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Will milder conditions lead to the crazy-low results that were predicted earlier this week?
Former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley thinks so.
Oh boy, just what the old course didn’t need – light rain overnight and early this morning – with the pins now a bit more accessible and hard fairways, it’s a cocktail for some really good results today @SkySportsGolf @GolfChannel
— Paul McGinley (@mcginleygolf) July 15, 2022
However, the locals are not so convinced. Matt just sent me this:
“On my first night, sitting outside the Jigger Inn with a pint, an old lad who plays golf in town (and is a very good one) said: ‘They’re going to protect the course with pin positions.’ They’re going to be tighter than we’ve seen here so far.”
The current BBC weather forecast suggests that the rain will ease and wind speeds will not exceed 11mph. There may be some sunshine around 4pm, but otherwise it’s cloudy. Light fog at the moment actually.
Tiger Woods slumped to a six-over 78 in the first round, the agony lasting six hours and 18 minutes. He finally spoke to the press at 9:25 p.m. Here’s what he had to say after shooting the best opening round of his career at the Open.
Overall Opinion: “Well, probably the highest score I could do. It didn’t get off to a great start. Hit a good 1 putt, finished right in the middle of another divot. And I hit a good shot. Gusts of wind hit it and ended up in the burn.
“So I think I had maybe four or five 3-putts today. He just wasn’t very good on the greens. And every shot I left short. I struggled with hitting the punches hard enough. They looked faster than what they were putting on and I struggled with that.
On his physical issues: “It was a lot easier today, physically, than the other two events (Masters and US PGA), for sure.”
On the fast, hard conditions: “We played Liverpool (Hoylake 2006) like that. But it was just different. Liverpool doesn’t have as many tracks as St Andrews. The fairways are flatter. So the ball obviously has more ground control. You really don’t have that much control here. They were quick.
On trying to make the cut: “Looks like I’ll have to shoot 66 tomorrow to have a chance. So apparently it’s done. Guys did it today. And that’s my responsibility tomorrow is to go ahead and do it. I have to do it.”
Tiger starts in the second round at 9.58am.
8.51am BST standings
With the rain starting to come down a little harder, as noted by Tyrell Hatton calling for the umbrella, let’s have some early results at the doors.
-8: Young (-)-6: Gooch (4), McIlroy (-)-5: Smith (-), Dinwiddie (-)-4: SW Kim (5), Brown (-), Kitayama (-), Westwood (-), Kennedy (-), Hovland (-)
The tucked front pin on the 1st still catches a few.
Haotong Li racked up a triple bogey seven after his first approach came back from the Swilcan Burn and his second landed right in it! Australia’s Marc Leishman also found the wet stuff and took six.
Scotty Scheffler cleaned it up, but perhaps too comfortably. Very far from the hole, he needed three shots to get off, so that’s a great opening. Back to -3, although he hit a lovely shot from 2nd position.
As play yesterday seemed to get slower and slower and the groups backed up on the tee and fairway, it looked unlikely that the final groups would finish in time.
They did – just – and it was 10:10 p.m. when England’s Robert Dinwiddie birdied the closing hole to finish with a 67 and share third place. Long day ahead then!
Speaking of Englishmen, Marcus Armitage just rolled in a putt from about 15 feet on the 6th. One pair of breakers after another and he reached a tie for 13th.
The big names are coming thick and fast and here’s World No. 1 Scotty Scheffler.
A low iron down the 1st fairway, accompanied by his trademark foot slide through the putt and the American is off to run.
Up on the green, three shots for Dustin Johnson. DJ drops back to -3, now one back of Scheffler and five behind leader Cameron Young.
Others who have gone below par this morning are Ryan Fox and Marcus Armitage.
Kiwi Fox, son of rugby union legend Grant, snapped a seven-par run with a birdie on 8, while England’s Armitage has a scorecard showing 4-4-4-4-4. That equates to four bucks and a birdie on the long 5th. Both moved up to -2, currently 26th.
The R&A must fear a LIV golfer to win their historic 150th Open Championship. Dustin Johnson, a two-time major champion, is perhaps the biggest threat to this, shall we say, nightmare scenario, and he just started on the 1st, hitting irons down the huge fairway.
With less wind and an easier course, that will suit Johnson, who starts the fourth day off the lead at -4.
Or maybe Talor Gooch will be the man to cause a full-on curl as he rolls in a 10-footer on the 3rd hole to give him his second birdie of the day. Gooch joins McIlroy in second at -6.
Matt Cooper, who is sharing blogging duties with me this week, is live at St Andrews. So set the stage please Matt. What does the weather do? How are the course conditions?
“I feel acceptable this morning. Wet streets on the way to town. It’s not so wet that you definitely need waterproofs. There is not much wind.
“There’s not enough rain to really change the dynamic. I’m just offering a little help in the field.”
Some early leaderboard moves from Talor Gooch and Si Woo Kim. American Gooch, who switched to LIV last month, birdied the 1st to jump to -5, good enough for a tie for third.
Kim, a former winner of The Players Championship, also made the opening to move to -4 and stayed there with a pair of pars.
Pin positions for round two. More tidying up going on.
Okay, let’s go to day two. And to cheer you up… this. Fun fact: Composer Brian Bennett was the drummer in The Shadows.
The theme of BBC Music!
Preamble
Good morning from the 150th Open Championship! Day two is at St Andrews and the early starters are waterproof due to a light morning drizzle.
Rory McIlroy fired a brilliant 66 yesterday to finish the round in solo second place, but we won’t see the second leg of his Claret Jug bid until much later today. Rory starts at 14:59 local time alongside the in-form Xander Schaufele and defending champion Colin Morikawa.
In contrast, Tiger Woods has a mountain to climb after a miserable 6-over 78 left him well short of what is expected to be around par. Woods is a morning start at 9.58am.
Our leader Cameron Young kicks off the iconic opener at 13:26 local time. Let’s see all these Friday games.
6.35am: Mark Calcavecchia, Ryan Fox, Jediah Morgan 6.46am: Christian Bezuidenhout, Bernd Wiesberger, Sam Bairstow 6.57am: Adrian Meronk, Haotong Li, Marcus Armitage 7.08am: Triston Lawrence, Fabrizio Zanotti, Alex Wrigley 7.19am .: Aaron Wise, Si Woo Kim, Sam Horsfield7.30am: Talor Gooch, Shaun Norris, Wyndham Clark7.41am: Henrik Stenson, Russell Henley, Aldrich Potgieter (a)7.52am: Stewart Cink, Sergio Garcia, Aaron Jarvis (a) 8.03am: Sungjae Im , Paul Casey, Gary Woodland 8.14am: Dustin Johnson, Adam Scott, Marc Leishman 8.25am: Scotty Scheffler, Joaquin Niemann, Tyrrell Hatton 8.36am: Darren Clarke, Richard Bland, Filippo Celli (a) 8.47: Kevin Na, Kazuki Higa, Eric Van Rooyen 9.03: David Duvall, Justin Harding, Jordan Smith 9.14: Shugo Imahira, Jason Scrivener, David Lowe 9.25: Abraham Unser, Yuto Katsuragawa, Emiliano Grillo 9.36: Luis Oosthuizen, Harris English, Keita Nakajima (a 9.47am: Padraig Harrington, Thomas Peters, Keith Mitchell 9.58am: Tiger Woods, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Max Homa10.09am: Jordan Spieth, J on Rahm, Harold Varner III 10.20: Patrick Cantlay, Sam Burns, Mito Pereira 10.31: Keegan Bradley, Sebastian Munoz, Sahit Tigala 10.42: Laurie Kanter, Dimitrios Papadatos, Matthew Griffin 10.53: John Catlin, Jamie Rutherford, David Carey 11.04: Mingyu Cho, Jorge Fernandez Valdes, Robert Dinwiddie 11.15am: Lars Van Meigel, Jack Floyd, Ronan Mulreney 11.36am: Paul Lowry, Webb Simpson, Min Woo Lee 11.47am: Sadom Kaevkanyana, Ben Campbell, Barclay Brown (a) 11.58am: Dean Burmester, Chan Kim, Brandon Wu 12.09pm: Ian Poulter, Jamie Donaldson, Guido Migliosi 12.20pm: Garrick Higo, Min-Kyu Kim, Ashley Chesters 12.31pm: Phil Mickelson, Lucas Herbert, Kurt Kitayama 12.42pm : Patrick Reed, Tom Hoge, JooHyung Kim12.53pm: John Daly, Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Tringale1.04pm: Cameron Smith, Brooks Koepka, Seamus Power1.15pm: Francesco Molinari, Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose1.26pm: Cameron Young, Kyoung- Hoon Lee, Robert MacIntyre1.37pm: Zach Johnson, Billy Horschel, Cor ey Conners 1.48pm: Brian Harman, Pablo Larrazabal, D anny Willett 14.04: Stephen Dodd, JT Poston, Lee Westwood 14.15: Sepp Straka, Luke List, Justin De Los Santos 14.26: Ernie Els, Adri Arnaus, Brad Kennedy 14.37 : Mackenzie Hughes, Scott Vincent, Victor Perez 2.48pm: Jason Kokrak , Nicolai Højgaard, Sihwan Kim 2.59pm: Collin Morikawa, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schaufele 3.10pm: Shane Lowry, Justin Thomas, Viktor Hovland 3.21pm: Will Zalatoris, Hideki Matsuyama , Tony Finau 3.32pm: Kevin Kisner, Chris Kirk, Takumi Kanaya 3.43pm: Dylan Fritelli, Trey Mullinax, Matthew Jordan 3.54pm: Anthony Quayle, Xander Lombard, John Parry 4.05pm: Thomas Detry, Richard Mansell, Marco Penge 4.16pm: Alexander Bjork, Oliver Farr, Matt Ford
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