Focus on car drives winning Kelly form
JASON Day’s US Open campaign is on life support after he was among a host of big- name casualties taken by host Shinnecock Hills during a disastrous first round.
Tipped as one of the pretournament favourites, world No. 8 Day equalled his worst score at the US Open during a nine- over- par 79 at the difficult Long Island course.
It left Day, whose stellar US Open record includes two runner- up results and three other top 10 finishes, a whopping 10 shots off the lead.
World No. 1 Dustin Johnson shot 69 to join Ian Poulter, Scott Piercy and Russell Henley in a share of the lead at one under, with Jason Dufner ( 70) a shot back in fifth.
Last year’s edition was won by Brooks Koepka with a 16under- par total, and organiser the USGA seemingly made a statement with horrific pin placements at Shinnecock.
Of the 156 players in the field, 29 handed in scores of 80 or worse.
“The pin locations were ( at least) on the greens, which was nice,” Day joked.
“The wind was strong and with those pins, you can’t get it close. I’m not complaining; Shinnecock is hard. You’ve got to hit fairways and I didn’t.”
Marc Leishman and Aaron Baddeley were the leading Australians at four over after they shot 74.
Meanwhile, three- time US Open winner Tiger Woods was another high- profile victim.
He racked up a triple- bogey seven on his first hole and never recovered during a 78.
Woods joined Phil Mickelson ( 77) and Jordan Spieth ( 78) with scores high in the 70s, while Rory McIlroy ( 80) and fellow former US Open winner Martin Kaymer ( 83) had rounds to forget. RICK Kelly is not thinking about the Supercars championship.
In fact Kelly, the Nissan driver who hung on in the Winton last round to score a stunning victory, is not even thinking about race wins.
“We just want to get everything out of the car,’’ Kelly said.
“We have good momentum and we just want to get to the end of each weekend knowing we got everything out of the car.’’
But the Nissan Motorsport top gun could this weekend again put himself amid the championship heavyweights after he continued his giant- killing Winton form by claiming second in practice yesterday.
Proving his speed in Victoria was no one- off. The V8 veteran was less than a tenth of a second behind practice winner Scott McLaughlin.
Kelly’s time of 1.06.19 proved, at the very least, that he has a car that will compete for a qualifying win today.
“I am not out to prove anything at the moment,’’ Kelly said. “We want to extract everything and if that means the car is only good enough for a fourth here than we will be happy to get fourth. But we are hoping it is better.’’
At the most, Kelly’s practice speed could give him the chance to go backto- back and record consecutive wins before going on to begin a championship charge. Kelly sits at seventh place on the ladder, 484 points off leader McLaughlin of DJR/ Team Penske.
“As far as the championship goes I want to move forward,’’ Kelly said.
“I would love to move forward as far as we can get. But I am not too focused on that. I am just focused on going round to round and doing the best job possible.’’
Kelly said he may be too far behind to challenge for his second championship. The Victorian driver won his one and only title in 2006 when consistency scored him the crown.
“We might have started our run a little bit late,’’ Kelly said.
“We had a little bit of a rough start to the year.’’
Kelly is bracing himself for some pain later in the year, with the Altima pilot expecting his car to struggle on some tracks, next round.
“There are going to rounds that are tough on said.
“We know we go OK … and hopefully we will here too, based on the last couple of years. But there are other places where we haven’t had a great run, like Townsville.’’
So while he isn’t thinking about another championship or another race win, Kelly might just find himself challenging for both should he succeed in his mission to be his best.
“We are quite focused on capitalising on the pace at those places where we have got it,’’ Kelly said.
“And improving on it at the places where we haven’t in the past.’’ including Townsville be some us,’’ Kelly