Best Links in the Open Rota

[Chilli Dipper]

Another Open Championship is now past, and Turnberry proved to be a more than formidable host to golf's oldest championship after a 15-year hiatus. Unlike in two of the three previous Opens held at the venue, the winds blew strong off the Ayrshire coast, and the Ailsa Course offered a stiff challenge to the world's best players. Any doubts of Turnberry's caliber can now certainly be laid to rest, as can its viability as a future Open venue.

Turnberry's success means that the rota of links courses used to host the Open is likely cemented for several decades to come: four English courses alternating with four Scottish courses, with the Old Course at St. Andrews hosting every fifth year. So, which one is superior?

St. Andrews: The ancestral home of golf and the backyard of the R&A;, the Old Course will be an Open venue as long as there's an open. Despite all its quirks and eccentricities, the Old Course may not be best suited for the modern game: in three of the last four championships held here, it has offered little defense to the world's best players, with the record low score in relation to par being set twice.

Muirfield: Muirfield was the first course to divide its holes into loops of nine, a fact that leads to its claim of having no two holes that play into the same wind. Out of all the courses in the rota, Muirfield may be best at revealing greatness: Vardon, Braid, Player, Nicklaus, and Faldo all won their first Opens here.

Royal St. George's: The first English course to host the Open, the Sandwich course was thought to be antiquated after Greg Norman posted four rounds in the 60s en route to the lowest aggregate score in tournament history back in 1993. When the Open came back ten years later, Ben Curtis' winning score was 16 strokes greater than Norman's a decade before. Some antique: the most rugged course in the rota is anything but.

Royal Liverpool: When Hoylake returned to the rota after a four-decade absence in 2006, some critics wondered if the course abandoned by the R&A; forty years previous could stand up to today's game. Scores were low, but the sun-baked links forced a strategic style of play seldom seen since Roberto de Vincenzo hoisted the Claret Jug here in 1967. Perhaps nastier conditions will prevail the next time around.

Royal Troon: An out-and-back layout that happens to run directly underneath the descent path for the jets landing at nearby Prestwick Airport, Troon's straightforward layout is a stark contrast the neighboring Prestwick links, which was abandoned by the Open in the 1920s for being too weird. Boasting both the shortest and longest holes of the current Open rota, it has a history of crowning obscure champions.

Royal Lytham & St. Annes: It's too short. It starts with a par 3. You can't see the sea from the course. Hit a shot to the right anywhere on the front nine, and your ball is likely to land in a car full of coal traveling down the railway bordering the course. The click-clack of the amusement park rides at Blackpool can be heard from the 18th fairway. You can make birdie from a parking lot. The last three winners finished in double digits under par. All these excuses and more will be heard in 2012, when Lytham & St. Annes hosts the Open again, as reasons why the course is not suited for championship golf. It probably will mean that Jim Furyk or some other modest hitter will win at a score around par.

Carnoustie: Carnoustie went 24 years without hosting an Open. 290 strokes and one Van de Veldian collapse later, the golf world was left wondering why such a brute had been abandoned for so long. The 2007 Open was not quite as testes-retracting as the infamous 1999 event, but it was enough to solidify Carnoustie's reputation as the toughest links in Britain.

Royal Birkdale: The common perception of Birkdale is that it's the fairest course in the Open rota. Tell that to the competitors at the 1998 and 2008 championships, when none of the 312 entrants competing between the two events broke par. Like Muirfield, no two holes face the same direction.

Turnberry: It is possibly the most beautiful course in the Open rota, but it might also be the easiest of them all when the wind is not blowing. Turnberry prior to this year's event was somewhat unfairly labelled as a pushover: how easy it is to forget that third place in 1977 was a full ten strokes behind Watson and Nicklaus' duel in the sun, or that Greg Norman's 63 in 1986 was bookended by two rounds of 74. Maybe 2009 will erase such preconceptions.

[Prairie Golfer]

in order

1. St. Andrew's
2. Carnoustie
3. Muirfield
4. Turnberry
5. Royal Birkdale
6. Royal Troon
7. Royal St. George's
8. Royal Lytham & St. Anne's
9. Royal Liverpool

I'd like to see the R&A; add Royal County Down and Royal Melbourne to the rota and take off a few of the lesser links.

[Chilli Dipper]

in order

But it wouldn't really be the

British Open then, would it?

[Prairie Golfer]

But it wouldn't really be the

It's the Open Championship now. I think the R&A; should take it to other areas where it oversees the game. For financial reasons, I see them doing that later this century.

[CG031]

My vote is Carnoustie, but that's just from watching on T.V. I really don't know much about these courses, and it's not like I've been to them/played them. They all look cool.

[enarhi]

Definitely Carnoustie for me. Although if Royal Dornoch wasn't too isolated for the Open, it'd be the clear best.

[Elvisliveson]

I voted for Carnoustie because, IMO, it has the greatest finishing hole in all of golf.

[mcfc_nick]

it was between Birkdale and Carnoustie for me and ive been to both but Birkdale just edges it i think!

[apex53]

I've played three of these courses: St. Andrews, Royal Troon, and Carnoustie. Carnoustie is, IMO, the hardest course. St. Andrews obviously has the most history. Royal Troon is fantastic. I voted for Carnoustie as the best course in the rota. Royal Troon has some amazing holes (Postage Stamp, Sandhills, Railway), but for me it's Carnoustie. The meanest SOB I've ever played.

[max power]

I like Turnberry-just plain gorgeous.

[Chilli Dipper]

As a spectator watching the Open, I rank the courses like this:
1. Carnoustie
2. Royal Birkdale
3. Muirfield
4. Turnberry
5. St. Andrews
6. Royal St. George's
7. Royal Lytham & St. Annes
8. Royal Liverpool
9. Royal Troon

As a mid-to-high handicapper wanting to play these courses, I rank them like this:
1. St. Andrews
2. Turnberry
3. Carnoustie
4. Royal Lytham & St. Annes
5. Royal St. George's
6. Royal Troon
7. Muirfield
8. Royal Liverpool
9. Royal Birkdale

[allin]

Out of my egotistical desire to vote on a subject I really know nothing about I voted St. Andrews, because it is the first one I would want to play.