I was condemned to stake at the burn

Every year the R & A invite the golfing media to inspect the course that will stage The Open in July, and explain what changes have been made in order to challenge the world's best golfers.

I suspect it is also an exercise in humiliation, much needed many will think, because we are then invited to play the course.

If you are a hacker as well as a hack this can be the most daunting and humbling of rounds. And never more so than at this year's Open host, Carnoustie, who claim to be the most challenging course in the world.

When we gathered there last Monday, it looked so spring-time fresh and inviting you could easily forget its reputation and what it did to the game's finest eight years ago. Some still shudder at the memory of the 1999 Open, when the monstrous rough caused carnage and bitterness among the top golfers.

Sergio Garcia finished in tears, while the Frenchman Jean van de Velde will be forever haunted by that humiliating image of him standing barefoot in the Barry Burn as he squandered his winning lead on the final hole.

We are assured that the rough will be nowhere near as severe this year, but Carnoustie still possesses enough devilry to guarantee a dramatic Open, especially if the wind gets up. Even a stiffish easterly breeze was enough to assist our collective downfall last week.

Not that it was in any way a hardship to be battling over the feared and famous links. In the sunshine, the course was beautiful enough to act as an anaesthetic to those who were suffering. It wasn't until the scores were added up that the pain set in.

It didn't help that we played off the back tees, from which the course measures 6,941 yards. In July, they will play an extra 500 yards, making this the longest-ever Open.

Thanks to my new allies, the seven and nine woods, I didn't do too badly. My 23 points, as measly as they look, meant that out of 52 players only 25 were better than me.

It is generally agreed that the final four holes form the toughest finishing stretch in British golf, and I managed only two points from them. Part of this was due to a bet I had unwisely struck. We were talking about how Van de Velde had succumbed to the pressure on the fearsome 18th in 1999, and the others wondered how I would survive.

My son, of all people, reckoned I would be lucky to score less than nine, and offered a [pound]100 bet I couldn't do it. No one knows better than me how often the number nine appears on my card, but I bravely accepted the challenge.

When word got around, others began betting on the outcome, and when I stood on the 18th and contemplated the 444 yards in front of me I felt the weight of a great financial responsibility.

The treacherous Barry Burn crisscrosses both the 17th and 18th fairways, and my confidence was not bolstered by the fact that I had just registered a slovenly 11 on the 17th, during which I twice had to fish my ball out of that same burn. More of this sorry tale next week.

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