Scorched ‘Car-nasty’ to be nightmare for the caddies
Sun-baked fairways mean ball could run for up to 80 yards, writes Sam Dean at Carnoustie
Cross your fingers, hope it dies. It is hardly the most scientific approach to winning the Open, but this is the sort of blind hope which the frazzled caddies of Carnoustie may just be relying on as their player’s ball streaks toward the baked-out fairways.
Such is the speed of the course, browned and parched by the relentless Scottish sun, that the yardage book has been rendered almost meaningless for the tournament’s opening rounds. “There is no grass for the ball,” said Brooks Koepka, the US Open champion. “If it hits a down-slope, it is just going to keep running.”
Unreadable, unpredictable and unforgiving. No wonder David Duval, the 2001 Open champion, said the conditions here will “drive some people batty” over the next few days. “Car-nasty” is living up to its name, it seems, and this will be a rare challenge for the caddies as well as for the players, especially those who have grown used to the lush greenery of the United States.
“In the States, we have two numbers,” says Duane Bock, the caddie for American Kevin Kisner. “We know the number to where certain hazards are, and the number where we want to finish. That is all we think about. Here, we have to think about where it is going to land, how far it is going to roll, where the trouble is. It is the luck of the bounce out there.”
For now, it is all part of the fun, Bock says. “It’s a major championship, it should be that way. You should have to play for it. If you hit it off line then you are going to get penalised, which you should be.”
Whether he feels the same way by Friday night, however, is another matter. “It all depends where it lands on a certain slope, and if it hits the back side of a slope,” he says. “We hit a five-iron and it went 275 yards when we were just trying to hit it 220.”
On Sunday, Rickie Fowler made the most of the conditions by smashing a 458-yard drive during the Scottish Open at Gullane. The same day, Brandt Snedeker hit a 427-yard drive during a practice round at Carnoustie, shortly before Padraig Harrington ate up 457 yards on the same hole. “The fairways are a tad fast,” Harrington said on Twitter, with some understatement.
All this is made treacherous by the generous spattering of bunkers which litter the Carnoustie course, lurking and waiting to gobble up any over-running shots which have slipped down the fairways like a toddler on a water slide.
“You can get anywhere between 30 and 80 yards of run out there,” says Martyn Thompson, the caddie for Welsh player Rhys Enoch. “That brings all the bunkers into
‘There is no grass for the ball. If it hits a down-slope then it is just going to keep on running’
play. Normally on a course like this you are looking at avoiding certain bunkers and you might be running 20 yards through the ground. Here, it is anything up to 80 yards of roll.”
Thompson played here in the 1999 Open but says the conditions have made this a “totally different golf course”. He believes this will be a week where the strategists will thrive, yet there is an acceptance that even the most carefully-constructed plans are likely to be decimated by an unfortunate bounce or untimely gust of wind.
“I spent three hours out there yesterday, walking nine holes,” he says. “I will do the other nine holes today, just looking at the landing points on the fairway, how far the roll is. It is a lottery. If you catch the down side of a little hill, then you are going to go.”
Thompson and Enoch may use sprinklers as potential targets, and Enoch’s father has been dispatched to specific sprinklers to see just how dangerous each bounce might be.
“We are going to see exactly how far the ball goes from the tee and from a specific sprinkler,” Thompson says. “We will see how many yards it bounces from there and how far it is going, depending on which club we use.”
Others are opting for a less meticulous approach. Kenneth Hansen, the caddie for Danish teenager Nicolai Hojgaard, told The Daily Telegraph: “We decided that we could not take the bunkers out, so you just have to play, commit to it and hope you do not hit it.
“On the 17th, if the wind is behind you then you have to hit it in the rough to the keep the ball on the course. It is that hard. You just have to cross your fingers and commit to it.
“On the 18th there are around 300 yards to the bunker. Nicolai hit a four-iron and it stopped one metre short.
“Normally, he hits those 200 yards. You just have to know the course and the bounces, and you hope that you hit a straight one when you get that bounce.”