PARKER — Surely, this can’t be Parker, Colorado. This must be St. Andrews, Scotland, or Kinsale, Ireland.
Is that the Firth of Fife or the Irish Sea just over the crest? This ground is as mean and relentless as Ireland’s Old Head or Scotland’s Braveheart. That’s not Colorado prairie and feather reed grass surrounding the holes. Has to be Scottish gorse and devil heather.
In some places, they call this wind Mariah or a “gale.” In Scotland, it’s termed “a freshening breeze.”
Where’s the Senior PGA Championship being held this week — Colorado Golf Club or Carnoustie Golf Club? This field of dreams is not in heaven or Iowa.
Old Tom Morris, who won four of the first five British Opens, couldn’t make the cut here. Old Tom Watson, who won five British Opens and almost scored another last summer, is 1-over-par here. Three of the players Watson nudged in Opens — Hale Irwin, Nick Price and Andy Bean — are a collective 4-over.
Watson used to practice for the Open at Ireland’s famed Ballybunion and Waterville links courses. Probably wishes he had returned to Ireland last week to prepare for Parker.
When the wind was billowing Thursday afternoon, the pros couldn’t get home with a fairway wood and a fairy godmother.
When the senior citizens of golf snap-hooked or power-faded into the rough in the first round, they couldn’t reach the green with a scythe, a shovel and a Sherpa guide.
When the players say “snake,” they’re usually talking about rolling in a long, meandering putt. On Thursday, they were talking about a bullsnake that slithered across the green and persuaded a trio to lay up and bail out.
Many among the seniors were snakebit Thursday.
Twenty-four pros couldn’t break 80.
Colorado Golf Club is providing a nice little firm test for the 71st Senior PGA Championship, one of four majors of the Champions, or Elders, Tour.
Tee-hee.
Welcome back to our state, and welcome to the game most of the rest of us play. When Colorado Golf Club opened three years ago, a friend asked me to join him for a pleasant round. Afterward I said: “This is magnificent and fantastic. Don’t ever invite me back. And if I should become intoxicated one night and beg you to, shoot me.”
Speaking of shooting, I probably would have shot a 180 if I didn’t have 14 X’s on my card. I lost the two dozen golf balls in my bag, another six of my friend’s balls and five more my caddie found during the round. On the front nine.
Years ago, I lived a couple of miles from here — and always believed this land would make a perfect ostrich ranch.
Publicly, all the pros have praised Colorado Golf Club this week as worthy of a championship. Privately, an accomplished professional said after a warm-up round early in the week that he hated the course like an IRS audit and that every shot to the green on the 4s and 5s was blind. He withdrew Thursday before teeing off. For those keeping score at home, Peter Jacobsen, Hal Sutton and Paul Azinger opted out Thursday, citing “illness” and “injury.” Of course. Later somebody named Rod Spittle quit. He wasn’t worth spit at CGC.
This layout is longer, at 7,490 yards, than any previous in the history of the tournament and harder to get through than “The Brothers Karamazov.”
Tournament officials eased off on the players in the opening round by watering the granite greens and using some of the, er, up tees (read: women’s).
Still, only eight players finished in the 60s, and only two of those — Toms Lehman and Kite — played in the afternoon. Seventy-six was a recurring nightmare.
It should be noted that Bernhard Langer and Robin Freeman, who tied for low with Route 66s, went off early Thursday and will be on the clock at No. 1 this afternoon. They won’t duplicate.
Won’t be any 25-under-par winner this weekend. This isn’t the Outback Steakhouse Bloomin’ Onion Pro-Am, and it isn’t being played at some resort in Biloxi, Miss. The Senior PGA Championship is four rounds, not three, and the players aren’t riding around in carts with cup holders and CD radios, and they’re having to play at altitude and walk up and down the hills. Temperatures were in the 80s Thursday, and the breezes were freshening.
The weekend calls for more winds and more difficulty.
A club pro, Darrell Kestner, was asked to compare Colorado Golf Club to other courses he has played. “It’s big and tough and hard, and you’ve got to be great on the greens, and you’ve got to be a great driver of the golf ball,” he said.
In a seven-hole stretch, Kestner had four fives and a six.
Steve Waugh was asked if there any special challenges.
“Every hole.”
He had four fives and three sixes.
If you want some real entertainment this weekend and see that rare combination of Turnberry meets Parker, show up at Colorado Golf Club. And look for me at the 15th hole. I’ll be the one selling golf balls to, and chuckling at, the players.
Woody Paige: 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com
