British Open 2018: No significant weather in the forecast, but conditions could play a factor
Nobody really knows what to expect at Carnoustie this week
By
Kyle Porter
•
2 min read
The 2018 Open Championship represents my 23rd major to cover at CBSSports.com. It is also the least confident I've been about how things are going to play out once the actual tournament starts.
Part of that is because, well, this is an Open and subject to a variation of Murphy's Law -- let's call it Old Tom Morris' Law -- that when insane things can happen on these courses, they usually do. Another part is because, despite a prediction of benign weather, Scottish afternoons can bring pretty much anything. The last, and biggest, is that Carnoustie is playing unlike it has ever played, certainly for an Open and maybe ever.
First, the weather. I'd say four days of 10-18 MPH wind counts at tepid (at worst) for Scotland. Throw in one day where it will probably rain a little bit, and it doesn't appear this year's Open will have a good or bad side of the draw. Again, all of that is subject to change.
What's probably not going to change is a course that golfers are insinuating is like playing on an aircraft carrier. Long irons for days, no way to stop drives and fewer divots than a driving range mat. Carnoustie has turned rock hard, and an already-confounding golf course has elite players running in different directions. It is the reason that, despite no outlook of macho weather, we're in for what qualifies as a roller coaster of an Open.
"There's not going to be one player in this field that has a game plan on Wednesday night and is going to stick to that game plan the whole way around for 72 holes," 2014 champ Rory McIlroy told reporters. "It's just not going to happen with wind conditions, with pins. You start to feel a little bit more comfortable with a few shots, and you might start to take some on.
"It's going to be really interesting, I think, because the golf course is playing so firm and fast, there's some guys that will see it completely different than the way I see it and vice versa. It's going to be really interesting to see how it all plays out."
McIlroy isn't wrong. Some guys are going all driver all the time. Others think that's an awful idea. Last year's champ Jordan Spieth might exclusively hit mid-irons. It has given a links course that already had myriad options a seemingly infinite number of choices, which leads us back to where I started: I have no clue what that means for this week's winner or how any of this will play out.
