So the Open Championship is heading back to St. Andrews in 2027, with the R&A maintaining the five-year cycle in which the world’s oldest championship is staged at the world’s oldest golf course.
It will also be the last championship of an era, with the golf ball rollback set to begin in 2028.
St. Andrews, being a links course where the wind is typically it’s primary defence, is perhaps the best – and certainly most famous – example of a golf course that has been tamed beyond recognition by modern equipment. In 2022, Cameron Smith’s -20 winning tally was the joint lowest in Open Championship history and the lowest ever recorded at the venue known as the Home of Golf.
Tiger Woods came closest to getting into the 20s-under-par in 2000 when he was playing a different sport to just about every other pro, shot -19, and won by eight. Nick Faldo took a shot more in 1990 and he was five clear of his nearest challenger, but, compared to 2022, the course was playing almost 370 yards shorter for Faldo and almost 200 yards shorter for Woods in 2000.
But it’s just about stretched to its maximum now, and with average driving distances across all tours continuing to creep upwards, if similar weather to 1990, 2000 or 2022 is experienced, it’s likely that the 2027 Open Championship will see the record books rewritten again and a winning tally closer to the mid-20-unders.
And in a way, it will be the perfect way to usher in the new era because it will provide incontrovertible proof that the rollback is not only warranted, but absolutely necessary.
That’s a big ‘if’ on the weather front though, and as any Scot will tell you, four days of sunshine and relatively calm winds on the Fife coast are rare as hen’s teeth. But that’s the beauty of links golf as a spectator – particularly a spectator watching from the comfort, warmth and dryness of their couch – because when you add in the elements, it becomes a much more fascinating watch.
Yes, par is just a number and the player who shoots the lowest score over 72 holes still wins the tournament whether it’s 24-under or three-over, but when it’s the latter, par is a very good score and birdie excellent. Bogeys are to be expected, and it’s the doubles and triples that cause severe damage. When players are averaging a birdie every three holes, then the range is reduced; birdies become good scores but little more than that, pars can become poor scores, and bogeys and doubles catastrophic.
Make no mistake, the rollback won’t suddenly start turning 66s into 72s, but it will make those 66s much harder to achieve if you’re playing two clubs extra into most of the holes.
Quite when the Open Championship will return to St. Andrews after 2027 is not yet known, but it will return, that much we know. And it’ll be interesting to see just exactly how differently the course plays with the new ball if we get similar weather.
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