I was fortunate to have two weeks off which was very nice after playing four weeks in a row, which included the Women’s Scottish Open and the Women’s Open at St Andrews in August.
Scotland was crazy!
I’ve never had two weeks in a row like that where we didn’t have one day where it didn’t blow 30-40km/h. And it was gusting 50km/h at times on the Saturday at St Andrews. I like tough conditions but to have two weeks of it was something else. Then there was also rain thrown into the mix at the Scottish Open.
It was insane and very tiring. It’s physically and mentally exhausting playing in those conditions but you just manage it. I don’t know how we do but we get on with it, because you have to.
It was just relentless. By the end of the day you are exhausted and it doesn’t leave much room for enjoying where you are.
We were in St Andrews, a five-minute walk from town, and I didn’t walk into town once. I didn’t get to enjoy St Andrews for what it really is because you were just so tired and the weather was so crappy that after playing in it all day you didn’t feel like going out in it again. So you just get home, have a cup of tea, put your feet up and try to rest.
The players just put their heads down and got on with it. You don’t want to harp on about the conditions. If you complain about it, you’re not going to have positive vibes, and that’s how you’ve got to look at it. That’s how I look at it for sure, I try to embrace it. I also feel I have the game for it. It really is the ultimate test of golf.
I played with Jin Young Ko the first two days and she shot 10 over and the next week we go to Boston and she’s in a playoff. It’s just such a specialised way of playing golf and it’s not for everybody. And you have to learn over years how to do it.
It was good playing the Scottish Open the week before St Andrews because I knew what I had to work on, I learned quite a bit from that first week in Scotland. We had extreme conditions at the Scottish Open, like they’d be at St Andrews, so you learn which shots you’re going to have to play. It was helpful from that point of view, even though it was pretty exhausting.
I felt for the caddies. My caddies said they were on edge over every shot, because there’s only so much they can do. You don’t know how much it’s going to gust, what the ball is going to do once it gets up there. You can only make an educated decision and then the rest is up to whatever happens.
I played well on Thursday and Friday at the Women’s Open, Saturday wasn’t good but I shot six over and I thought, I didn’t play that badly. When you play St Andrews, everything plays left to right on 1-9. With my fade it’s worse because it exaggerates it. And then coming in, it’s right to left, which is better for me because I like to hold it against the wind. But at times, with the way the wind was blowing, everything was crosswind.
It’s hard with the angling because one minute the wind helps, one minute it hurts. You’re trying to gauge how much it’s going to hurt … you’re hitting into the wind and then it’s going to push the ball. That’s what was so difficult for the caddies. It’s not enjoyable for them to be on edge for every shot.
I even said to Dave that I just want to go back to Scotland for one week, on a golfing holiday and enjoy it. Because I love everything about Scotland and golf in Scotland. When you play at a tournament at that level, you have to be so on top of it. You’re thinking so much.
St Andrews is such a special place and it was really great for us to go back and play there. We wish it hadn’t been nine years since the last time we were there. The weather put a damper on it but it was still a great event. The Women’s Open is still the best event of the year which we all look forward to, and I think every player will tell you that.
I wish we played St Andrews every five years like the men, I don’t know why we don’t. It’s just up to The R&A where they want to take the Women’s Open. I guess it’s always been a tradition for the men to play there more regularly. We’ve only played there twice before so it wasn’t really on the radar. But hopefully after this one in particular it will become more of a thing for us to go back there more often.
Next year the Women’s Open will be played in Wales for the first time. The R&A is trying to take the tournament to new courses. It’s the same as the USGA, they’re finally letting us play at all these historic courses at the same time. We went to Troon for the first time a few years ago. So we’re finally going to these courses that the men have had on their Open roster for years. Deservedly so, I think.
– This column first appeared in the October 2024 issue of Compleat Golfer magazine.
Photo: Luke Walker/Getty Images
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