BEWARE AN old lady scorned; and, for sure, the Old Course, ravaged and pillaged a day earlier, took her revenge yesterday. If Louis Oosthuizen – who rather bizarrely has been lumbered with the nickname of ‘Shrek’ – was one of the few players to be bestowed any favours in assuming the midway lead, the second round of the 150th anniversary British Open wreaked mayhem on the vast majority of the field, including overnight leader Rory McIlroy.
On a wicked day which brought a mishmash of weather conditions to the eastern coastline of Scotland, the most ruinous element was a wind which whipped across the sand hills in the afternoon and into the evening with gusts up to the 50 miles an hour.
The upshot was an enforced suspension of play – for an hour and five minutes – which offered players only a short respite, and upon the resumption many were forced to keep their heads down, dig in, and to battle their way around the course. Most failed dismally.
Oosthuizen, though, avoided the carnage. Although he played much of his round in the morning rain, the South African had finished and signed for a 67, for a 36-hole total of 12-under-par 132, by the time the wind whipped itself into a frenzy. Among its most notable victims was McIlroy, who had mesmerised us with an opening 63. Yesterday, McIlroy’s human fallibilities were cruelly exposed as he struggled to adapt to the high winds and added 17 shots to his previous day’s score, sky-rocketing to an 80. It left him 11 shots adrift of the leader.
Those players, like Oosthuizen, who finished their rounds before lunch could barely believe their good fortune. Oosthuizen, undoubtedly, was happiest of all.
He occupied the dizziest height on the board with a gap of five strokes to his nearest pursuer, the veteran American Mark Calcavecchia. Rather more ominously, Englishmen Lee Westwood and Paul Casey shared third-place, while Tiger Woods – displaying commendable resilience in the worst of the weather conditions – hung in gamely for a 73 for 140 to be sufficiently close for the man at the top to cast an eye backwards.
Graeme McDowell, the US Open champion, also made a significant upward move. The 30-year-old Ulsterman shot a second round 68 for 139 to get into the mix and had a real glint in his eye as he looked forward to the weekend inside the Top-10, while Irish Open champion Shane Lowry’s second round of 73 (for a 141 tally) moved him inside the top-25 and left him with something to relish for the final two rounds.
Unfortunately, McDowell’s expressed wish after he finished that it would involve a duel with McIlroy – “I’ve always wanted to have a chance to go head-to-head with Rory on Sunday afternoon somewhere. If the stars align here tomorrow, who knows? Sunday could be a showdown” – lacked a clairvoyant’s judgment. The winds which whipped up after McIlroy set out saw to that.
The dramatic reversal in fortunes for McIlroy included a four-putt double-bogey five on the 11th, where his first putt refused to climb over the crown of the slope and came back to his feet in the swale.
McIlroy, although not alone in struggling to cope with the conditions, was the one who suffered the greatest fall – from being top of the pile after his first day master class, he fell back to a share of 38th. Down, but by no means out.
“If you take Louis and Calc out of it, I’m only five shots out. It depends what the weather does. If the weather is quite calm, I feel as if I’ve got a chance to go low,” said McIlroy, who at least can make amends.
Others faced early trips home. Among the high-profile casualties to miss the cut were Pádraig Harrington – whose sole birdie came on the 18th in a 77 for 150 – as well as Ernie Els, Jim Furyk and Geoff Ogilvy. But Darren Clarke stuck admirably to his task and was four-under for the championship (two-under on his round) through 15 holes at which point the siren sounded to halt play due to fading light. Ten groups were left to complete their rounds today, the last group on the 11th.
Oosthuizen’s past major failings became a thing of the past. In eight previous appearances in major championships, he’d only managed to survive into the weekend on one occasion: at the 2008 US PGA at Oakland Hills where he was a distant 73rd behind Harrington. “Yeah, it wasn’t great,” agreed Oosthuizen of his major record. “But, it was a matter of not believing in myself.
Everyone is telling me, ‘you’ve got the shots, you’re playing well’ and that win earlier in the season (in the Andalucian Open) just got my mind set in a different way. I’m looking forward to it from here on.”
Why not? The 27-year-old has played the golf of his life, his midway total of 132 equalling the low 36-hole record score set by Nick Faldo and Greg Norman in 1990. But Oosthuizen need look no further than to the fate which befell McIlroy to thread cautiously over the weekend.
“You don’t really want to get ahead of yourself, especially on this golf course. I think it’s very important to stay in the moment and to think properly on what you’re doing.”
Easier said than done, of course, but at least the man christened Lodewicus Theodorus – “that’s a passport name,” he insisted – has put himself into position to go in search of the Claret Jug.
LEADERBOARD:
132 (12 under)
Louis Oosthuizen (Rsa) 65 67
137 (5 under)
Mark Calcavecchia (USA) 70 67
138 (4 under)
Paul Casey (Eng) 69 69
Lee Westwood (Eng) 67 71
139 (3 under)
Peter Hanson (Swe) 66 73
Ricky Barnes (USA) 68 71
Retief Goosen (Rsa) 69 70
Graeme McDowell 71 68
Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spa) 72 67
Tom Lehman (USA) 71 68
British Open: Page 3
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)