The Open at St. George’s: You can see France but not a way to par

When the Open Championship was held at Royal St. George’s in 1949 a golfer named Harry Bradshaw found his ball inside a broken beer bottle on the fifth fairway. He tried to play it. He could have had a free drop.

When the Open was held at St. George’s in 2011, a golfer named Tiger Woods couldn’t find his ball off the first fairway after the opening shot of the tournament. Woods only wished he could have had a free drop instead of a lost-ball penalty.

The Open starting Thursday returns to St. George’s where you can see France some 20 miles across the Channel but when in competition, you’re thrashing around in the rough you can’t see a way to make par.

And, no, Bradshaw didn’t win in ’49, It was the legendary Bobby Locke. Nor did Tiger win in ’11, It was the not-so-legendary Ben Curtis.                        

The last Open at the course named for the patron saint of England was in 2011 and won by Darren Clarke, whose celebration after years of trying included his obligatory cigars and some optional pints.

Clarke, a Northern Irishman, who’s as popular as the game he still plays on the Champions (seniors) Tour.

Phil Mickelson was second that ‘11 Open, and now 10 years later, in May, having taken the PGA at 50 to become the oldest man ever to win a major, he’s still a factor.

The favorites, however, are the usual suspects; Jon Rahm, who won the U, S. Open, at Torrey Pines in June; the feuding friends, Bruce Koepka, and Bryson DeChambeau; Rory McIlroy, despite his unsteady driving; and Justin Thomas.

But so often at the Open—this is the 149th--the story’s the course, scraped and molded from the linksland of the British Isles,

St. George’s is a place where off the fourth tee there’s a bunker big enough to hide the whole lot of the Queen’s fusiliers and where canines and human females used to be treated with contempt.

It’s nestled among dunes on which Caesar’s army set foot but Hitler’s army never was able.

Ian Fleming, a member, picked up many of his story ideas behind   the bar. He carried a handicap of 007—well 7.

When the wind blows (when doesn’t it blow?) St. George’s might be the toughest course in the Open rotation. Unquestionably it is the southernmost.

In the 1981 Open (won by the Texan, Bill Rogers) Jack Nicklaus shot an 83 in the second round and still made the cut. In the ’85 Open there (won by Sandy Lyle) Peter Jacobsen tackled a streaker on the 18th green. In 1993, Greg Norman played so well the final round he proclaimed, “I’m not one to brag, but I was in awe of myself.”

There are several courses squeezed in the area known for decades as Cinque Ports, not far from the White Cliffs of Dover, One, Prince’s, is alongside St. George’s, only a small stone wall separating the two.

The third round of the ’93 Open, the late Payne Stewart saw several sportswriters he knew, playing Prince’s, stopped next to the wall and asked, “Anybody see my ball, a Pink Lady?”

He wasn’t serious.

But Bernard Darwin, the London Times golf writer, in the 1920s and ‘30s, was serious when he wrote about St. George’s, “The sun shines on the waters of Pegwell Bay and lighting up the white cliffs in the distance; this is nearly my idea of heaven as it is to be attained on any earthly links.”

Others may have disagreed.  Once, outside St. George’s there was a sign, “No dogs, no women.” Ladies now are able to play although only by themselves.

Wonder what James Bond would say?