South African Ashleigh Buhai shot a seven-under-par opening 65 to lead the AIG Women’s British Open. However, home favourites Charlie Hull, Georgia Hall and Bronte Law gave the crowd something to cheer about on day one at Woburn Golf Club in Buckinghamshire.
How fast do you think you could play a par five hole? Well the world record stood at one minute and thirty three seconds when the European Tour decided to see if any of their boys could beat it. American Sean Crocker, Belgian Thomas Detry, Ireland’s Paul Dunne and Italian Guido Migliozzi to take on the record for the ‘Fastest hole of hole of golf by an individual’.
Paula Creamer was going along nicely in the sun at the Evian Resort in Evian-Les-Bains when the weather took a turn for the worst. Wearing a rather provocative top with ‘Kiss My Putt’ emblazoned across her chest, the American sank a monster putt from the edge of the 12th hole to move the overnight leader to nine under par and one off the lead.
Brooks Koepka had just teed off in the final round of the Open. We then heard ‘on the tee, JB Holmes from the USA’, the camera zoomed in on the man sitting in third place at Royal Portrush, then nothing. The guy looked confused as he suddenly wasn’t sure about something. Was it the wind had shifted? Had he changed his mind at to which club to take? Or perhaps he’d left the cooker on back at the house? Whatever it was he’d been standing on that tee for a good few minutes waiting for his tee time and he clearly was not ready.
They needed it to be tough out there if they were going to challenge Shane Lowry but in the end, it was too tough and the conditions actually played in to the hands of the big man. For a man who grew up playing links golf up and down Ireland he was always going to be one of best equipped if the really high winds came.
Lee Westwood backed up a first day 68 with an impressive 67 and is currently tied in 3rd position with Tommy Fleetwood, just one shot off the overnight lead. Based on his recent form this is somewhat unexpected. What has changed you might ask? Well he’s brought Helen Storey, his girlfriend, in as his looper and, despite her not knowing much about golf, it just might provide the fairy tale story for one of the finest golfers never to win a major.
The GolfPunk team love the game of golf and are big supporters of the idea of improving the etiquette on the course and in general. However, this week the big news running around social media was about the US amateur golfer that carded an impressively poor 194 for 18 holes and things got worse when the Florida State Golf Association confirmed it was actually a 131 over par 202!
As we sit and watch the various trials and tribulations of the players at the 148th Open, something pops up and immediately the whole team at GolfPunk are in total agreement, an event which I can assure you is as rare as rocking horse poop. The chance to own a luxury residence at the Hamilton Grand one of the most iconic buildings located virtually on top of the 18th hole of the Old Course at St. Andrews and in time for the 150th Open in 2021. The very definition of lovely stuff!
There have been many incredible Open debuts, here is our Top 10...
We were interested to see that Mizuno have today announced that they are launching three new sets of irons and are allowing us normal folk access to their T-Series wedges previously, the preserve of the professionals only. Most excitingly of all, for one of the team at GolfPunk at least, was that the range includes clubs for lefties too!
GolfPunk takes a look back at some of the trend setters on the course over the years and gets the expert opion of Stephen Doig Men's Style Editor and Assistant Luxury Editor, The Telegraph as to 'Who wore it better'. The second match up is between Johnny Miller and Rory Sabatini in the battle for the best trousers, or pants for those of you in the US of A.
GolfPunk fave Georgia Hall (no less!!) and nine of the past ten Champions will compete at the Women’s British Open for a 40% larger prize fund of $4.5m (circa £3.6m at time of writing) in recognition of the importance of the Championship and women’s golf according to the R&A.
