JORDAN SPIETH has voiced concerns the Old Course at St Andrews could prove too easy a challenge for the world’s best players when the ‘home of golf’ stages next week’s 150th British Open.
The American will be bidding for a second British Open title to add to the one he won at Royal Birkdale near Liverpool five years ago.
There have long been fears that a combination of modern golf club and ball technology, allied to the greater fitness of present-day players, leaves many classic links or coastal courses that stages the British Open increasingly defenceless against a barrage of low scoring unless the weather comes to their aid.
Asked if the Old Course might be “too easy”, Spieth, who just missed out on a play-off at the 2015 British Open at St Andrews, northeast of Edinburgh, replied: “Yeah, I think it might be.”
“It’s hard for me to tell given in 2015 we had so much wind that we couldn’t even play. But I think if it’s like it was this morning out here, it’s just a wedge contest, really.
“It was not necessarily built for today’s technology but I think that even a nice 10 to 15 miles an hour wind would do something to it and the fact that it doesn’t look like we are going to get any rain, so I think the defence could be how fast it plays.”
The 28-year-old, a three-time major champion, added: “It could get like Muirfield was in 2013, and I think that regardless of wind conditions, that would change the golf course significantly and make it challenging to hold fairways and greens.”
This has nothing to do with Ben Davies though