Scottish Open 2011: Castle stormed by a deluge

Published on Friday 8 July 2011 12:33

A DAY of Biblical proportions in the Highlands where the weather gods took a look down at Castle Stuart in the early hours of Saturday morning and decided, with all the venom they could muster, to let the course have it with both barrels.

The storm that blew in overnight was freakish, estimated at only three miles wide and ten miles long, so localised that up the road in Nairn and down the road in Inverness you wouldn't have had much of a clue about the carnage that was unfolding. The skies were a filthy grey, the day as foul as could be. "End of the world stuff," as Colin Montgomerie put it.

There were landslides on the 1st and 12th holes, giant chunks taken out of the age-old hillocks, the debris then streaming across the width of the sodden fairways. From early morning, the heavy machinery was at work. Instead of golfers, we had excavators and dump trucks raking up the earth and the twigs and the rocks and stones against a backdrop of brutal rain and occasional thunder and lightning.

Play was expected to begin at 2pm, but it never happened. The start-time was pushed back to 3pm and 4pm and 5pm, each deadline missed because of the deluge. They brought the players back on the course around 7.15pm, but waterlogging on the 8th and the 12th made things impossible. Play was eventually abandoned just after 7.30pm. Not a shot had been hit all day. Since Friday's suspension, 25 hours have passed in this championship without a stroke being played.

"Everyone was out there pushing water and we were hopeful that we could have pushed it to a place where we could have played," said John Paramor, the European Tour's chief referee, last night. "Unfortunately, with the sheer volume, we were pushing water which was being replaced by other water from the sides of the hill. It was a fantastic effort from everyone here but it was not meant to be."

The 10th fairway bunker, the 12th fairway and in front of the 8th green were waterlogged. That was the problem, said Paramor.

"We were close to resuming. We were trying like crazy. Every one of the players wanted to play.

"It was on the edge. We tried but we failed."

Castle Stuart was under siege all day. The decision was made to cut the tournament to 54 holes (for the first time in its history) but with the weather forecast grim again for today there is no guarantee that they'll even get that much golf played. Seventy golfers have yet to complete their second round. A 36-hole winner can't be discounted.

Play was due to start at 7am today.

Via Twitter, we heard from the players.

Luke Donald (7-under par for the tournament): "It's not every day your courtesy car driver gets you stuck in a giant puddle and (you] get towed out by a JCB."

Jamie Donaldson (8-under): "It's so wet up here that our courtesy car got stuck in a flood and started floating!"

Graeme McDowell (co-leader on 11-under): "Golf course a mess here in Scotland. There has been a landslide and all sorts."

Their social networking partner, Ian Poulter, was also tweeting yesterday. Playing some practice rounds down in England ahead of this week's Open championship at Royal St George's, he wrote: "I was thinking of playing Inverness but I couldn't fit my canoe in my bag." You can imagine that his gently mocking humour would have sparked a few retaliatory expletives in the locker room at Castle Stuart as the players looked out the window and gazed at the monsoon.

Mike Stewart, the tournament director, described the scenes as "unprecedented" and "not normal". All over the place, sympathy was expressed for the public, the sponsors and for this magnificent golf course, reduced, in part, to a drowned wreck.

"I've never seen the likes of this before," said Montgomerie. "This land has been here forever, so for there to be landslides is incredible. I was up at 4.30 after an horrendous thunderclap at 4.15am. When we got here we were advised not to go down to the first hole because it's dangerous. The players' car park is closed. Cars are being towed away. It's just a freak."

Kicking their heels, some others in the field described the scenes.

Lee Westwood (7-under): "I've seen this kind of thing before in Singapore and Jakarta, but not in Scotland."

Martin Laird (4-under): "Everybody keeps saying it's a shame for the players, but we're fine in here (in the clubhouse). It's a shame for all the people that spent all those weeks and months getting it ready. It's a shame for the area. Such a big event and then this happens."

Luke Donald: "I'm sure this is a one-off. Very strange. Very bizarre."

This tournament has been fundamentally altered now, not just by the loss of 18 holes but by the condition of the place. For those 70 players yet to conclude their second round it has become a longer and tougher trek, one where plugged lies and mudballs are a possibility if not a probability. Preferred lies are not an option until the third round.

"The golf course will be very different from when we started playing," said Monty. "It'll be longer. You can't imagine that the greens will have been cut. The balls will gather mud on the fairways now and we won't be allowed to place the ball. Very much a problem for the later starters."

Monty is chasing two prizes this week; a victory, yes, but also a spot in the Open, a tournament he has played in for 21 straight years. To make it to St George's he needs to win or else finish in the top five and above all others who have not yet qualified for the Open. It's a big ask. And it just got bigger.

"I would have much preferred it to be a four-round event instead of the three rounds it now is," he said. "We should be playing here on Monday. The tour have been in touch with Barclays and they've OK'd this (a 54-hole tournament), but you'd think that if the Masters can do it (have the tournament go into the Monday), then... I would like to see this played over 72 holes. They could easily fit 36 holes in on a decent day here because you can play till late at night. But I suppose they don't want to hold the players back until Monday and then find it's bad then as well. It just so happens that the golfing gods haven't shone on us and it has been very, very miserable. These leaders in the clubhouse now at 11-under (Scott Jamieson, Peter Whiteford and McDowell) are having a big, big laugh, aren't they? I would be as well if I was one of them."

True enough. Jamieson and Whiteford and McDowell may have been smiling, but there wasn't a lot of that going on amid the epic battering that unfolded here. Back at 7am, then - with an eye on the heavens.