2022 Open Championship: Rd 1 Results

This is the second in a series of posts about playing Birthplace using Game Caddie 5.0. The first post described how to set up the the Game Caddie for a replay of the 2022 Open Championship on this course. Today’s post provides a comparison of round 1 results for the actual event and my simulated replay using 64 players from the 2022 APBA Golf card set.

Actual Event

In the actual event, round 1 concluded with Cameron Young in first place at 8 under par and with Rory McIlroy 2 back at 6 under. Robert Dinwiddie (not carded) and Cameron Smith were next at 5 under par. Eight other players tied for 4^th position at 4 under. 

Major championships do not frequently see such low scores, yet St. Andrews was ripe for the picking with uncharacteristically calm winds and baked fairways that seemed to cause balls to roll forever. Defending champion Collin Morikawa shot par. Three-time previous champion, Tiger Woods (not carded), finished 6 over. Mark Calcavecchia (not carded) had the day’s worst score of 11 over.

Replay

For the replay event, the pin was located at position 2; course conditions were hard (+20 FW Roll / +10 Green Roll); and winds calm. Round 1 finished with Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy tied at 7 under par. Fleetwood hit every green in regulation, missed only one fairway, had 7 birdies, and no bogies. Rory McIlroy offset his two bogies, with 7 birdies and an eagle. 

Jason Kokrak, Hideki Matsuyama, Cameron Smith and Will Zalatoris all finished at 6 under par. Eight players finished at 5 under par. Colin Morikawa finished the day one under. 

Luke List, with 38 putts (including four 3-putts), suffered a round-high score of 79 (7 over). At the other end of the spectrum, Cameron Smith logged a total of 218 feet of putts made, including one from 75 feet! That amount of total distance is far and away a record for any APBA round I’ve played. This is, perhaps, especially remarkable given that it was done using the Major Tournament Putting Boards, which are more difficult than the regular boards. (Unfortunately, neither the Open’s own website nor its Wikipedia page nor the PGA website report on total feet of putts made for the 2022 Open Championship.)

Comparison

In both the replay and actual event, benign conditions and very wide, tree-less fairways led to an abundance of long drives. In the replay, twenty players hit tee shots greater than 350 yards. In the actual event, round 1 saw Thomas Detry (not carded) drive the ball 410 yards, Si Woo Kim (not carded) 404 yards, Tony Finau 401 yards, and 11 other players blasted drives over 380 yards. In the replay, 6 players tied for longest drive at 370 yards.

Keep in mind that Birthplace features a number of short par-4’s: Burn (375), High-Out (371), End (352), Bobby Jones (386), Heatherly-In (348), and Tom Morris (356). When planning drives for the replay, some care was taken so as not to drive the ball beyond the green and out of bounds or into any number of deep bunkers scattered about Birthplace’s spacious fairways and protecting its greens. Therefore, a number of holes were played using conservative tee shots (3W or less) followed by short approaches (100 yards or less). In general, that strategy produced the lowest scores for this first round.

Here is a brief summary of round 1 stats for this tournament: