Why ‘The Open’ runs like clockwork

The R&A had 145 Open Championships under their belt when going into last week’s event.

The team that organised the 146th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale made it look like a walk in the park. Right from my Mercedes Benz courtesy car from the airport with a driver decked out in Hugo Boss attire with the official logo of The Open, I knew that the tournament was going to be special.

The 146th Open Championship had a record breaking 235,000 spectators walking through the gates.

They had over 1,400 volunteers to help run the event and I still don’t know how many organisations were paid to provide services like security, catering, medical staff (led by Kenyan born Dr Chris Neville) etc. All I know is that everything moved like clockwork.

All the teams were so well coordinated and worked like hand in glove. That kind of coordination, I soon discovered, does not happen by chance. Everything that happened was properly documented and all who were working were well informed of their duties.

For me, the most interesting thing was the fact that we, the referees, were required to record all the Rules incidents and our decisions.

This information was then collated and shared with all Rules officials at the end of each day. The main aim was to ensure that the decisions were consistent and that similar situations received the same treatment in subsequent days.

One of the Local Rules at the 146th Open Championship is one that is not seen at our local golf courses. This is the Local Rule on temporary immovable obstructions.

Obstructions in golf are defined as anything artificial. These will include things like papers, furniture that is normally on the golf course, dustbins, yardage markers, sprinkler heads and the like.

These obstructions are further classified into movable or immovable. One that can be easily moved without unreasonable effort or cause delay in play, is a movable obstruction.

If a ball lies next to a movable obstruction, the player may remove it. If the ball moves in the process, there is no penalty and the ball must be replaced.

If the lie of a golf ball, the player’s area of intended swing or his/her stance has interference from an immovable obstruction, then the player is entitled to relief.

There is no relief granted if the interference is on line of play but does not impede the lie of the ball, the stance of the player or their area of intended swing.

The temporary immovable obstructions are treated like the normal immovable except that relief is also granted for line of play. Temporary immovable obstructions are things that are normally not present at the golf course such as the grand-stands, TV towers, and trucks.

The Champion Golfer of 2017, Jordan Spieth, had one such relief on the 13th hole on the final day. His tee shot on the hole ended up several yards to the right of the fairway.

He decided to deem his ball unplayable. He could have gone back to the teeing ground to put another in play for his third shot. He also had the option of dropping the ball within two club-lengths from where the ball lay. He however chose to go back in line.

In taking this option, he ended up on the practice area and he now had some equipment trucks in his line play.

Since the trucks were between him and the hole, he was entitled to free relief for this interference. The ball in this case is dropped more than one club length but less than two of an area where the temporary immovable obstruction (the equipment trucks in this instance) does not intervene on the line of play to the hole.

Spieth showed his knowledge of the Rules and used them to his advantage to get the best of a bad situation. He ended up dropping his ball in an area where he had a very good lie.

He did this under the close watch of the Chairman of the joint Rules Committee of the R&A and USGA, David Bonsall, who was the referee in charge of the final game.

Bonsall was joined by one of the most experienced referees, John Paramor. The relief was therefore kosher despite some pundits trying to say otherwise.

The Open is a well oiled machine. This was by far the best event, golfing or otherwise, that I have ever attended.

The way that the R&A have been able to learn from past experience and build on it has been through meticulous documentation of every major aspect of the tournament.

We can borrow a leaf by building on experiences of past events and ensuring that they are properly documented.