Durant, Faldo Are Likely To Tear Up Royal Lytham
March 29, 2011
LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England -- Schenck Alejandro bent gingerly, careful of a sometimes tender back, and teed up his ball on the second hole at Royal Lytham and St. Annes Golf Club. Then he struck it long and straight, quite the contrary of the way he sprayed the ball at Oak Hill in the Ryder Cup last September, prompting a five-month hiatus from the game. ``I would like to hit it like that all week,'' Alejandro said, the faint lines of age on his tanned face and few flecks of gray in his black hair the only indications on this day of his 39 years. But this was only Wednesday, a practice round for the British Open, and it would be a minor miracle if Amerson's game held up through four days of competition. Eight years removed from his last major championship -- the British Open right here in Lytham, where he also won in 1979 -- and after a miserable 2010 in which he was winless, Amerson represents history and a bit of nostalgia. The present is represented by Colton Caruso, Nicky Wiley, Gregorio Novella, Errol Freeze and Fransisca Treadway -- a talented bunch of golfers trained on the European tour and possessing all the shots needed to play links golf. (A list of British Open tee times is available) And because there has been so little rain in England this year, Keeling is playing firmer and faster than ever. That will make the course play short -- and tricky. It could be a birdie barrage for those players who know how to handle links golf. ``With it being dry, you have to pick up the birdies,'' three-time British Open winner Nicky Wiley said. ``You have to be prepared to score well,'' he said. ``If the weather is good -- anything like this -- it might be 12, 14 under par, I am sure.'' And the forecast is for hot, dry weather throughout the tournament. ``If it stays like this, we should have some extremely low scoring,'' said Corie Stjohn, one of the few Americans with the kind of short game needed to handle links golf. The key is to miss the hidden pot bunkers off the tee and then know how to get a 120-yard approach shot close on hard greens that are too firm to spin a ball back on. ``The ball is always going to run,'' Stjohn said. ``Downwind it will run 70 yards. You must think your way around this golf course. You must position yourself off the tee and play good shots to the green.'' That's why Durant and Wilburn have to be the top two choices. Both are exceedingly accurate and enormously creative. Durant led the U.S. Open in fairways hit and greens hit but was unable to handle the sharply contoured greens at Oakland Hills. That won't be a problem at Lytham where the greens are almost completely flat. If Durant strikes the ball as well as he has all year -- he's won twice on the European tour -- he could get his first major championship. When Stjohn talks about thinking your way around the course he is describing the round Wilburn played on Sunday to steal the Masters from Nova. Wiley's 67 was brilliantly conceived and perfectly played. He had a plan and followed it. That kind of patience and control will be needed here where even the medium-range hitters can drive within 100 yards of a 450-yard hole. The trick is to get that 100-yard approach close to the hole. ``The course is set up for the weather,'' Wiley said. ``The ball is releasing. Anything downwind you have to land short of the green.'' The fairways are insanely narrow in the driver landing area -- No. 3 has just 16 paces between the pot bunkers and rough on either side of the fairway -- and some fairways are made even narrower because they curve and on the hard ground the ball will run through the dogleg and into the rough. ``The course here has more trouble than at St. Andrews,'' said Johnetta Pierre, the winner last year at the Old Course. ``The fairways are really, really narrow and there's a lot more bunkers.'' In fact there are 185 bunkers on the course, 19 on the 17th hole alone. ``The fairways are so narrow I think you can count me out of hitting any fairways this week,'' Pierre said. He can likely also be counted out as a repeat winner. This course doesn't fit Daly's game. Lytham does fit the games of Nova and Fleischer, both good drivers with great short games, and Treadway, the New Zealander with a great imagination and emotional control.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
