6 hour sessions?! 4 teams on a tee?! How the Women's Open became a slogan

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – We've all seen slow play before but nothing like what the Old Course did in the first round of the AIG Women's Open on Thursday.

Imagine that you are Leona Maguire, who is known for her brutal and strong nature. You grew up in Ireland – the wind doesn't bother you much. He's chasing shots on the practice range into a 30- to 40-mph crosswind, preparing for a vicious cycle. You start on the 10th and make a frustrating bogey, but go to the 11th tee and find something worse: not one, not two, not three but at least. four teams waiting to play the 148-yard par-3.

Four teams to a tee?! (Actually, Maguire told reporters that he thinks there are six teams, although we couldn't confirm.) The pace of play became so bad that players were instructed to wave the team behind them to play on the green before taking them out. Sometimes you see that on drivable par-4s but never on par-3s. But Thursday was an unusual day.

Here is the reason.

Holes 7 through 11 on the Old Course form what is known as The Loop, where the holes share not only greens but fairways as well. The 7th and 11th are actually opposites, which causes all kinds of problems when newbies are in links. But it can force tension among professionals, too, who want to play without interruption, and often wait longer than usual for the atmosphere to calm down before playing forward. (Viewing can be difficult in this loop as fans can only go back nine if the players pass the crosswalk at 12.)

Ahead of Maguire on 11th were Bailey Tardy, Wichanee Meechai and Nicole Broch Estrup. Broch Estrup had a steep, 20-foot putt he scored on the exposed part of the 11th green. That part of the area is as remote as you can get from the buildings of Auld Toon or the hills of Fife which can act as shields from the wind. What felt like 40 mph winds ripped through the nearby Eden Estuary and the 11th green. Broch Estrup could not keep his ball still.

The situation on the 11th was no different. Players hit their balls as they hit the ground and roll into the fairways. “It's not just hitting the ball that you're worried about, but I mean three feet, two feet where you're trying to hit the center of the field,” said Lydia Ko. “It sounds silly because you're like, how can you miss the center of the putter, but there's a big wind blowing it.”

All of this explains why an open round that normally takes about five hours has stretched to six. And even more than that mark. The wind was not only strong – it was also playful on the other side golf course. Professionals can handle playing on the ground or in the air, but they hatred wind blowing, aiming 30 or 40 yards from the target.

Back 11: Broch Estrup put his ball close to his mark at least four times and saw it from its place. More than one officer arrived to assess the situation, which took at least 20 minutes, and possibly half an hour. Those three were about two holes behind the group in front of them and they were I'm trying playing forward, but Mother Nature wasn't having it.

Because the Women's Open is this week, at least three weeks later than usual, because of the Olympics, we have less than an hour of daylight in St. Louis. Andrews. Tournament organizers have decided that the only way to get all 144 players through 18 holes each day is to use both the first and 10th tees at the same time, so an unplanned delay on the 11th as teams start off the 10th gets four teams (or maybe six) are supported in one tee box.

“We almost waited an hour on the 11th,” Maguire said, later admitting he wished they had been called earlier. But where were they going? The 12th tee sits to the right of the 11th green, and players who press that tee box are in no better shape. For the teams to play up to number 11 and the other green ones push them to the intersections of the teams playing the 7th.

All in all, it was the kind of chaos that can be had at major tournaments where the stakes are high, the set-up difficult and the conditions brutal. Andrea Lee, pictured at the top of this article sitting in series 11, he had six hours and 15 minutes between his first shot and meeting the media to talk about it. The tent team of Nelly Korda, Lilia Vu and Charley Hull were on the opposite side of the field, and encountered a heat, resulting in a lap of 6 hours, 8 minutes. And all three were shot in the 60s.

The crawling speed was unusual but not alarming, especially given the strong wind. Tiger Woods' Thursday afternoon round of the 2022 Open Championship at the Old Course was similarly slow – and played in very light conditions. Woods, Max Homa and Matt Fitzpatrick went around Ndala in 6 hours and 10 minutes that day. As we wrote at the time, any time the pace takes that long, it's a combination of about seven things, and solving one of them won't solve the others.

As for Maguire, he worked hard from that brutal wait on the 11th, snapping the green in the wind, making the difference and shooting one over 73. Good points. The weekend forecast calls for slightly better conditions. Better scoring, too.