[Simon Holt]

It's great to see so many of the tour pros in East Lothian over the past week.  Many of the top contenders for next weeks Open championship have been gracing the courses in the area over the past week. 

Rose, Donald, Scott, Rory and Clarke have all been spotted at North Berwick, Gullane and Dunbar, opposed to Castle Stuart.  And for those that moan (with justification) that you aren't allowed to play the back tees at these courses, Donald happily played off the box tees at North Berwick (6000yds) and shot 63 without getting out of second gear.

Justin Rose was out walking in North Berwick on Wednesday evening and posted a picture of the 16th green at NB on Twitter, commenting that it was one of the greatest greens in the world.

We have had incredible weather too; 30'C for a week now.  The courses were already in wonderful links condition but expect a very fiery Muirfield next week.  A straight hitter with links pedigree, the winner will be. (insert Yoda-esque voiceover.)

[Tony_Muldoon]

Hi Simon, thanks for the update.

North Berwick was referenced over on the Ran's Greatest Challenge as a course under 6500 yards.  Someone commented he doubted that had been the distance for the recent Open Qualifier?  I know there's a couple of new tees, so do you know the new overall yardage 'from the tips'?

How did it play during the qualifier.

[Simon Holt]

Hi Tony,

No wind and plenty of rain meant that it wasn't as linksy as it could have been on the day but it resisted scoring reasonably well.  I think I commented on it in another thread at the time but there were only a handful of tricky pins, so bravo to the R&A for not tricking it up either.

The length was as stated on the Open website but the only hole with a yardage that you could grumble about (in terms of legitimate length being listed) was the 4th.  They had it listed as over 200 yards as they did the measurement to the middle of the upper tier.  They may have done the same on 16 but didn't notice.  You may have spotted the new 'one off" tees on 3 and 8 but they didn't add much.  I thought the tee on 3 was particularly irrelevant as none of them were going to fly the wall off the tee, even if they could.

Simon

PS.  I hope you've bought the new West Links and Tantallon book.  There's a nice paragraph about the 16th green for you.

[Simon Holt]

Thanks Brian.  Happy days.

[Scott Warren]

And on the other coast, Geoff Ogilvy seems to be tuning up by taking in a few of the Ayrshire links.

It does genuinely please me to hear about pros who love to go and see great courses that aren't on their tournament roster.

A caddie on Long Island told me in 2011 about a great buddy trip Justin Rose had just taken with three mates, spending a week playing all the greats from Garden City up to National and all stops in between.

[Greg Taylor]

Snedeker tweeted that Muirfield is playing fast, very fast.

On the basis that he seems like a nice guy, and he's been there almost a couple of times before, he's my pick.

[Ben Malach]

We have had some of the boys play in St. Andrews the past couple of days. Plus some of the colour guys were through as well.

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