Unloved Dunhill event hides star quality

Scotland’s golfing public have shunned the Dunhill Links Championship even though a host of big names will be teeing up this week.

Alasdair Reid, The Times, 21 September 2003

It is over almost before it has begun, so perhaps we should learn to cherish it. On the European Tour schedule, golf’s silly season lasts four days, all the time it takes for a field of professionals and their amateur partners to amble around the East Neuk of Fife, make a brief foray over the Tay bridge, then head back to St Andrews for the finish. Nothing controversial in that.

Yet the Dunhill Links Championship, a tournament that has been staged only twice in the past, has already achieved the dubious distinction of being the most maligned event of the European golfing year. It has been savaged for its place on the calendar, its complex format, its parading of has-been celebrities and its haughty celebration of corporate nosebagging. Quite a record for one so young.

And now it is upon us again. Starting on Thursday, some of the best golfers in the world — and some of the worst — will tee off at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns, with each team of one professional and one amateur playing all three venues before the final round at the Old Course. For the amateurs, there is the privilege of playing on three of the world’s best courses; for the pros there is the small matter of a purse in the region of £3m to be contested.

All of which explains the undoubted enthusiasm of the participants. What has not been so clear from the first two events, however, is what the public has to gain from watching it take place. The organisers may have copied the format of the AT&T Pro-Am that takes place each February in California, but in transporting the concept they failed dismally to bring any of the glamour that routinely attends that event. As a consequence, Scottish golf followers have decided in their droves that they can get by without attending the Dunhill tournament at all.

Hence the decision to charge no admission for the first three days of this year’s competition. Given the accusations of arrogance that have been levelled against the event in the past, its organisers deserve praise for that, but it is still uncertain whether spectators will trouble themselves to turn up. Generous gestures cannot disguise the fact that the rambling format lacks focus, or the sense that the event has been created primarily for the benefit of the sponsors’ cronies, with the interests of the public consigned to distant afterthought.

Yet there is still a perfectly good tournament in there. The junketeering may obscure it at times, but the professional field that gathers for the Dunhill is as good as Europe can offer at any tournament outside the Open Championship. At its head are Darren Clarke and Ernie Els, now entering the back straight of what may prove to be an enthralling race for the 2003 Volvo Order of Merit title, with a cast of supporting players that includes such major winners as Nick Price, Vijay Singh and US PGA champion Shaun Micheel.

There will be interest, too, in Padraig Harrington, the reigning champion, now edging back into competition after the birth of his first child last month. And in the form of Colin Montgomerie, as he struggles to continue the distinguished streak that has brought him at least one tournament victory in each of the last 10 years. There is a growing feeling throughout the sport that Monty is a spent force — just as there was before last year’s Ryder Cup, to which he responded by blowing the American team away almost single-handedly.

Fresh from The Belfry, Montgomerie shot a 63 at last year’s Dunhill. Paul Lawrie is the only other player to record such a low round, his 63 having come on his way to victory at the 2001 Dunhill event, his first win since the 1999 Open. Two reputations restored by the tournament, then. Maybe it is time for it to build one for itself.