Was British Open a Huge Conspiracy Against World’s Golfers?

Sliced, diced, hooked, shanked, lipped, trapped, roughed up and driven bonkers from bunker to bunker, these guys have had it with this place.

Seething Seve Ballesteros says players he knows are threatening not to come back to the British Open.

Ticked off Tom Watson says he is sending a letter to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club authorities to insist that something be done about relaxing the conditions of the Open course. Mad Mac O’Grady has filed a formal complaint with the R&A;, with regard to painted and sloped cups on the greens. There was a pinch of patriotic paranoia for good measure. Turnberry was turned tough to “make Americans look bad,” O’Grady said. “I know these people.”

It all came to a head as the world’s oldest golf tournament was ending Sunday, Greg Norman having distanced the field. Also-rans such as Ballesteros, Watson and O’Grady joined the many others who had griped about Turnberry’s very narrow fairways, ridiculously thick rough and unfairly doctored greens.

Somebody tried to turn a 10 of a golf course into an 11, they believed.

“You can put too much makeup on Bo Derek and make her ugly,” Watson said.

Throughout the week, players complained that Turnberry and the R&A; had tried too hard to make this place a murderous test of golf, and to avoid a recurrence of the record low scores carded by Watson and Jack Nicklaus during Turnberry’s only other British Open. Watson was 12 under par then, Nicklaus 11 under. Norman, at even par, was the only man this time better than five under.

Said Nicklaus: “They clearly did everything possible to ensure there would not be a repeat of the Great Turnberry Shootout of 1977. It’s not possible to attack the course now.

“People say the duel between Tom Watson and myself was one of the greatest championships ever. Wouldn’t it have been nice to see a couple of other guys carrying on the act?”

Si , said Ballesteros.

“It’s not nice for spectators to see great players coming to the last green of an Open championship 20 over par. It spoils the show. People pay to see birdies, not double bogeys,” he said.

“There is no sense in a course where I have to hit a 5-iron from the first tee when the hole measures 350 yards. Turnberry is the hardest course I have played in my life--almost impossible. The British Open is the greatest championship in the world, but bad things are happening to it.”

Even a 64 on a sunny Sunday did not soothe Seve. Golf was meant to be unpredictable, he said, but not unbearable. And no matter what cheap thrills some spectators might get from seeing a top golfer on an obstacle course, Ballesteros felt they were being cheated.

“They don’t come to see us play like them,” he said.

Ballesteros said he was speaking out “for the benefit of golf.” He said several players, whom he would not name, had informed him they were considering boycotting the 1987 British Open at Muirfield unless they were assured the playing conditions would be eased. Most of them were reluctant to complain publicly, Ballesteros said.

He was not. Asked if he would write a letter to the R&A;, as Watson intends to, Ballesteros said it was not necessary. “I’m sure they can read English,” he said, realizing his remarks would be widely quoted.

One by one, golfers had registered various verbal protests. No sooner had Norman mentioned that Turnberry’s rough was so thick that somebody might injure himself attempting to hit out of it, than did Craig Stadler do just that. Curtis Strange said he almost walked off. Roger Maltbie said either he or these people had a misconception about how golf was meant to be played.

The weather and the course’s conditions left players exasperated. It was impossible to cut loose. Everything depended on keeping the ball perfectly straight.

“The fairways just aren’t wide enough,” Watson said. “At the PGA (in Toledo), the fairways are going to look huge.”

Even when balls were hit straight at Turnberry, the hard fairways kept them hopping like Silly Putty. Nicklaus suggested American golfers had been spoiled by lush, plush courses in the States, where “we take our bulldozers and smooth out the courses, take the bounce out of them.”

No American finished within eight strokes of Norman.

“Where are the Americans?” Watson asked rhetorically, then answered himself in a Scottish burr: “Lost in the roof ,” he said. As in rough.

Red-blooded American Mac O’Grady talked conspiracy. He and others had noticed that the Turnberry greenskeepers had painted the inside of the cups white, presumably for television’s sake, and that they had curled the ridges slightly so that putts could slide to the sides. The others were agitated; O’Grady was outraged.

The American Way is to “die-putt,” he said. In other words, stroke a putt softly so that it drops gently, at the last instant, rather than ram one at the hole. “I know these people,” O’Grady said, apparently of Britons in general. “If they can make Americans look bad, they will. It’s done deliberately, to make Americans putt poorly. I don’t trust anybody. Americans are so much better putters than these guys.”

Witnesses for the prosecution: Watson said the cups “weren’t round, they were square.” Fred Couples said the cups “were hard as brick.” Several golfers detected that greenskeepers had used an enamel-based paint that, as O’Grady detailed, “hardens and crusts, and circles the top of the cup, and makes the cup 4 inches instead of 4 1/2 inches.” A water-based paint should have been used instead, it was said.

The reply of Alistair Low, chairman of the R&A; championship committee: Mr. O’Grady’s views have been noted, but the committee is disappointed that it was not brought to their attention sooner, if it was felt to have been a bother. So sorry old chap, and all that.

Quite sportsmanlike, the British.

Perhaps they will give these gentlemen a mulligan and let them do the whole tournament over.