The American golfer Tiger Woods has describes the course at Royal Portrush for The 148th Open as ‘unbelievable’.
The American golfer is due to tee off for his first tournament on Thursday at 3.10pm on the famous links course at Royal Portrush.
Over the last few practice days Woods has spent considerable time on the course given his lack of experience and knowledge of the holes, but given the turn in weather on Wednesday morning has this been in vain.
Speaking yesterday (Tuesday 16th), Tiger Woods spoke highly of the course saying,
It’s amazing that it hasn’t been here in such a long period of time. I know that The R&A has a deal where we go back and forth from Scotland to England. This is just a wonderful golf course. It can play so many different ways, depends on the wind, what it does. Some of the bunkers here, you wonder why in the hell is it there. And then all of a sudden it’s in play.
The difference between this layout versus most of the Open rota layouts is that the ball seems to repel around the greens a lot. You’re going to have a lot of either bump-and-run chips, chips, or quite a bit of slow putts coming up the hills. But it’s an unbelievable golf course.
Despite in the sudden change in weather here on the course, it won’t come totally as a shock to the veteran golfer who is aware of the challenges he may face during the tournament given his age and past issues with his health.
Yeah, it’s just part of, unfortunately, dealing with the procedures I’ve had, and being a little bit older. It just doesn’t move quite as fast when it’s a little bit cooler
But the great thing is playing in an Open Championship, you can do it. Look what Tom did at Turnberry, what Greg did at Birkdale. The golf course is fast enough, even if you’re — you don’t have the speed to carry the ball 20 yards anymore, you can still run the ball quite a bit out there. You just have to navigate the bunkers and navigate around the golf course. And that’s true, that’s understanding how to play an Open Championship.
Despite not having played on the North Coast before, Tiger has played golf elsewhere in Northern Ireland and its seems the people here welcome Tiger with open arms.
The people have been absolutely fantastic. They’re so respectful. We used to come over here all the time and fish with the late Payne Stewart and O’Meara and I, and we used to go fishing all around Ireland and play golf and enjoy coming over here and playing.
I’ve never been this far north. Royal County Down is the furthest north I’ve ever been. This is new to me.
Tiger will take a day off from the golf on Wednesday before the tournament begins on Thursday.
