ESPN.com - Golf Online - British Open 2000 - Notebook: Play reduced to a crawl

Associated Press
Friday, July 21

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland -- With a record crowd of 39,000 at the British Open, several players were warned for being too slow as they wound their way around the home of golf.

The final group out in Thursday's opening round -- Stephen Leaney, Ian Poulter and Roger Chapman -- took 5 hours, 58 minutes to get round and finished with the clubhouse clock showing 9:58 p.m.

"It was disappointing and embarrassing," said Hugh Campbell, chairman of the championship committee. "It was painfully slow by the end of the day. The problems started when players started crossing over and the nature of the course has a lot to do with it."

At some parts of the Old Course, players have to wait while others tee off or putt on adjoining holes and that creates holdups. And with huge crowds meandering around the links, it takes a lot longer to clear them from the official crossing points.

Monty's masses
Never underestimate the value of the home fans.

Poulter found that out Friday when he hit his drive on No. 18 into the fans lining the fairway of the adjacent first hole.

"Your job is to stop that," one fan said to another.

"If it was Monty I would have kicked it back in," another fan said in a thick Scottish accent, referring to Scot Colin Montgomerie.

"If it was Monty I would have kicked it in the middle of the fairway," another said.

Poulter got a drop and went on to par the hole.

Brush with embarrassment
Simon Dyson won't want to remember his second putt at the No. 4 in his British Open debut. It went down as a miss from 2 inches.

After his 10-footer lipped out, the young Englishman just had to tap in. But he brushed the top of the ball as he set up the putt and it rolled one inch forward. That meant a birdie opportunity turned into a bogey.

Dyson, who ended up missing the cut by two strokes, is in good company. Hale Irwin did something similar at Royal Birkdale in 1983 and the American wound up tied for second place.

Black and white Player
Gary Player's trademark appearance in black shirt and matching pants are familiar to golf fans around the world.

But the only player to have won the British Open in the '50s, '60s and '70s, had them scratching their heads Friday. He played in pants that had one leg black and the other white, like a harlequin.