11th green. This part of the property is about as far as you can get from the Auld Toon buildings or the hills of Fife that could act as a windbreak. What felt like 40 mph winds blew across the nearby Eden Estuary and across the 11th green. Broch Estrup just couldn’t get her ball to sit still.

This situation on the 11th was not unique. Players mentioned that their balls were falling off the top and swinging into the fairway. “You don’t just worry about hitting the ball, you worry about a three-footer, two-footer, where you’re trying to hit the center of the clubface,” Lydia Ko said. “It sounds silly because you’re like, how could you miss the golf course, but it’s so windy it’s blowing us.”

All this explains why an open round that usually lasts about five hours stretches to six. And even beyond this point. The wind wasn’t just harsh – it was playing too beyond the golf course. Professionals can afford to play downwind or into the wind, but they resentment a headwind, aiming 30 or 40 yards from their target.

Back to 11: Broch Estrup put her ball near her mark at least four times and saw her leave her seat. More than one official came in to assess the situation, which lasted at least 20 minutes, and most likely a full half hour. That trio was almost two holes behind the group ahead of them and they were trying to play forward, but Mother Nature was having none of it.

BECAUSE Women’s Open is taking place this week, at least three weeks later than usual, thanks to the Olympics, we have about an hour less daylight in St. Andrews. The tournament organizers decided that the only way to get all 144 players around 18 holes each day is to use the 1st and 10th at the same time, so having an unscheduled delay on the 11th, just as the groups were starting to come out of the 10th. you get four (or maybe six) supported groups in the same box.

“We waited almost an hour on the 11th tee,” Maguire said, later admitting he wished they had been called earlier. But where would they go? The 12th tee sits just off the 11th green, and the players who stack that tee box aren’t in any better position. For groups to play to 11 while others are on the green pushes them into the crossover with groups playing 7.

Overall, it was just the kind of chaos that can happen in major championships where the stakes are high, the organization is difficult and the conditions are brutal. Andrea Lee, photo at the top of this article SITTING on the 11th, there were six hours and 15 minutes between her first shot and meeting the media to talk about it. The marquee group of Nelly Korda, Lilia Vu and Charley Hull was on the opposite side of the property, and they even hit a deadlock, resulting in a 6-hour, 8-minute round. And all three shot in the 60s.

The drag rate was abnormal, but not shocking, especially given the strong winds. Tiger Woods’ Thursday afternoon round of the 2022 Open Championship on the Old Course was just as slow – and played in much easier conditions. Woods, Max Homa and Matt Fitzpatrick lapped the Old in 6 hours and 10 minutes that day. As we wrote at the timewhenever the rhythm lasts this long, it’s a combination of about seven factors, and solving one of them won’t necessarily solve the others.

As for Maguire, she bounced back from that brutal save on the 11th, hitting the green into the wind, making a par and shooting a one-over 73. A great score. The weekend forecast calls for slightly better conditions. Even better the note.