The Open Championship returns to St. Andrews next year.<\/p>\n
Enough said, right? But should you need a few more words, Jack Nicklaus<\/a> can expound. Five years ago at St. Andrews<\/a>, at the 150th playing of the Open, the 18-time major winner was asked what made the Scottish course so magical.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I came here in 1964, I couldn\u2019t believe that St. Andrews was a golf course that would still test golfers of that time. Now, that\u2019s, what, 60 years ago? Close. Anyway, I didn\u2019t think \u2014 it still tests the golfers at this time,\u201d Nicklaus said. \u201cIt\u2019s a magical golf course.<\/p>\n \u201cThe conditions, the weather, where you actually choose to put the pins, whether the golf course gets dry, whether the golf course gets wet, all those things that make St. Andrews a magical place.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd to believe the game of golf essentially started here, and it just absolutely is mind-boggling to me that it still stands up to the golfers of today. I tell you if you get a little bit of weather, anytime you get it, it will tell you real fast how fast it makes you stand up to it.\u201d<\/p>\n Did he still get excited coming to the course?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m thrilled and so forth about coming,\u201d Nicklaus said. \u201cI drove into town, first time I\u2019ve driven into town in about 17, 18 years, and it was interesting. Coming into town, I said we used to go that way. No, no, we go this way. OK. But it was kind of fun just to come back to see where we were, see the gates, come into the little curves that we came into.<\/p>\n \u201cI always said St. Andrews looked like an old gray town until the Open came around. All of a sudden, it just lit up like a light, and it was beautiful.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd St. Andrews always the week of the Open Championship is always beautiful. I imagine actually probably from anybody who makes a pilgrimage here to play this golf course feels that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Did Nicklaus have a philosophy of playing the course?<\/p>\n \u201cBasically it\u2019s by where the bunkers are,\u201d he said. \u201cFirst hole, I just made sure that I take a club and I can\u2019t reach the burn on the left as it comes back. You can drive it down there, but you\u2019ve got plenty of room to drive it down there. Why hit it there? You\u2019re only going to play a wedge from just short of that.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the 2nd hole, you\u2019re really dealing with \u2014 I can\u2019t remember the name of the bunker that sits out on the turns on No. 2, but you\u2019re playing by that. And of course on the right.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re playing always, trying to play in between what your hazards are. St. Andrews \u2014 what is it, I think it\u2019s only about 94 acres? \u2026 Very small piece of property. It goes out and comes back. Your width is what you have between two holes, every hole adds up to 18, every green does. So you try to keep it in between that.<\/p>\n \u201cSt. Andrews is played to the left. And if you\u2019re going to miss it, you miss it left. And most of the time \u2014 occasionally there\u2019s a bad problem left, but not too often. Most of your problems are right. Your out of bounds, bad bunkers and so forth are on the right.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so the philosophy is to keep the ball favoring the center of the golf course, play a club that you need to play off the tee that doesn\u2019t get you in a bunker. As it relates to the greens, you\u2019re going to get the ball on the greens. It\u2019s whether you can putt or not.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst time I played here in \u201964, let\u2019s see, I think I was 149, I think the first two rounds, and I had 41 putts. That\u2019s what you have in the wind and the bad weather. And I shot 66, 68, the last two rounds. The wind dropped out, and I made some putts.<\/p>\n \u201cBut putting is really difficult in the wind, and particularly on this golf course because the wind just sort of pushes it across the green. You\u2019ve got to figure out \u2014 you try not to leave a ball in a place where you leave yourself with an impossible putt.<\/p>\n \u201cLike No. 2, you\u2019ve got the Himalayas. I don\u2019t think you want to leave the ball and be putting out of there. You want to try to keep the ball to the right of it so you\u2019re putting back up into the hill. The same type of thing pretty much through the golf course. Third hole, I guess, has that little bunker on the left. You\u2019ve got to hit the ball, you just don\u2019t ever want to be in that bunker, short-side yourself, you want to be right of that little bunker so you\u2019re not playing off of the slope.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd all through the golf course it\u2019s the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n