Brody and I went to the final day of The Open at Royal St. Georges Golf Club. After years of watching The Open at 4am and all of the other majors each year Brody was so excited to get to see the greatest golfers in the world in person.
We took a high speed train at 7:40am from St. Pancras to Sandwich which took about an hour and a half. Once arriving in Sandwich we had a nice 30 min walk to the course. Unfortunately we don’t have any great pictures of the day because cameras weren’t allowed and you had to check your mobile phones at the gate. We spent most of the morning walking around the course and sitting in the stands at the 10th green watching a few pairings (De Vries/Moore, Sabbatini/Gallacher, Cink/Ferrie, Choi/Overton, Stanley/Day, Boyd/Wilson). Then we had lunch at one of the course pavilions and watched some of the action from the big screen. By the time lunch was over Phil Mickelson had just teed off. Brody was so excited to see Phil that we spent the next couple of hours following him from holes 2 through 8. I have never seen Brody move so fast… there were a couple of times that I had to remind him that me and my big belly couldn’t race up the hills as fast as he could. Phil had a great showing with birdies on holes 2, 4, 6 and an eagle on 7. After 7, Phil was in second at 5 under and Brody was sure he had a chance to win.
We took a break from running after Phil and headed for the 16th green so that we could find a place to sit on the ground and watch. As we approached 16th green, Phil had just birdied 10 and gone to 6 under 1 shot back of Darren Clarke. Over the course of the hour we watched a number of groups (Immelman/Watson, Schwartzel/Yang, Jacobson/Scott, Stricker/Simpson, Campbell/Lehman, Palmer/Johnson, Kaymer/Love III), while Phil proceeded to bogey 11, 13 and 15 as he approached us on 16. Capping off his downfall, he 3 putted 16 green and bogeyed leaving the green at 2 under. This was the sign for us that Phil would not catch Clarke and it was time to head to the train station, arriving back home around 8pm. The 2011 Open Champion was Darren Clarke at 5 under 3 shots clear of second place (Phil Mickelson).
The day was amazing from start to finish. With Phil's run for glory and the torrential downpours of rain that occurred each hour just to keep people in their coats and umbrellas . We found little trouble finding great viewing spots while following Phil who clearly had the largest crowds. The last Open Championship at Royal St. Georges was 2003 when Ben Crane walked away with the Claret Jug. We can't wait to go again next year.
