SELECTED POSTSCRIPTS ON THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

GO BACK TO CARNOUSTIE? OF COURSE WE WILL,
SAYS R&A SUPREMO PETER DAWSON

Aberdeen-born R&A chief executive Peter Dawson has shrugged off some observer's doubts that poor attendances (only 154,000 paid for entrance last week) could threaten Carnoustie's hopes of hosting future Opens.
With Royal Liverpool back on the roster, and the Old Course, St Andrews staging it every five years, the Open will not be back at Carnoustie until 2017.
The income from the Open championship through TV rights and spectators is of crucial importance to the R&A's worldwide golf development programme.
"We'll be coming back to Carnoustie if they will accept us," Dawson told Five Live.
"There is no doubt about that. Carnoustie is firmly on the Open rota and it is one of our strongest venues.
"Everything has worked very well here this week. We are pretty pleased with the crowds, given the weather."
He added: "The weather was horrid on a couple of the days and a number of the practice days.
"My fears when I saw the rain falling was that the crowd figures would be smaller than they have been so we are very happy."
Carnoustie, in fact, enhanced its standing as one of the best Major tournament venues in the world.
You would not design a golf course with a burn meandering throughout it - but the Barry Burn is the most feared water hazard at any Open venue.
Put the 18th hole at Carnoustie alongside the 18th hole on the Old Course, St Andrews and there is simply no comparison in the degree of difficulty. Had this year's Open been played over the Old Course, all the men in contention would have got par-4s and some would have got birdie3s by almost driving the green.
The Old Course difficulties are mainly earlier in the round, the size of the putting surfaces, the depth of the pot hole bunkers, and the Road Hole (17th) is an excellent penultimate hole in a tight finish.
But, and it may be sacrilege to say it, the 18th hole on the Old Course is a "weak" finishing hole.

MIKE AITKEN WRITES IN "THE SCOTSMAN"

THE Open will return to Carnoustie by 2017 in spite of the championship won by Padraig Harrington attracting the lowest attendance to the oldest major since Nick Price succeeded at Turnberry in 1994.
Although crowds at the Angus links fell from 157,000 in 1999 to 154,000 because of inclement weather, the Royal and Ancient paid tribute to Carnoustie's "staggeringly good" finish.
While the number of paying customers was also 76,000 down on the record 230,000 who swelled the scene at Hoylake during last summer's heatwave, meaning gate revenue for the championship was reduced by around £3 million, the R&A heaped praise on the links yesterday for delivering one of the most exciting finishes seen at a major championship in recent years.
Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the R&A, said: "The 18th hole here is just built for drama, there's so much going on. There's the burn, the out of bounds, the bunkers, the burn again and the out of bounds again by the green. If there isn't some excitement on the 18th here, you're not going to get it anywhere. It's staggeringly good."
Dawson was also hopeful that TV ratings would show a rise and the excitement of the championship stir the interest of non-golfers in the sport.
Miserably wet and cool weather was the obvious reason the attendance dipped. The R&A had expected to attract 175,000 spectators if conditions had been fair.
There are nine courses on the Open rota with St Andrews usually holding the championship twice as often as the other eight. Next year's Open is at Royal Birkdale, then at Turnberry in 2009.

JOHN HOPKINS WRITES IN "THE TIMES"

Padraig Harrington deserves plaudits for his victory and Sergio GarcÍa should be given sympathy for losing out after coming so close, but the shining star of the 136th Open was a stretch of water that snakes its way across the course and for golfers is as much of a distraction as is the mermaid that lures sailors on to the rocks.
After the last two hours of the Open, a time when man was pitted against man and both men were pitted against the course, one image in the mind’s eye is of Harrington hitting into the Barry Burn with his tee-shot and then his third shot (after dropping out under penalty) on the 72nd hole. Another is of the ball of Andrés Romero, who almost made the play-off, landing in the burn, ricocheting out and ending out of bounds.
The events at Carnoustie last week taught us that the Barry Burn is more treacherous than Rae’s Creek at Augusta in the United States, more dangerous than the Swilcan Burn at St Andrews, more intimidating than the Suez Canal at Royal St George’s, more understated than the lake by the 17th at Valderrama in Spain, more historic than the water in front of the 10th and 18th holes at The Belfry.
The Barry Burn turns Carnoustie from an exceptionally good course into one not to be found anywhere else in the world.
There are other burns in Scotland, other water hazards on courses around the world. On good days most of these twinkle and sparkle in the sun. The Barry Burn never does that. It may be clear enough in parts so that you can see its floor and see green tendrils of moss, but it never sparkles, never dances in the sunshine. It is tidal for one thing, so the water does not have time to dance. It is constantly on the move.
The burn’s sides are stepped, so you can walk down into it, as if descending to a watery grave. You cannot do that in the Suez Canal at Sandwich. It is too wide to try to hurdle, as people do to the Swilcan Burn. And it is never prettied up for special occasions. The idea that the Barry Burn could have blue dye poured into it to make it look better on television, as sometimes happens to the pond that feeds Rae’s Creek, would be as heretical to a Scot as adding water to Glenmorangie.
The Barry Burn neatly symbolises the difference in character and approach between the US and Britain.
The 17th at Sawgrass, the one with a near-island green, is a gimmick, a golf hole by Walt Disney. The Barry Burn at Carnoustie is defined by nature. The water around the penultimate hole at The Players Championship is barely 20 years old, the burn in Scotland is a millennium or more.
The hole in Florida is big, loud and brash, beating its chest, saying: “Look at me.” The burn in Scotland is quiet and sinuous, subtle and seductive.
Darren Clarke described playing the 17th at Sawgrass as waking up in the morning knowing that you have root canal work to be done by your dentist. The Barry Burn has a similar effect. “There wasn’t a competitor in the Open last week who didn’t find it was preying on his mind all the way round,” Martin Kippax, the chairman of the championship committee, said. “You know it is waiting.”
The Barry Burn was there for Carnoustie’s first Open in 1931, creating anxiety, wreaking havoc, and it will be there for ever more.

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