IN a world – and a sport – that is increasingly obsessed with the idea of manufacturing magic the town of St Andrews is a glorious reminder that nothing beats time, heritage and the gloriously arbitrary nature of life.
Imagine the home of golf did not yet exist. Imagine that you were all set to meet a team of PR and marketing creatives. Imagine that you were charged with the task of selling them the concept of St Andrews. A town that will draw tens of thousands of visitors from across the world every year, a town that will generate millions of pounds for local tourism and trade, a town that will host golf’s most important championship twice a decade. A town that will make rich men and beggar men alike go weak at the knees.
Go on, sell it.
The location is not near an airport and it doesn’t even have a railway station. The climate is wet, windy and cold, and yet, paradoxically, we’re going to give this town a beach. The golf course is flat, vulnerable to the modern game and spectator unfriendly. It hasn’t got a windmill, but it has got hotel outbuildings that are designed to mimic the railway sheds that preceded them when there were trains. The course isn’t near the town, it actually finishes in it. And the most popular photo opportunity is standing on top of a little bridge that resembles the ones normally found amongst coloured gravel at the bottom of goldfish bowls.
This would not be a brainstorming session, it would be a mind-blowing one. I half wish St Andrews did not exist so I could take the idea to Dragon’s Den and be derided by the entire panel and all of the internet. It does exist, however, and this week it hosts the DP World Tour’s annual celebration of seaside golf.
As it happens, this event is no more or less bonkers than St Andrews. It is, after all, somewhat mystifying that anyone should want to walk around a wet and cold coastline, stopping every now and then to stand still so as to peer in the general direction of someone hitting a ball whose progress it is impossible to trace in a grey-white sky. When you’re doing this for elite-level hitters of balls there is, at least, some credence to the idea and the same case can just about be made for the celebrities who play alongside the golfing stars this week.
But when you’re essentially playing a giant game of musical statues on the off-chance that you distract a French logistics billionaire you’ve never heard of you enter another realm of existential crisis entirely. It’s magnificently barmy stuff. Welcome to the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
Brooks Koepka
When Brooks Koepka’s involvement in this year’s event was announced last month he said: “I love links golf and St Andrews is my favourite course in the world. I could play there every day for the rest of my life and never get tired of it.” We should always take quotes from press releases with a pinch of salt, but he has four top 10s in the Open on his CV (one of them on the Old Course) and his most recent starts in this event have reaped ninth, second and seventh. He won LIV Greenbrier two starts ago and was sixth last time out (when the first round leader).
Joakim Lagergren
The Swede Joakim Lagergren has always enjoyed this event. He finished fourth on debut in 2015 and repeated the result a year later. In 2019 he was third and in 2021 he was second. That makes it four top 10 finishes from seven starts and on one of the occasions he was just a shot outside the top 10 in 12th. He’s currently playing on the Challenge Tour but he’s in good form. He finished second in the last week of July and then landed two wins in August.
Sam Bairstow
The young Englishman Saw Bairstow hails, like Danny Willett and Matt Fitzpatrick, from Sheffield and while he might struggle to repeat their victories in this event he can add to his growing reputation with another good performance in a rookie season that sees him ranked 53rd in the Race to Dubai. He’s recorded ten top 25 finishes with a best of third in the Singapore Classic and he should be encouraged that he was top three through 36 holes last week in Spain. He has links pedigree from his amateur days (runner-up in the 2022 Amateur Championship at Royal Lytham & St Anne’s, fourth in the Brabazon Trophy at Saunton) and has nice memories of the Old Course (he made the cut there in the 2022 Open and was also fourth in the 2021 St Links Trophy).
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