Day forces R & A into Open rule change

Jul 19, 2017 - 4:13 PM Jason Day's aggression and hopes for a short cut to the Claret Jug have forced the R & A into a rule change for the 146th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.

For the sake of fan and player safety, officials have introduced a local rule to prevent the world's premier golfers from taking a "Tiger line" down the 10th fairway from the ninth tee.

The Royal & Ancient have declared the dangerous route over the top of a grandstand out of bounds, after Day's caddy Col Swatton made inquiries.

"We were made aware that an option being considered was to take the tee shot at nine down the 10th fairway," R & A chief executive Martin Slumbers said on Wednesday.

"Now, the great thing about links golf is you can play a hole in multiple ways, and that's one of the beauties of it.

"But, in this particular case, we've been out there with our health and safety people, and the only way you can get the ball onto the 10th fairway is to drive it straight over the top of the grandstand, and then bring the ball back across to the ninth green, across two opposing groups of people.

"And we felt that that was just dangerous. So that's been put in there to protect the fans and the players, because it's also blind to the 10th fairway from the ninth tee."

Day isn't too bothered.

"I don't think anyone was going to go down there, anyway," said Australia's world No.6.

"We just asked. It is kind of a strange line. But if you get a nice breeze, you can get within 90 yards or so of the green, hitting a good drive down there.

"I can understand if guys are actually going to think about going there. But I understand the safety issue as well because if you're hitting a driver and guys are walking straight up 10 fairway, you can hit someone or injure somebody pretty badly.

"The R&A have obviously made that rule for a purpose and I guess I'll be hitting iron down there now, not taking the 10 line."

Source: AAP