(Photo of 9 tee at Turnberry Ailsa Course courtesy of Stewart Abramson)
With a coastline that has inspired centuries of marriage proposals, ancient ruins historic enough to warrant their own university class, and a sports pedigree equal to nearly every venue on Earth, the stunning Ailsa Course at the Turnberry Resort may be the most romantic and antique place to conduct a major golf championship barring St. Andrews.
Known as “the Pebble Beach of the U.K.,” Turnberry is breathtakingly beautiful. The Ailsa course is draped along Turnberry Point, which stands on the western edge of Scotland’s rugged Ayrshire Coast, tucked between Turnberry Bay to the south and the Firth of Clyde to the north. Like Pebble Beach, the course hugs a windswept, rocky shore, lapped by turbulent, crashing waves. It’s unmistakable symbol, the iconic Turnberry lighthouse, which has stood since 1873 as a beacon to guide mariners away from dangerous Bristo Rock, now stands sentinel to illuminate the hearts of golf lovers across the globe.
It also towers over a grand and bloody history. The remains of a castle that Scotland’s famous King Robert the Bruce fought to recover from the English in 1307 are just beneath its feet. The Bruce rallied the country against English oppression, but as history shows, his support was anything but unanimous. That period in Turnberry’s history saw Machiavellian intrigue as the 1286 as a meeting of squabbling Scottish nobles which gathered to promote the ascension of The Bruce was marred by treachery, double-dealing and war. Even the name “Turn-berry” literally means “tournament fort” – a place where heated battles were contested.
As a golf course, Turnberry lives up to its colorful name and turbulent history. Its three British Opens were every bit as tumultuous as the jousts fought in medieval times have crowned the greatest golfers of their respective generations as champion. Instead of Ivanhoe and a disguised King Richard the Lionheart battling Prince John and his turncoat Templar nobles for control of England, it’s been Watson vs. Nicklaus, Norman vs. Seve, and Nick Price vs. Parnevik along its burnished, biscuit brown fairways for the Claret Jug and the de facto world championship of golf.
The analogy to Pebble Beach actually continues in that both courses have crowned the greatest golfers of their age. If the course were a woman, she would only allow herself to be ridden by a horseman with steel thighs and velvet hands. Moreover, like Pebble, Turnberry relies heavily on wind to put up a stern defense. Sure, there are a few difficult, rugged, penal holes where balls can plummet to watery grave, and hopes can dash upon the rocks below, but there are plenty of birdie holes in benign conditions.
It is the discrepancy between the winning scores that demonstrates the course’s need for the weather to offer stern defense: in two British Opens 12-under 268 has won, and once level par 280 claimed the Claret Jug. So although some new bunkering and new tees are proclaimed by some to add teeth to the course even in fair weather, the proof of the pudding will be in the tasting, and if history is any guide, a low winning score by Tiger Woods is likely, so long as the weather cooperates.
Fans will forever speak of 1977’s fabled “Duel in the Sun” between Nicklaus and Watson as one of the greatest contests in the history of any sport, not just golf. Watson’s 65-65 finished a week where he tallied a 12-under 268 aggregate, claimed a new British Open record by eight shots, and topped mighty Nicklaus’s sparkling 65-66 by one stroke. Hubert Green finished a distant third, ten shots back. “I won the tournament,” he quipped puckishly. “I don’t know what course Tom and Jack were playing.”
Even a two-stroke advantage on the 13th tee wasn’t enough for Jack to best his nemesis, who also snatched the Green Jacket from him that year. “Who can give Jack Nicklaus two shots over six holes and beat him?” asked Peter Alliss on the telecast. Watson at the British: that’s who. Watson won a total of five Claret Jugs between 1975 and 1983 and, in 1977, was in the middle of a stretch that saw him win four straight PGA Tour money titles.
12-under also won the sun-splashed 1994 British Open. That year, the Ailsa Course yielded 148 rounds in the 60s, including 5 64s, 6 65s, and 18 66s. The winner was Nick Price, who later that year won the PGA championship as well. A dramatic eagle at 71st hole catapulted him past Jasper Parnevik and his trademark cap with the upturned bill. It was his second of three majors in nine starts between the 1992 and 1994 PGAs.
However Greg Norman claimed the first of his two Claret Jugs at Turnberry in 1986 with a paltry score of level par. In a line score that showed the two sides of Turnberry – strictly dependant on the weather – 74-63-74-69, he fired his sparkling 63 on the one day the sun shone bright and beautiful and the wind took the day off to watch the golf.
Norman actually carded three bogeys that day, along with one eagle and eight birdies, including one at the par-4 third where he incredibly holed a 75-foot explosion bunker shot. Norman had a 30-foot putt on 18 for a 61 and a back nine of 29, but three-putted for a 63 to merely share the major championship record rather than own it outright. Indeed, when Norman was on, he was the head of his class, best in show. Of course, when he broke, he broke hard and jagged: treacherous irons, a mutinous driver, rebellious wedges, and a cowardly putter that tucked tail and ran at the first sign of trouble, but that’s a story for another day.
That same championship Sunday that finally saw Norman take the albatross from around his neck also saw Seve Ballesteros somehow shoot a 64. “It was a 64,” wrote Dan Jenkins, “even after finding his tee shots everywhere but on Ailsa Craig and inside the lighthouse.” Actually, knowing where Seve often drove the ball at the British, that must have been a good day for him. Remember what he did in 1979 at Royal Parking Lot and St. Marram Grass? [Author’s Note: Lytham and St. Anne’s for those of you without a working knowledge of the Rota.]
Other than Seve’s statistical outlier, when cold winds blow at Turnberry, hot water runs deep, and any hole can have a vicious bite. There are, at best, days when even the Scots, who love “grand sof’ wetha,” would have stayed inside to cook haggis, (with or without finely sliced heart and minced tripe, your preference). Cold and murky, the weather turns frightful. The winds howl as though it were the Cape of Good Hope, lashing the players with cat-o’nine-tails ferocity. The heavens, green with anger, rain ice cubes. Thunder smites like Thor’s Hammer. The seas boil, and the skies fall…
…but in sunshine, Turnberry is paradise: the spray of the sea, the tang of the salt air, the Isle of Arran, mighty Ailsa Craig, Robert the Bruce’s castle and the lighthouse, but architecturally, not much else but low scores: no massive sand hills like St. George’s, flat fairways like Birkdale instead of dramatic elevation changes like Troon, and no capricious bounces like The Old Course or Muirfield.
Twice this century Turnberry was nearly extinct – NLE as we say in golf architecture circles, no longer exist. Requisitioned by the government as an airbase during both World Wars, whole fairways were dug up and concrete runways were constructed. In 1949 Phillip Mackenzie Ross (no relation to either of the more famous men to bear the name, was commissioned to rebuild a golf course over the site and the Ailsa Course opened in 1951. From 2005-2007 the firm of Mackenzie and Ebert, Ltd., undertook construction to make competitive enhancements for this year’s Open.
The major changes are to 10, 16, and 17. A new tee box on ten is perched on a rock, and now requires a 200 yard carry over the bay. The fairway is widened and plays much closer to the beach, bringing the rocky coast into play, greatly increasing dramatic effect. In moving the 17th tee back 60 yards, the 16th green had to be moved slightly, so the hole now doglegs to the right and has deep, wide Wilson’s burn running in front and to the right.
The rest of the changes are merely to counteract technology. They claim they’ve toughened Turnberry, but really all they really did was move some bunkers further out so everyone doesn’t drive over them. There are two sets of new bunkers on most holes: one set between 300-320 out to catch Tiger and the few players who are as long as he is, and another set between 280-300 to catch the mere mortals. There isn’t much rough to speak of and the bunkers aren’t like Royal Lytham’s “207 little ponds.” They are riveted, but they are much shallower. After all, this is a resort course.
Players should start to attack at the first tee, as the green on this downhill hole, though slightly crowned and surrounded by four bunkers can be driven in a favorable wind.
The swing holes on the front may be three, five and seven: two long par-4s and a short, birdie-op par 5. Three is 489 yards into the prevailing wind. Two bunkers were added, one at 260, the other at 300. The rest of the front nine plays along the coast and usually downwind. In the final round of the 1979 European Open, short hitting Sandy Lyle played the first seven holes 6-under on his way to victory. The pick of the litter is the 474-yard fifth, which Watson played driver-driver in 1977. Fade off the tee, then draw into a long thin green, the putting surface is raised and tucked into the dunes.
Six, the “driver par-3 for mere mortals,” plays 231 yards, all carry to a green set at the top of the hill that falls away in all directions, and is surrounded by three pot bunkers. Players will hit to the center, take three gratefully, and move on to the birdieable 538-yard seventh. There the long sandy beach turns to dark, craggy rocks. With a deep crater left of the green and a run-off to a collection area, it’s tough in the wind, but a pushover in sunshine.
The front ends with an interesting hole architecturally. With the sea crashing below a tee perched on a rocky tor, the drive on this 449-yard par-4 must carry a hog’s back in the fairway. The hole has no bunkers.
Ten and eleven still play “out” from the clubhouse, downwind, and towards the lighthouse. Ten (par-4, 456 yards), not only has a new tee, but with its center-line bunkers, the left side offers a shorter route to the green, but is much more narrow than the right. The par-3 175-yard eleventh has a bowlish green.
Where the prevailing wind should assist players on the front, it should be in their face on the last seven holes. Twelve and fourteen are two strong par-4s. Twelve is straight away with seven bunkers, and a monument above the green commemorates and honors the fallen airmen who gave their lives in the two World Wars. A new bunker was added 325 yards out on the right side of the fairway. Fourteen will borrow a new tee from the adjacent Kintyre Course, and also plays straight-away with bunkers at the six o’clock, three o’clock and nine o’clock positions around the green. The new tee adds a tougher angle on the drive. Perhaps the hardest hole on the course, this 448-yard par-4 only gave up 12 bogeys against 270 bogeys.
Though the par-5 17th hole has added 61 yards, it’s still a drive and an iron if the wind is still. V-grooves can’t get here fast enough. Into the wind, it will be much more difficult. Eighteen seems to resemble many Rota finishing holes. A long, tight par-4, here simply aim the drive for the right corner of the hotel. A ne bunker guards the knee of this 461-yard closing hole.
This year, unless wind blows badly, all four majors will be under par, as Hazeltine has had much of its teeth taken out by Rees Jones’s changes. Without wind, Woods should beat Garcia, who has warning track power in majors, but is still just missing out on the winner’s circle. Watch for other European Tour players to play well, as they always do at the British. Ben Curtis has been rounding into form recently, and newly-minted U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover has had a good year, has ice water in his veins, and is riding a hot streak of late.
Finally, no Rota course would have offered Phil Mickelson a chance to break through and win a British than a mild Turnberry basking sedately in the sunshine. With few blind shots or capricious bounces, and with flat fairways and well-framed challenges, this is the Rota course where he would have had the best chance to win. Sadly, he has other urgent priorities that make sports a lot less important. Even absent, he’ll still be in the hearts and minds of golf fans world-wide.
However Woods’s record is lackluster in wind. Bad conditions, such as the 2002 maelstrom at Muirfield give him more trouble than any human being. Last month at Bethpage he blamed the draw – claiming he had to play in weather worse than half the field – but he was even par with four holes to play in the first round before falling apart.
But in benign conditions, Turnberry is pretty, and it’s pretty easy. With mighty Ailsa Craig, the gorgeous Kintyre landscape offering endless TV photo-ops, if we get good weather, the greatest names should challenge the major championship record score of 63, they’ll eat the course for breakfast – Turnberrys and Cream. But if we get weather like we did last year – and we pray we do – then we’ll see how good these guys really are.
So it’s back to the “Castle of the Tournaments,” the Pebble Beach of the U.K., the beautiful, historic, unmistakable beacon of a British Open Rota golf course that is Turnberry’s Ailsa Course. Sure, it will be haggis and bagpipes, warm beer, bump-and-run approach shots, and a leaderboard full of new names from far-flung corners of the World. But it will also be lighthouses, and rocky shores and the beloved Claret Jug – the most refined and genteel of championship trophies – awarded as the sun goes down on the Ayrshire Coast’s Turnberry Point. It’s not as ancient as St. Andrews and Muirfield, and difficult as Carnoustie, or as tumultuous as St. George’s, but for sheer romance, Turnberry may be spoken of in the same holy whispers as any of the greatest major championship venues in all of golf.
