Graham DeLaet Blog - Dunhill Links Championship

Photo above - 12th Green at Kingsbarns Golf Links

Hello,

Last week I played in the prestigious European Tour event, Dunhill Links Championship. The tournament is played at St. Andrews (Old Course), Carnoustie, and Kingsbarns. This was my first time to Scotland and also at St. Andrews. It was an unbelievable experience and one that I hope all golfers/golf fans get to experience at some point in time. It is really hard to describe how cool it was to tee it up on the first hole at St. Andrews. Every single hair on my body was standing on end as I stepped up to my first tee shot. The same was also true for my tee shot at 18. Standing on that tee box and looking toward the green is probably the most amazing site in all of golf.

I shot rounds of 70, 68, 74, 70 (-6) to finish in a tie for 53rd.

I played the opening round at the Old Course. I played pretty well apart from a tee shot on the 12th that I hit in a gorse bush and never found. I did make birdie on my provisional ball to reduce the damage. The highlight of my day was the 18th hole. It was playing downwind out of the right. I hit my tee shot on the green pin high and two putted for birdie. It has always been a goal of mine in life to drive the 18th at St. Andrews and I was lucky enough to do it the first time I played it. I kept the ball and will save it with all my other memorabilia.

I played my 2nd round at Kingsbarns Golf Links. It is a great new links course built about 10 miles down the road from St. Andrews. I played a very nice round of -4, 68. I was pleased with the round, but it definitely could have been better without a couple very makable putts that I missed.

The 3rd round was supposed to be played at Carnoustie on Saturday. However, the heavy Scottish winds came in late Friday night, and made a couple holes on each golf course unplayable. At 9:30 a.m. they postponed the 3rd round until the following day and the tournament would now have to be finished on Monday.

I had a tough day at Carnoustie. It is a very difficult test with the wind blowing. There are so many "angry looking" bunkers scattered throughout each hole. Avoiding these bunkers is the key to scoring well. I was able to keep away from all the fairway bunkers, however, I was not finding the fairway (2 fairways hit all day) and because of that was not able to get the ball anywhere near the hole for makable birdie putts and it seemed like I had 60 footers for birdie all day. I didn't make a birdie the entire round, and looking back on the year, I think it was the only competitive round that I failed to make a birdie. I shot 74 and was nervous after the round that I would miss the cut. Thankfully, I made the cut on the number and would get another opportunity to play the Old Course.

When the pairings came out I was pretty pumped when I saw that I was paired with 3-time major champion Padraig Harrington during the final round which was really cool. He was a really nice guy and played pretty well.....reeling off four straights birdies near the end of our round to shoot 66.

I played well my final round, apart from a triple bogey on my 13th hole (the 4th) where I had to take an unplayable from another gorse bush. I dropped my ball and it rolled outside my 2 club length relief. However, the ball is allowed to roll outside the 2 club length allowance as long as it lands inside it. Not thinking, I picked up my ball (that was in play) and re-dropped to incur another penalty stroke. It was disappointing because I was playing well (-3 for the day at the time). I was able to birdie the next two and then par in for a round of 70. Once again, on the 18th, I drove the green and two putted for birdie, although this time I had to two putt from the "valley of sin".

My good friend, Mark Hedge came over to caddie for me. It was cool for him to get to see the St. Andrews too. We had a great time. Thankfully his nephew from England came and met us and drove us around. Narrow roads and driving on the left side of the road didn't sound very appealing to either of us, so it was nice of Chris to come along. We checked out some sights while we were there including Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle, and a bit of the countryside.

I am spending this week in Ireland. I am in Dublin right now and have been doing much of the touristy stuff. I went to the Guiness Storehouse today. It was the best tour I have ever been on! I am going to the southwestern coast tomorrow to a town called Doonbeg. I am playing there for 3 days and then off to Johannesburg to fulfill my 5th event on the Sunshine Tour. It is called the BMG Classic and will be played from the 16th through 18th of Oct.

All the best,
Graham