A burn, or steam, crosses Carnoustie's finishing hole just steps from the green.
The Championship Course at Carnoustie Golf Links has always been a worthy foe, having hosted five British Opens between 1931 and 1975.
But it wasn’t until renovations in the late 90s, which in part transformed its straight fairways into those that curve, expand and contract, that it became toughest course in the British Open rotation and the toughest one you can play on a Scotland golf vacation.
In 2007, the course will host the British Open for the seventh time, and if any doubt remains about Carnoustie’s power to intimidate, one need only look as far as the aforementioned fairways, the boundaries, bunkers and famous winding creeks, called “burns,” on the course.
Eight holes are carved by these water hazards, roughly as many such perils as on all the other British Open courses combined. Plus, the final three holes constitute the sternest finish in championship golf.
When a stiff breeze kicks up, the par-three16th hole will play a full 50 yards longer than its stated 235 yards. But length is hardly the sole source of trouble. The hole culminates with a narrow green on a low shelf defended by five pitiless bunkers.
On the 421-yard, par-four 17th, called “The Island,” twenty-foot-wide Parry Burn snakes across the fairway twice, forcing you to thread your drives between the two coils of the stream.
And, with out-of-bounds tight along the left all the way up the 428-yard home hole, the broad burn again crosses the fairway twice, the second time just ten paces short of the green.
After finishing the 1968 British Open on Carnoustie’s Championship Course, Jack Nicklaus said, “I thought it was the hardest golf course I’d ever seen.”
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My son and I played Carnasty on our last trip to Scotland in sideways driving rain. We made a 3 and a 4 on 17 and thought we were Golf Gods. We concur with your assessment. Ed Skeen