The Open: Young Shoots 64 On A Slow Day First Day At St Andrews
The Open: Young Shoots 64 On A Slow Day First Day At St Andrews
The afternoon rounds take over six hours as McIlroy, Smith chase long-hitting PGA Tour rookie. Plus, Mickelson speaks, Poulter spars with press, Quotables, Reads, Tweets & Weather.
Well, well, everything has led to this!
Drivable par-4s everywhere you look. Wave-ups on par-5 landing areas. And chief among the reasons round one of the 2022 Open Championship finished in the dark on a day when the sun only hides for five hours, the athletes today waiting because they can blast it 400 yards with ease on firm ground.
So what caused the slog that had pained marshals asking me how many more groups were still coming on the never-ending day that saw the final groups playing before no fans and in total darkness?
The fairways are lumpier than a University Hall mattress.
The landing areas are greyer and thinner than Greg Norman’s hair.
The ball is running faster than Boris Johnson from Downing Street.
And that’s the good news.
Mix in some LOL pins throughout—there were genuine par-protectors at 8, 9 and 15—and a mentally demanding Old Course turned into a 5:30 affair for the morning wave. The last groups were playing well past dusk and clocking in at 6:18. (The Matt Griffin, Laurie Canter and Dimitrios Papadatos 3:43 pm BST group I followed in finished one minute after local bars had to move customers indoors by law.)
Through it all, the ancient links still separated the 150th Open field by rewarding a nice blend of skill and patience. Okay, extreme patience.
American Cameron Young, the PGA Tour’s top rookie-of-the-year candidate, leads Rory McIlroy by two strokes.
Never known for his firm golf course play, McIlroy continued the 2022 trend of starting majors off on a positive note. He made seven birdies and only one bogey at the 13th, where an iron off the tee still ran through the fairway and into a bad lie.
Australian Cameron Smith continued his strong year to post 67 on a day the greens hit 159 gravities (for those tracking such things in lieu of Strokes Gained or other discernible stats).
“The golf course is playing so, so short,” said McIlroy. “It's tricky. Some of the pin positions -- I think that's what they're going to do over the next few days. They're just going to hide the pins away and make it very hard to get close to some of them. And even today they did that.”
The wave-ups turned surreal when the 614-yard 14th hole saw players reach the landing area, wait to go for the green and then call up the group behind. At one point the group of Leishman, Scott and Johnson was chatting with the Scheffler, Niemann and Hatton trio in the fairway as they waved up Clarke, Bland and amateur Filippo Celli. That means there were four groups on one hole.
With subtle wind shifts throughout the epic day, players waved up groups at various times on the 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 14th and 18th holes, all with little pace-of-play relief.
“There's nothing you can do unfortunately about it,” the speedy Matt Fitzpatrick said after his even par 72. “It's just sad more than anything. It's just ridiculous.”