Senior golfers are grateful to get a second shot at Newport after the 2020 Open was canceled - The Boston Globe (2024)

Rhode Island native Billy Andrade is arguably the most excited for this weekend. He flew in with Ernie Els and Brett Quigley before hosting a dinner for some of the players at his home in Brighton Tuesday night.

“I have hats from the 41st US Senior Open at my house that I just found, so I gave a few guys some hats last night, which was funny because obviously we couldn’t play this during the pandemic,” Andrade said.

“I’m just so thrilled with the USGA and Newport Country Club that they got it back here as quickly as they did. I thought my window was gone when we lost the tournament in 2020, and to have it back this quickly is really cool for me and really cool for all of us.”

Bob Royak is another 2020 qualifier who finally will get a chance to play Newport.

“I was in that year, so I knew I was looking forward to it, and it was pretty exciting that I qualified for this year,” said Royak, who played a practice round on the back nine Wednesday morning before going to the airport to pick up his mother, who flew in from Florida to support him.

The sun shone brightly for Wednesday’s practice rounds as winds up to 15 m.p.h. swept across the grounds. As a coastal course, Newport is more affected by the wind than inland courses, a fact that makes no two days on the greens truly the same. It presents a challenge for competitors and extra drama for fans, and every golfer approaches Newport differently.

For golfers such as Andrade and Royak, part of the excitement is the course itself. Newport is one of the five founding USGA clubs, and its natural landscape and beauty set it apart from more modern courses. Todd White falls into this camp as well. During Tuesday’s practice, he told Padraig Harrington that he’s not here to play the US Senior Open, he’s here to play Newport.

Harrington said an important component on courses with a lot of wind is to keep the ball as low as you can.

“It’s a different style of golf course this week,” Harrington said. “You’re going to have to go out there and expect to be thrown off-guard a little bit, expect a few holes to really bite you and come up and be surprised.

“That’s the sign of a good golf course, when you go out there and it doesn’t go exactly as you would sort of plan it out.”

Defending Senior Open champion Bernhard Langer isn’t focusing as much on the course as some of his competitors. Langer, who became the oldest champion of a USGA event last year at nearly 66, tore an Achilles’ tendon in February playing pickleball. The recovery timeline for that injury is usually 12 months, but Langer returned after three.

“I told my surgeon, when it comes to golf, you’ve got to trust me,” said Langer. “That two- or three-week layout you gave me to get to the driver, we’re already there. I did it yesterday. So trust me, I can do it.”

Langer’s biggest concern was the possibility of having to change his swing, and if he had to do that, he said, he’d walk away from golf. That didn’t end up being the case, and he has lost only about 2 m.p.h. of club speed, or about 5 yards of distance.

He’s looking forward to playing Newport, and said what he’d heard about the course’s beauty did not do it justice.

“I’m 66, and a lot of people say, ‘Why don’t you retire?’ ” said Langer. “I guess I could, but I love the game of golf and I love to compete, and I’m still good enough to compete and be up there where I think I can win tournaments,.

“To [win] at that age was very encouraging to me, and hopefully gives many of the other senior players some hope that you can still get better even though you turned 50 or 60.”

Sarah Barber can be reached at sarah.barber@globe.com.