John Huggan: Expect the worst: an Open devoid of subtlety, artistry and imagination

LAST TUESDAY morning, the R&A held a press conference in the clubhouse at Royal Birkdale. It's an annual affair related to the upcoming Open Championship, which this year will make its eighth visit to the splendid Merseyside links.

Every media outlet of any importance was in attendance, the journalists having spent the previous afternoon and evening being treated to a round of golf, a tasty dinner and a few refreshing beverages in the clubhouse. All very cosy and, one must concede, good fun.


Anyway, over the course of the 90-minute official gathering, the R&A's chief executive, Peter Dawson, touched upon subjects as diverse as slow play (they're against) and drug testing (they're for, but not just yet). As usual, however, it was what wasn't said that was far more revealing.

As Dawson trawled through the various changes made to 16 of Birkdale's 18 holes (16!) in the decade since the game's most important championship last made the trip to Southport, it was hard to suppress an ever-increasing level of incredulity. Justifying those alterations with the kiss-off line that "golf has moved on somewhat since then", Dawson was careful not to mention the real reason why Birkdale has joined an ever-lengthening list of classic courses that have been stretched to within an inch of their boundary fences.

Using carefully chosen phrases like "challenge to the modern-day player" and "increased player capability," Dawson, not for the first time, disguised the fact that the current "programme of significant change" that is well under way at every Open venue has virtually nothing whatsoever to do with the players themselves and virtually everything to do with the collective and joint abrogation of responsibility by the R&A and the United States Golf Association when it comes to their (lack of) legislation on the modern golf ball. Had today's equipment been properly regulated over the last decade and a half, it is a safe bet that the likes of Augusta National and the Old Course at St Andrews, to name but two classic courses that have been forced to endure unnecessary change, would not have had to be screwed up to the extent they have been.

The mind goes back to the 2005 Open at St Andrews. On the Road Hole, which was once perhaps the toughest par-4 on the planet, players were hitting 4-irons off the tee, the driver having been taken out of their hands by the unprecedented growing of rough up the right side of the fairway. What was once the ideal spot for the tee-shot was suddenly covered in long grass. And why was that? If the players had been allowed to hit tee-shots with their turbo-charged drivers and balls they would have been left with not much more than a chip shot to the green. Symbolically, that was something the R&A could not allow to happen: final proof that the game at the highest level had lost its way.

You have to laugh really. Because if you didn't you'd cry. Let's take Turnberry. It was reported last week that the Ailsa course that will host next year's Open Championship will be "narrower, longer and tougher." To which the obvious response is: "why?"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but on the three previous occasions in which the Ayrshire links has hosted the world's best golfers, the winner of the championship has been the world's best golfer at the time: Tom Watson in 1977, Greg Norman in 1986 and Nick Price in 1994. That's a pretty good record of identification.

Not only that, but every one of those Opens – in three very different weeks weather-wise – were events that have already lived long in the memories of those lucky enough to witness them. The first one, in fact, the so-called "Duel in the Sun" between Watson and Jack Nicklaus, was so good it transcended golf and became one of the great sporting occasions of the last 50 years.

So, tell me again, why is it that the course on which those great events were played is suddenly deemed inadequate, especially when the R&A, unlike their counterparts at the USGA, are forever claiming that the winning score is, to them, irrelevant?

Returning to Birkdale, the same sorry saga is being played out. Almost every change made to the course since Mark O'Meara won with a level par score 10 years ago – my, they really tore the place apart that week – can be traced back to either the distance the ball goes or the fact that, these days, it is so hard to shape shots with it.

It goes without saying that the new back tees that have added 155 yards to the overall length of the course were built because drives now travel so much farther than they used to. But all the other stuff – the new bunkers, the mounding and 'swaling' around the greens – have almost as much to do with the runaway ball.

The bigger tragedy is that the bunkers will, in tandem with the fact that many of the invariably terrific holes at Birkdale call out for controlled fades and draws off the tee, likely as not lead to many players leaving their longest club in the bag for long periods. While Tiger Woods' fascinating 'one-driver in 72-holes' performance at Hoylake two years ago was just that, such things should surely remain the exception rather than the norm.

It is easy to fear the worst this year. Strangled by the fact that the combination of the modern driver and ball makes the shaping of shots all but impossible, it will come as no surprise to see a large number of competitors laying up short of the penal sand traps by hitting straight shots with shorter clubs. Any semblance of subtlety, imagination and artistry will, in the process, be all but lost.

As for the humps and hollows around the greens, they are, in principle, good ideas. All the little 'run-off' areas bordering the invariably raised putting surfaces will give the players an opportunity to play a variety of little shots with a variety of clubs. Which is good and obviously a lot more interesting than the mindless 'hack-gouge' with a 60-degree wedge that is typically called for at the US Open, where the greens are tediously surrounded by thick rough.

On the other side of that particular coin, the more cynical amongst us will surely point to the fact that such slopes will make it easier for officialdom to create harder pin positions close to the edge of the many and various precipices. Tougher hole locations, along with ever-narrower fairways hardly anyone bothers to hit, is yet another increasing trend worldwide. All of which is, of course, designed to keep scores within reasonable parameters. And why is the threat of those low numbers a problem? Oh yes, because the ball goes too far.