Everything yesterday from a travel perspective went really, really smooth. Flight was on time, immigration took about 30 seconds, no issues with the rental car. So while that was good, it meant we had tons of time to kill before our round. We arrived at the club at about 9:30 and they couldn't get us on until about 2:00.
This was my first time ever at a true golf club of any type and it just had a really cool feel to it. On the walls they had tons of pictures of past Open Champions and tons of plaques for all of their local championships they've been having for 100 years.
The story of the course itself was all about the bunkers. 206 bunkers on the course. The real challenge was that the yardage book was 35 GBP so we decided to go without. We had one rangefinder that gave us some info off the tee, but getting around the course was a little tough.
The beginning of the round was tough. We had plenty of time to chip and putt and we hit a bucket beforehand, but after being awake for however long it just took a while to get loose. That led to a few problems getting off the tee. I had a couple lost balls and duffed a couple. However, when I got going in the middle of the round I had a string of pretty good holes. I went out in 47, but started the back nine with a birdie and three pars. Then we got stuck in a little backup and I basically ran out of gas. I had a double and a triple which really hurt my chances at shooting in the 80s. I needed a par on 18 for an 89, but drove it in a bunker and couldn't advance it (kinda like Adam Scott in 2012). Ended up with a bogey and a 90.
All in all it was a great experience. The bunkers were insane. If I had to do it over again, I'd make sure we at least had Google maps screenshots of the layout so we knew what was out there.
