Sandy Lyle delivers Open 'history lesson' to current champion Collin Morikawa

Sandy Lyle enjoyed delivering a “history lesson” to Open champion Collin Morikawa after joining up with the American for a few holes on the final practice day for The Masters.

Lyle, the 1988 winner at Augusta National, was out playing the front nine on his own when he bumped into the current Claret Jug holder.

“Yeah, it was good,” said Lyle of spending some time with two-time major winner Morikawa. “I enjoyed watching him play. I've seen him on TV enough times but never got to meet the guy. It was good.

“I talked to him about The Open Championship at St Andrews coming up because he's obviously an Open winner. I said this year is a very special year. He kind of goes ‘why? It's just another Open’. I said it's the 150th anniversary of the belt.

Collin Morikawa with his caddie prior to The Masters at Augusta National Golf Club. Picture: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images.

“So it was a little bit of a history lesson I gave to him because the belt used to be played as The Open Championship. Tom Morris Jr. won it three years in a row, so back in 1860-something, they gave him the belt, and then they had nothing to play for in 1871. Hence why we play for the Claret Jug now.

“I said, ‘if anybody comes up to you panicking, saying we need to present you with a British Open Belt after you've had the Claret Jug’, at least you know what it's all about because I got caught that way as well.

“These people from Prestwick Golf Club (where The Open was first played) want to give you a belt and you might say ‘can't you see I'm busy? So that was a little history lesson, so he enjoyed that.”

As had been the case when he played nine holes with fellow Scot Bob MacIntyre on Monday, Lyle also took the opportunity to deliver his thoughts on the course set up on this occasion.

“I just pointed out that the fringes around here are a little bit easier, they're firmer,” added Lyle, another two-time major champion who is making his 41st Masters appearance.

“First bounce, the ball's releasing, which we never do before. It's always known as the sticky fringes.

“I played quite a few chip shots around the edge of the green. Normally I would use a blade or a 5-wood or something or a 3-iron all the time. Never thought about trying to chip it into the bank.

“I found this year especially the fringes are releasing when it hits the fringe, and then you get some sort of control with it, probably better than my blade shot, which is unusual.

“So that's a little difference from previous years. That's really the main thing. The course is playing as long as it needs to be, way too long for me.

“But the big boys can turn these par-5s still into reachable in two. That's the big difference. They're hitting it 40, 50 yards way past my drives.”

It’s eight years since Lyle, 64, made the cut in this event. “I'll have to do a [Bernhard] Langer and work away at it and sneak in under the radar,” he said of his hopes of achieving the feat on this occasion. “Hopefully at the end of the week, hopefully on Sunday, I'll have a nice week.”

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