Garcia and Fitzpatrick Struggle To Get To Royal St George's Due To Open Traffic

Traffic chaos caused inconvenience for players ahead of round one at The Open

Open Traffic

Traffic chaos caused inconvenience for players ahead of round one at The Open

Garcia and Fitzpatrick Struggle To Get To Royal St George's Due To Open Traffic

Open traffic was causing headaches for players ahead of the 149th Open at Royal St George's.

The gridlock meant that Matt Fitzpatrick was forced to walk to the course and Sergio Garcia was delayed and needed help from the police to arrive on time.

"Obviously very happy with the finish. Even happier after how the morning started, where because of terrible traffic coming in," Sergio Garcia said of the traffic after his opening 68.

"Even though I left the house with plenty of time, I needed a little bit of help from a couple very nice English policemen on the bikes to get me here with only about 35, 40 minutes to tee off, when usually I like to be here around an hour and a half, hour and 25.

"It just, I don't know, we just got stuck. We couldn't move, and thankfully they helped us a little bit and got us here in time.

"I was able to do a very quick practice, very quick warmup, but it worked out okay because I played nicely."

Related: "The driver sucks" - Bryson DeChambeau rages on equipment

Twitter user @Lin2911 wrote that she had to abandon the park and ride bus and walk to the course after spending an hour on the bus in traffic:

Royal St George's in Kent hosts its 15th Open this week and first in 10 years after Darren Clarke's triumph in 2011.

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Elliott Heath
News Editor

Elliott Heath is our News Editor and has been with Golf Monthly since early 2016 after graduating with a degree in Sports Journalism. He manages the Golf Monthly news team as well as our large Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. He covered the 2022 Masters from Augusta National as well as five Open Championships on-site including the 150th at St Andrews. His first Open was in 2017 at Royal Birkdale, when he walked inside the ropes with Jordan Spieth during the Texan's memorable Claret Jug triumph. He has played 35 of our Top 100 golf courses, with his favourites being both Sunningdales, Woodhall Spa, Western Gailes, Old Head and Turnberry. He has been obsessed with the sport since the age of 8 and currently plays off of a six handicap. His golfing highlights are making albatross on the 9th hole on the Hotchkin Course at Woodhall Spa, shooting an under-par round, playing in the Aramco Team Series on the Ladies European Tour and making his one and only hole-in-one at the age of 15 - a long time ago now!

Elliott is currently playing:

Driver: Titleist TSR4

3 wood: Titleist TSi2

Hybrids: Titleist 816 H1

Irons: Mizuno MP5 5-PW

Wedges: Cleveland RTX ZipCore 50, 54, 58

Putter: Odyssey White Hot OG #5

Ball: Srixon Z Star XV