McGinley tames the 'monster'

EVERY TIME Paul McGinley walks to the eighth tee box at Adare Manor, he can't resist looking towards the stone which features a plaque inscribed with the legend, "McGinley's Tee", purportedly put there at his suggestion. Except, he disagrees.

"It annoys me, to be honest," the Dubliner remarked yesterday of the stone's presence, although that annoyance was tempered by a much-improved second-round performance in the Irish Open that has lifted him to the fringes of contention.

What McGinley recalls - on mature recollection, we presume - is that, after his Irish PGA win here in 2003, he suggested a new tee be built about "20 yards" back from the original. What actually happened was that a new tee was built some 70 yards back. It transformed the hole into a 481 yards par four, and sparked a domino effect on the course of other holes being lengthened.

Of the eighth hole's length, McGinley remarked: "We had a drink after the Irish PGA and I told them the tee box should have gone back 20 yards, not 70 yards. It is a big lesson for me. I won't give any unsolicited advice . . . there's no way me, Paul McGinley, and everything you know about my philosophies on golf course design, that I would make a hole 480 yards with a green like that. I wouldn't do it.

"Some of the tee boxes have gone back too far, and that's what makes it so difficult . . . I don't want to be critical, I'm just making an observation as a professional golfer than the difficulty for us is firm greens. There's no way Robert Trent Jones designed that golf course to hit four irons in to greens (on par fours)," insisted McGinley, who stood by his assertion expressed after Thursday's first round that the course was "a monster".

When asked if he regretted such a remark, McGinley replied: "It is a monster. Anything that's 7,600 yards is a monster course. I stand by what I said.

"When the greens are rock hard, and with the slopes they have on these greens, that's what makes it so difficult."

In actual fact, the course's official length is 7,453 and, for the past two days, it has played at slightly less than that, at 7,380 yards.

Yesterday, though, McGinley's on-course performance provided an ironic response to his own verbalisations. He played quite beautifully, on the way to a 69 for 142, two under. As his playing partner Darren Clarke - who also shot a 69, for 141 - observed: "Paul played fantastic all day, probably should have shot 65, 66. I was just trying to hang on to him, the way he was playing."

And, adding to the ironic nature of things, McGinley's play of the eighth hole was textbook: a drive, followed by an eight-iron to two and a half feet. Unfortunately for him, McGinley missed the short birdie putt. "It was a snake putt. In hindsight, I should have hit it outside the hole."

The only disappointment was the way he played the last eight holes, which featured three bogeys. Prior to that, he had hit a hot streak; starting with a birdie, the third of his front nine, on the 18th. He then birdied the first and second holes to complete a hat-trick. But the run home saw him bogey the third, sixth and ninth holes, with a lone birdie on the seventh.

"I was a little untidy at the end," he conceded, "my iron play was not as good as it should be. But I'm right there, and we'll see what happens over the weekend when I need to tidier. I can be there or thereabouts. . . and hopefully there will be some Irish players in contention."

Playing in the same group, the odd man out being England's Oliver Wilson, Clarke mirrored McGinley's 69. Most of Clarke's good work was done on his front nine with a run of three birdies in four holes from the 15th. The run started with a lob wedge approach to three feet on the 15th, a seven-iron to 20 feet for another birdie on the 16th and, then, refusing to be tempted to go for the green in two on the 18th, was rewarded for laying-up with a wedge approach to 15 feet, which he holed.

By contrast, the run home was more straightforward, a bogey on the third - where his approach finished in the trees to the right of the green - cancelled out by a closing birdie. "It was just about grinding out a score, which has not been one of my strong points in the past. I just hung in there. My ball striking was poor, and my speed on the greens was poor. I just managed to sneak it around."

Clarke added: "I'm struggling for a solid strike, just trying too many different things out there. I'm messing about. If the strikes are no good, then your pace is off. If the pace is off, then you lose a little bit of confidence and don't feel comfortable."

What would it mean for him to win? "I've a long way to go before I think about that and a lot of work to do. It is very good on the range, not so good on the course . . . but a 69, yeah, that's a pretty good sign. There's a lot of positives."