Laird’s resilience was enough to see him through a dramatic and truly nail-biting British Amateur Final at Nairn Golf Club (you can watch the highlights from the final here and an impressive behind the scenes compilation video here). In doing so, he earned himself exemption into the 2021 Open Championship, as well as the 2022 Masters and US Open.

Fortunately for me, his caddy from the final of The Amateur was unable to make it due to the small complication of getting married, I was drafted in as ‘next’ best man. Note: please refrain from any speculation regarding where the groom would rather have been, a flourishing marriage is at stake.

And so from the best day of his life to one of the best weeks of mine.

Players’ Clubhouse

The players’ clubhouse sat at the back of the grounds, a temporary structure built over two floors. On the ground floor was the bag room, as well as a speciality coffee shop. At the top, a dining area serving an all day gourmet buffet. Off the dining area was the luxury locker room complete with Vitra Eames chairs, avec foot stools. At the far side of the locker room was the Champions Corner which held, most notably, the locker of Laird Shepherd. On either side of his were less important names, ones that almost escape my memory as I’m sure they will yours: Jordan Speith and Henrik Stenson ring a bell.

Next door to that was the gym, complete with multiple squat racks, kettlebells, med balls and a strange man by the name of Bryson Dechambeau doing bench press shirtless but with golf trousers on (no really). In fact, the same shirtless Bryson would soon enter the dining area wearing the exact same attire (or lack thereof) to find one of his team. Not the naked torso you want accompanying your morning coffee.

Driving range

Buggies ran from the clubhouse round the bottom of the fence at the far side of the range, passing a Sky Sports media tent on the way. Upon earlier instruction we paid a visit to the Titleist van where we were inundated with bags and towels and waterproofs. Enough to fill the car. The amount of gear that is willingly handed out on these weeks is fairly mind-blowing. All Taylormade and Callaway players receive a custom bag at every major (Robert Macintyre has already accumulated so many that he has taken to turning his into bar stools). If you ask the Scotty Cameron rep for a new Circle T you’ll have it the same day. Your equipment needs are catered to with enthusiasm, indeed sometimes to a fault.

The range itself was immaculate. The ball supply consisted of buckets divided into brand sections, followed by model, followed by the year each model was released. In other words you could practice with a 2020 Pro-V1x or a 2019 Pr-V1x depending on what you were accustomed to. After choosing your bay a member of staff linked your name with your bay number so that your ball flight numbers could be shown on the screen.

The range provided the first insight into the styles of play on show that week. Your head could be turned by both impressive and dubious ball striking noises, almost in equal measure. The variety of movements and ball flights on display combined with the knowledge that this was a collection of the absolute best golfers in the world was as confusing as it was liberating.

Practice

We arrived on the Monday and played a solo nine holes due to inclement weather. Practice round booking at The Open is simply an open start sheet. Like putting your name down for the Tuesday medal, find your mates (or the people you wish were your mates) and slap your name down next to them. One of the other qualifiers, Nick Poppleton, took full advantage of this as he should, and played with Mickelson and Dechambeau on Tuesday, and Jimmy Walker, Jordan Speith and Justin Thomas on Wednesday. 

Bob McIntyre was kind enough to offer Laird a game on the Tuesday and so we joined him. Webb Simpson, Webb Simpson’s travelling Pastor named Dave (Pastor Dave) and Russel Henley made up the four.

Webb hits the ball far better than the golfing public are led to believe, it’s not as unconventional an action to the naked eye as it looks under the scrutiny of slow motion cameras. His reputation is perhaps best described by the old idiom of ‘slap and sleeve’. I can only confirm that he does the latter, regularly. Along with rolling them in from everywhere, Webb and his caddy Paul were incredibly welcoming. They showed a genuine interest in Laird’s pursuits and his plans for the coming year, real gentlemen.

I was also struck by how relaxed things were on the practice days. For example, the guys played a money match in which if they missed a birdie putt the caddy had the opportunity to hole it for them: the rhythmical pendulums of the pros strokes contrasted with the ill timed stabs of the caddy’s made for plenty of laughs. I was pleasantly surprised to see how relaxed everyone was so close to kick off in the most prestigious event in world golf. Ultimately it was clear that these guys were in the midst of a long season and for as much as the audience waits in anticipation for the return of golf’s oldest major, the players are simply carrying out the same process that they would every other week of the season. On the other hand it was clear that some players were so indifferent about links golf and in particular the layout that week, that far from having their interests peaked, they were even less motivated than on a normal week. An attitude I found quite strange.

The practice rounds provided a great opportunity to get comfortable in what could easily have been an overwhelming environment. Something that aided the acclimatisation was a pretty quick realisation that fundamentally there was no difference between Laird’s game and that of his playing partners. Particularly in terms of long game, Laird often outperformed them. We spoke with Sam Forgan (star of the Road to the Open series and all round good guy) who discovered something similar when playing with Tommy Fleetwood on the Wednesday.

It’s inevitable that viewing the leading group on television every week is going to inflate your perception of these players’ abilities. On top of that, the players are marketed as hitting bombs and peppering the flag with approaches, after all the art of scoring is a far less sexy selling point. Our misaligned expectations were perhaps understandable then. Surely these guys did everything perfectly?

But whilst there are a small handful of players who’s games are so impressive that even the TV cannot do them justice, the majority of the field are plotting their way round in relatively unremarkable fashion. The art of which is in many ways far more impressive.

Our realisation that the long game was not the separating factor would soon be confirmed. The difference lay elsewhere.

Tournament

For the tournament, we were partnered with Danny Willett and Dean Burmester at 7.19am on Thursday. A great group for Laird. Danny would draw a good sized, positive crowd. Plus we assumed, such an early tee time would make for a tamer crowd. We’d have a chance to settle into the round without the scrutiny of a midday tee time.  

What had been a relatively calm week quickly turned on the Thursday morning. We went from being onlookers soaking in an experience to realising that we (well just Laird) were actually here to compete. The warm up went very well but as anticipated, the nerves were palpable heading to the tee. Our assumptions of a tamer morning crowd were quickly corrected. As we entered the first tee amphitheatre it was clear (to me at least) that there was barely a free seat. Pressure creates diamonds however, and the opening swing was a 10 carat beauty. Perhaps something a little more subtle was required though. Down the first he drove it 360 yards into the bunker plumb down the centre of the fairway: sack the caddy. A bunker, it was later reported, that no one got near for the rest of the day. The tee shot left an 80 yard bunker shot off a downslope: not top of the list for your first approach shot on your Open debut.

Crisis smoothly averted however and we eventually found our way round to the 6th hole where an interesting incident occurred with Danny Willet. On the green previous, Laird had dropped his ball marker, scrambling to find one in order to get out of Danny’s way, I eventually had to go into the bag to get another. Red cheeks now under control, we arrived on the 6th tee and waited for the group ahead to clear. During this time Danny turned to Laird and said: ‘just in case you need a spare’, and handed him a brass, embossed Augusta National ball marker. A classy move in the heat of battle. 

And the class on Willet’s part did not end there. Neither him nor Dean Burmeister missed a single putt from inside 6 feet in the opening two rounds. This may have been an anomaly, but it certainly didn’t look that way. Whilst Laird putted nicely, had he holed out similarly to his playing partners he would have made the cut comfortably. The importance of holing out for momentum was abundantly clear, Willett and Burmester gave nothing away.

Willett was not so steady in all departments, however. Where he slipped up provided him with perhaps his greatest opportunity to impress. On the back nine of the second round Willet began to hit some errant tee shots, mostly low and left. The shots were met with a laissez faire attitude, in fact a club was lightly tossed over the shoulder to his caddy following one of them as he whistled off to the portaloo. On 15 after his tee shot escaped the thick rough down the left and wound up on the spectator path, Willett was faced with a full 3 wood to the green. He dutifully nudged it up short right of the green, pitched to 8 feet and horseshoed out for par. Probably the shortest putt he missed over the two rounds.

Willett’s display on these holes tied in to a theme that I noticed across a few of the players that I was fortunate enough to watch. These guys hit genuinely bad shots. Ones you or I wouldn’t care to admit to, ones that your friend would give you a clip round the ear for hitting in the Sunday medal. Here’s another example:

The 16th hole at Royal St George’s on Friday was playing 152 yards, with the wind straight off the left. The pin was tucked in the front right portion of the green with Thomas Bjorn’s arch nemesis bunker beckoning to the right. The shot required was a simple drifting fade with a pitching wedge or 9 iron landing 15 feet left of the flag and spinning towards the hole. Danny missed the green in the bunker to the right which took me by surprise, but the more notable example was McIlroy, who missed it approximately 12 yards short right in the bunker. He hit a 152 yard shot 140 yards into a bunker which he then failed to get up and down from.

It seems an obvious thing to say that these guys hit bad shots, of course they do. But standing on the tee, having the yardage book in your hand whilst your friend hits the same shot allows you to contextualise it so much better.

The critical part of this observation, however, was the way they reacted. Neither player was phased. A good golfer gets embarrassed after hitting that shot (an emotion heavily linked with poor performance), he dwells on the stupidity of it and analyses it intently so that it does not happen again.

Rory and Danny on the other hand don’t sweat. They are working on such a foundation of confidence, of trust in their ability, of adaptability, that a shot like this isn’t a back to the drawing board moment. It is something to brush off, a chance to use other skills to neutralise the situation. They are aware that detailed analysis in the field of play is a step in the wrong direction.

Whilst we aren’t all able to accumulate multiple majors as a foundation for our confidence, its worth considering that perhaps this mindset existed before the accolades arrived.

Oh and finally, Dechambeau hits it twice the height of everyone else, its honestly quite crazy.

I hadn’t anticipated learning so much over the course of a week in which my golf clubs were left at home. The chance to spend time in that environment observing those players had a profound effect on my understanding of how achievable it is to compete with these guys. Whilst the magnitude of the operation and the extravagance of the facilities seemed other worldly in many ways, talking to some of these world class, seasoned players makes you realise the obvious: they’re just normal people. Normal people who have made some good decisions in terms of seeking information and had discipline in terms of applying it. In some cases they were child prodigies born with an innate ability to play. Whatever the case, everyone has followed a different path to reach this summit upon which they all share residency, and if they have managed to navigate their path, there’s no reason why you can't successfully navigate yours.