From the tee, all the players could see was a wall of umbrellas in the small stand behind the green. There spectators hunkered and scrambled to prevent their only cover from the rain taking off across the Portrush dunes towards Scotland.
The humid sunshine and comfortable temperatures of Wednesday, which made Dunluce Castle and the basalt White Rocks look picture postcard, gave way to the squalling showers and gusting winds of Thursday morning, where the 16th hole, a gem of the Dunluce course, lived up to its name.
“Calamity” – an event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster. The iconic par-3 yielded just 24 birdies across four rounds in the 148th Open, the fewest of any hole.
While it seemed mildly perverse waiting for misadventure and catastrophe to befall the players coming through Calamity Corner in brutal conditions, the hole’s reputation preceded it.
RM Block
Tom McKibbin, in the first group out with Pádraig Harrington and Nicolai Højgaard, would have known of the course’s beauties and dangers and the chasm on the right of the 16th hole, where the ball can fall as far as 40 feet. And so it went, with the LIV player’s ball kicking into the drop as the gallery groaned.
But McKibbin recovered well, and walked off with his par.
The ideal shot or bale-out area was left, but with the wind gusting up to 30km/h and pushing the balls towards the lush ravine, and with rain in their faces, it would have taken more club than in the practice days.
Niklas Nørgaard, in the sixth group that came through, also found his tee shot falling away into the thick of the rift, forcing a deft scramble down the incline after it came to rest 28 yards from the pin.
His recovery drew a gasp from the crowd as the ball flew across the green, stopping just short of a television camera. His third was to four feet, four inches and his putt pitifully horseshoed out of the cup, leaving him shaking his head.
The double bogey helped the Danish golfer to an ugly six-over round for the day.
Playing in the same group, Byeong-Hun An also saw his ball disappear down the slope and fall into what is quaintly described as the “native area 14 yards from the flag”. He hacked out to 10 feet from the pin but missed the putt and walked away with a bogey.
“The weather here is the craziest weather pattern I’ve ever experienced in my life,” said Jason Day, who hit to the fringe on 16, walked away with a par and then weather-shamed the local forecasters.
“There’s no consistency to it whatsoever. You look at the weather – I mean, I’d love to be a weatherman here. You just get it wrong all the time.”
By 5pm the hole had given up 10 birdies to the field, 53 pars and 21 bogeys.
Darren Clarke was another one of the victims. Like McKibbin, Clarke knows how the course can show its teeth and his tee shot also came to rest short and right, 18 yards from the pin. His recovery was good to eight feet, but again the ball refused to drop.
Even from the back of the stand, as the wind whistled through, the wet, heavy air could not conceal that famously furious Clarke face, as he left with bogey on his way to a four-over finish for the day.
“Sixteen was playing tough. That’s not the hole where you want the worst of the weather,” said England’s Jordan Smith, who finished on level par for the round and with a birdie on 16.
“Yeah, that was a tricky 4-iron from about 200 yards. Absolutely pummeled by the wind and the rain on 16. That made a short, easy hole usually a really, really tough hole. Obviously made it look really easy making birdie.”
It wasn’t always doom and gloom at Calamity Corner and when Matt Fitzpatrick came through in group 16 with Hideki Matsuyama and Ryan Fox, all three ended up disappearing down the slope with their anxious caddies hoping for a lucky break.
Matsuyama and Fox scrambled well to get up and down with Fitzpatrick, not visible from ground level, pitching straight into the hole.
“A bit of luck, obviously,” said the English player, who finished the day on four under par. “Sometimes you need that. You need that. I thought I could play a bit aggressive after watching Foxy and Hideki leave them a bit short. Obviously, it just came out a little bit harder than I anticipated and on the perfect line.”
Everybody loves a blind shot on to a slick green in the rain from a lush, wet position 30 feet below the surface. And at the Open they are now beginning to enjoy it.
