The concept of time took on a beleaguered, weather-beaten persona for each of the players – well, those who managed to finish their first rounds of this Amgen Irish Open at Trump International Doonbeg – who mainly trudged off the 18th green with tired minds and jaded bodies, their walk on the links an examination to test the patience of a saint.
Strangely, if wonderfully so, Joaquin Niemann found the whole experience of battling the elements on this rugged, duneland terrain by the Wild Atlantic Way to be “sexy” with a glass half-full positivity that saw the Chilean navigate a route to the top of the leaderboard with an opening five-under-par 65 that including a stunning finish of four successive birdies from the 14th.
Such scoring, though, was rather the exception on a day where rounds extended beyond six hours so that, when play was called due to fading light with 21 players – seven groupings – were left with incomplete rounds to be resumed.
Niemann’s 65 gave him a two-stroke lead over two men, Shane Lowry and Shaun Norris, who managed to finish with 67s – the Irishman finishing in the nick of time before play was halted, his final putt assisted by the giant LED screen beside the putting surface – while another three players unable to finish were also on three-under, Adrian Meronk (15 holes), Max Steinlecher (13 holes) and Renato Paratore (12 holes).
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Lowry was one of three Irish players to finish under par, along with Tom McKibbin (68) and Rory McIlroy (69), and there was a deserved measure of satisfaction about how he managed to keep his mind focused on a day when players, with all the standing and waiting, without any rhythm in the stop-start nature of the day.
The important thing for anyone with real aspirations on winning was not to play their way out of the tournament. There were some who left themselves facing mammoth salvage operations, with Tyrrell Hatton cast into that category after an opening 78 that saw the Englishman finish bogey-bogey-double bogey-bogey on that closing stretch which wrecked many a scorecard.
Lowry managed to stay focused on the task, a superb scrambling par save on the 17th followed by a two-putt par from distance on the 18th.
“I think you need to play with a lot of feel in these conditions, there’s a lot of art to a game of golf like that. There’s a lot of visualisation. And I feel like I allowed myself to do that today,” said Lowry.
“It’s easy to get out there and try and play by the numbers and you feel like the wind is blowing 30 yards or 25 yards. At the end of the day, it’s not a five-iron or it’s not a seven, it’s a six and just try and hit the best shot you can, you know?”
“I build weeks like this up a lot in my head, especially, and I feel like I did a good job of going after it today. That’s what I did. I went out and I tried to be somewhat aggressive, but be myself and allow myself to hit the shots, allow myself to make mistakes and allow myself to just be Shane Lowry.
“It’s nice to have a good score and it’s nice to not feel like you’re going out chasing something tomorrow.”
Likewise, Masters champion Rory McIlroy was able to reflect on a solid start, even if a double-bogey six on the 13th – a hole on course to play as the toughest par 4 on the entire DP World Tour schedule this season, averaging 4.9 of those who had completed it in the first round – spoiled an otherwise error-free card that included three birdies.
That double-bogey came after driving into a fairway bunker. He was overambitious with his first attempted recovery, the ball hitting the face and coming back to his feet. His next effort hit the lip but at least managed to get back out to the fairway.
“It was hard to get into any sort of rhythm out there. It was very stop-start. At the end of the day, I am only four shots behind and not in a bad spot going into the next three days,” admitted McIlroy.
The pace of play was impacted by a perfect storm of strong winds, a one-tee start which, when the logjam came early in the day and early in the round, with the par 5 fourth seen as the main culprit, and several rulings.
Still, the 27-year-old Niemann and his caddie Diego Salinas combined to master the conditions with some fine shotmaking and utilising his low ball flight.
“You got to hit those tee shots and keep it under the wind, left-to-right wind, right-to-left wind. I was talking with my caddie, like every shot into the wind a hundred times probably. So if it’s a bad shot, it’s a really bad shot. But if it’s a good shot, it was so nice to see it. You know, it’s just sexy, hitting 8-iron, 7-iron, from 120, 130 yards is fun,” Niemann said.
Irish Open first round clubhouse scores
65 Joaquin Niemann (CHI)
67 Shaun Norris (RSA), Shane Lowry (IRL)
68 Connor Syme (SCO), Niklas Norgaard (DEN), Frederic Lacroix (FRA), Kazuma Kobori (NZL), Rafa Cabrera-Bello (SPA), Tom McKibbin (NIR), Patrick Reed (USA)
69 Tom Vaillant (FRA), Sam Bairstow (ENG), Daniel Rodrigues (POR), Joel Girrbach (SWI), Brandon Stone (RSA), Daniel Hillier (NZL), Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen (DEN), Kota Kaneko (JPN), Jens Dantorp (SWE), JC Ritchie (RSA), Ewen Ferguson (SCO), Andy Sullivan (ENG), Joe Dean (ENG), Alex Fitzpatrick (ENG), Nicolai Hojgaard (DEN), Rory McIlroy (NIR), Haotong Li (CHN)
70 Francesco Laporta (ITA), Todd Clements (ENG), Alejandro Del Rey (SPA), Jeff Winther (DEN), Jayden Schaper (RSA), Calum Hill (SCO), Oliver Lindell (FIN), Paul Waring (ENG), Harry Hall (ENG), Jon Rahm (SPA)
71 Niklas Lemke (SWE), Jorge Campillo (SPA), Bernd Wiesberger (AUT), David Puig (SPA), Sepp Straka (AUT), Pádraig Harrington (IRL), Mikael Lindberg (SWE), David Micheluzzi (AUS), James Morrisson (ENG), Frankie Capan III (USA), Darius Van Driel (NED), David Ravetto (FRA), Nathan Kimsey (ENG)
72 Jack Senior (ENG), Thorbjorn Olesen (DEN), Casey Jarvis (RSA), Eugenio Chacarra (SPA), Grant Forrest (SCO), Joakim Lagergren (SWE), Ugo Coussaud (FRA), Marcus Helligkilde (DEN), Nacho Elvira (SPA), Thriston Lawrence (RSA), Bob MacIntyre (SCO), Rasmus Hojgaard (DEN)
73 Jason Schrivener (AUS), Sean Crocker (USA), Cormac Sharvin (NIR), KH Lee (KOR), Erik Van Rooyen (RSA), Séamus Power (IRL), Ryggs Johnston (USA), Yurav Premlall (RSA), Ricardo Gouveia (POR), Max Kennedy (IRL), Wenyi Ding (CHN), Angel Ayora (SPA), Jordan Smith (ENG), Luke Donald (ENG)
74 Gregorio De Leo (ITA), Mark Power (IRL), Matteo Manassero (ITA), Thomas Higgins (IRL), Kiradech Aphibarnrat (THA), Guido Migliozzi (ITA), Yuto Katsuragawa (JPN), Rikuya Hoshino (JPN), Davis Bryant (USA), Hennie Du Plessis (RSA), Laurie Canter (ENG), Thomas Detry (BEL)
75 Sebastian Soderberg (SWE), Brandon Robinson Thompson (ENG), Angel Hidalgo (SPA), Stefano Mazzoli (ITA), Scott Jamieson (SCO), Manuel Elvira (SPA), Richard Sterne (RSA), Julien Guerrier (FRA), Yanhan Zhou (CHN), Matthew Jordan (ENG), Michael Hollick (RSA), Sergio Garcia (SPA), Brooks Koepka (USA)
76 Joost Luiten (NED), Adrian Otaegui (UAE), Jeong weon Ko (FRA), Marcus Armitage (ENG), Ben Schmidt (ENG), Richard Mansell (ENG)
78 Dylan Naidoo (RSA), Antoine Rozner (FRA), Ivan Cantero (SPA), Tyrrell Hatton (ENG), Freddy Schott (GER), Martin Couvra (FRA), Danny Willett (ENG)
79 Jacques Kruyswijk (RSA), Ashun Wu (CHN)
RETIRED Marcel Schneider (GER)
Seven groups did not finish their round due to darkness
