Lingering Feelings About Carnoustie Reveal Screwy Love-Hate Relationship

MEDINAH, Ill. — Davis Love III tied for seventh at the British Open, but he still hasn’t let go of his criticism of the course setup at Carnoustie.

“When you have a screwy setup, you’re going to get a screwy golf tournament, a screwy finish,” Love said. “And if Paul Lawrie is the champion that Scotland wanted, I think they got exactly what they wanted.

“But there was a lot of silly golf going on out there. There was some crazy stuff going on. And when you get an unfair, ridiculous, screwy setup, you’re going to get a crazy finish.

“I mean, have you ever seen Greg Norman whiff before? Or have you ever seen guys making triple bogeys when all they need to do is make five? There were 128 Open championships and they’ve only had one bad setup, so that’s a pretty good average. If you look at it that way, St. Andrews will be back to normal next year. And I don’t think we’ll ever see fairways that narrow again as long as we live.”

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Colin Montgomerie, who plays with Ernie Els and Justin Leonard the first two rounds, knows the European players could make it a major year--and it has nothing to do with the Ryder Cup, either.

Europeans have won two of the first three majors--Jose Maria Olazabal of Spain in the Masters and Lawrie in the British Open. Montgomerie believes he knows why this has happened.

“We are playing quite well,” he said. “I don’t know why we haven’t won this or the U.S. Open for a number of years. We’ll try and remedy that this week. I think there is anticipation with the European players that one of us might just win here. We’ll see.”

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The PGA is changing its playoff format next year, substituting a three-hole playoff for sudden death. At the British Open, a four-hole playoff is employed. The Masters playoff is sudden death and the U.S. Open uses an 18-hole playoff.