Clarke: Open winner must play it straight
The Lancashire links course just south of Blackpool will host its first Open since 2001, when Clarke tied for third behind winner David Duval.
It would take another decade and a move home from London to Portrush before the Dungannon golfer would get his hands on the Claret Jug, outsmarting the English Channel winds at Royal St George’s in Kent to land his maiden Major by three strokes from Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson.
A return to Lytham, with its 206 bunkers, more than any other course on the Open rota, narrow fairways and thick, penal rough will offer another stiff challenge and Clarke said yesterday that errant shots will be punished.
“It’s just a nightmare,” Clarke said of the bunkers that protect this par-70, 7086-yard links course. “They’re very penal, they’re very tough, those bunkers.
“They’ve revetted a lot of the faces (rebuilding the bunker walls with layers of turf), so some of them are a little bit more penal than others.
“You know there’s going to be occasions here this week where I think you’re going to have to see guys taking penalty drops out of them, because they won’t be able to move their ball anywhere.
“They are a huge part of this golf course. It’s very heavily bunkered in the landing areas where we need to hit the ball.
“Accuracy is going to be the key. It’s not really length off the tee, it’s keeping it on the fairways and out of those bunkers.
“There’s a few holes out there where prudence may come into play, and if you’ve got 220 (yards) left to the green for your second shot, it’s better than having to chip it out sideways or backwards out of the bunkers. They are very, very strategically placed, so you’ve got to be careful with them.”
Clarke, who yesterday returned the Claret Jug trophy to R&A chief executive Peter Dawson to mark the end of his year as Open champion, agreed with three-time champion Tiger Woods that the rough was almost unplayable following the heavy rain that has fallen on Lytham this summer. “There’s a few patches out there where it’s just absolutely brutal,” Clarke said. “The grass is quite thick. It’s not quite what we would expect in links. The grass is going different ways and it is thicker than what you normally find on links golf courses. It’s really, really tough.
“If you start spraying the ball around this week, you might as well go home. There’s no chance coming out of this rough at all. Some of the longer par fours are going to play into the wind. Obviously you start missing the fairways there you’re really going to struggle. So it’s a big challenge. There’s a huge premium on accuracy this week.”
