– The AIG Women’s Open is being held this week at the Royal Porthcawl in Wales. The club was inaugurated by a group of Cardiff businessmen in 1891. It started as a nine-hole course, although in 1895 it moved to its current location. Shortly after, it was expanded to 18 holes. In 1909, it received its royal status from Edward VII.
– It is the first time it hosts a women’s Major, although it has been the venue for other very important tournaments and the scene of great stories, some with a direct link to Spanish golf. It has been trying for years to be included in the Open Championship rotation, but the Royal & Ancient has explicitly stated that there is no intention to include it. No further explanations have been given, although it seems the main issue is the access roads, which are too narrow.
– Royal Porthcawl has hosted the British Amateur seven times (1951, 1965, 1973, 1980, 1988, 2002, and 2016), once the British Masters (1961), the Curtis Cup (1965), the only major women’s competition it has hosted until this week, a Walker Cup in 1995, and three Senior Open (2014, 2017, and 2023).
– Obviously, talking about Royal Porthcawl means talking about Alejandro Larrazábal, champion of the British Amateur on this course in 2002. Alex, who will be caddying for Madrid’s Paula Martín this week, in addition to being her coach, won the final against Englishman Martin Shell by 1 up. His complete path to winning one of the most important amateur tournaments was as follows:
· He finished second in the stroke play phase, five shots behind Richard Finch.
· He eliminated Kevin McAlpine in the first match by 5&3.
· He eliminated Richard Brookman in the second round by 4&3.
· In the round of 16, he defeated Jack Doherty by 4&3.
· In the quarter-finals, he won against Zane Scotland on the 20th hole.
· In the semi-finals, he also struggled to defeat Jamie Elson on the 19th hole.
· He won the final against Martin Shell by 1 up.
– In that edition of the British Amateur, there were also Charl Schwartzel, Edoardo Molinari, Francesco Molinari, David Skinns, Pablo Larrazábal, Mikko Korhonen, Pablo Martín Benavides, Louis Oosthuizen, Ross Fisher, Alejandro Cañizares, Iñaki Alustiza, Álvaro Quirós, Álvaro Velasco, Alfredo García Heredia, Ignacio Sánchez Palencia, Jamie Donaldson, Dámaso Carrera, or Mike Kanski, now Phil Kenyon’s right-hand man and one of the world’s great putting gurus.
– Besides Alex, the only one who passed the stroke play phase was Pablo Martín. He fell in the first match against Graeme Clark, who had finished second in the stroke play tied with Larrazábal. Martín Benavides only conceded on the 18th hole.
– Without a doubt, it is the most relevant and well-known story of Spanish golf at Royal Porthcawl, but there are others that are not bad at all. In the 1988 British Amateur, for example, Carl Suneson reached the tournament’s semi-finals. He finished 25th in the stroke play phase with rounds of 78 and 74 strokes. In the first match, he defeated Russell Claydon on the 19th hole, overcame Andrew Mitchell by 5&3 in the next match, and won in the round of 16 against Frenchman Thomas Levet by 3&1 and in the quarter-finals against Anders Haglund by 4&3. In the semi-finals, he lost by 2&1 against Swedish Christian Hardin, who eventually won the tournament. Interestingly, Hardin had to win a playoff in the stroke play phase to advance to the matches.
– In the same 1988 edition, there were other Spaniards: Jesús Inchausti, José Borda, Yago Puga, and Félix Ortiz Laynez. Let’s focus on the latter. He was a young and talented Cordoban. He had been a junior champion and had a truly brilliant amateur career. Trained at the Real Club de Campo de Córdoba, he arrived at this British with all the enthusiasm in the world and passed the stroke play phase. In the first match, he defeated Gay Milne by 4&3, and in the second, he faced a tall South African named Ernie Els. He lost by 4&2, but he will always cherish that experience. Els, by the way, lost in the next match to Nigel Graves by 6&5. Félix Ortiz played only four DP World Tour tournaments and seven Challenge Tour events. He dedicated himself to teaching with great success, among others, at his Cordoban course of Los Villares.
– At Royal Porthcawl, beyond the Spanish accent, three Senior Opens were held. The highlight was Bernhard Langer’s victory in 2014 with a 13-shot lead over Colin Montgomerie, who finished second. Langer would win again in 2017, this time by a modest three-shot margin, and finally, in 2023, Alex Cejka triumphed in hellish conditions. The best result by a Spaniard was an eighth place by Miguel Ángel Jiménez in 2014.
– It also hosted the 1995 Walker Cup. The main protagonist of that edition was an American named Tiger Woods. He was already a star, although it wasn’t enough to prevent Great Britain and Ireland’s victory by 14-10. Tiger won the first point he played, partnering with John Harris against Gordon Sherry and Stephen Gallacher. On that first day, he lost the singles against Gary Wolstenholme by 1 down. On the second day, the tables turned; he lost the doubles match with Padraig Harrington and Jody Fanagan (2&1) and took sweet revenge in the singles against Wolstenholme by 4&3.
– Royal Porthcawl boasts of being the only course in Wales from which the sea can be seen from all 18 holes. It’s not a bad place to add another Spanish victory this week to the one achieved by Alex Larrazábal 23 years ago.
