Connelly thinks he’s found that missing link
British Open course might be right fit for Canadian golfer
The crew at Royal Portrush was cleaning up the driving range after a long day, but Canadian Austin Connelly was still hard at work.
There are three Canadians in the field this week. Canadian golf fans know all about Adam Hadwin and Corey Conners, but the same can’t be said about Connelly. The 22-year-old qualified for the British Open two weeks ago at Prince’s Golf Club in Sandwich, England, and is in his third season on the European Tour. Connelly’s father is Canadian and his mother American, so he carries dual citizenship.
Despite getting just three hours of sleep Sunday night on the players’ charter flight from the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic in Illinois, Connelly was the last player on the driving range at Portrush on Monday evening, working with swing coach Cameron Mccormick past 7 p.m.
“It’s definitely hard at times,” Connelly said on Monday. “The travel gets to you. I don’t care who you are, it gets to you. It’s just something you have to grind through.”
Travel is nothing new for Connelly, who has been globe-hopping between the travel-heavy European Tour and any PGA Tour events he can get into, but Monday seemed extreme. The evening range session was his second of the day, bookending a nine-hole practice round on the famed course at the northern tip of Northern Ireland, where the open is being held for the first time since 1951.
It turned comical when Connelly and Mccormick moved 20 yards into the driving range for some final work, and the lawn mower cut the grass on the tees behind them and the crew gathered golf balls. Turns out, Monday’s hard work was paying off as the pair had discovered something of a swing revelation.
Connelly hasn’t made a cut on either the European Tour or PGA Tour since the first week of May. He has been fighting a miss to the right on everything other than short irons and wedges. Two weeks before the British Open qualifier, Connelly made a trip home to Texas — where he grew up — and the pair diagnosed the problem. Connelly went to the qualifier in England and struck the ball as well as he ever had in competition, shooting 8-under at the 36-hole qualifier and securing a spot in the season’s final major.
Two years ago at the British Open at Royal Birkdale, Connelly came from seemingly out of nowhere to put himself in contention on Sunday. He finished tied for 14th at the only major championship of his career. Now, he’s back in a major and says after nearly three years in Europe, at this point in his career, the British Open is where he’s most comfortable out of golf ’s big four.
“One, because I like links golf courses, and two, because I think I gain a lot lengthwise versus the field when the golf course plays firm,” Connelly said. “A golf course like here, anybody who hits it in the rough is penalized dramatically, anybody who hits it in the bunker is penalized dramatically.”
Connelly has a slight build, and at five foot seven he will never be mistaken for one of the game’s bombers. He says unlike many North American courses where the bombers have the distinct advantage of being able to hit short irons from the rough into the greens, links golf levels the playing field because the ball runs forever on the firm turf, and it doesn’t matter how big and strong you are if you find the deep fescue.
But golf can be a cruel game. Connelly went from hitting it as well as he ever had at the British Open qualifier two weeks ago to finding himself seemingly back where he started at last week’s John Deere Classic. The miss right was back with a vengeance. Only this time, when he tried to implement the fix he and Mccormick have come up with, things got worse. His drives were starting right and going right, or he would try to compensate and they would start left and go left. He shot 72-76 to miss the cut.
Which brings us to Monday’s marathon practice day.
“It wasn’t a golf swing issue so to speak, it was a sequencing issue. Just timing is the easiest way to describe it,” Connelly said. “We just figured that out today. I’m really happy we figured this out because it’s going to make a world of difference in my golf game because I’ve been struggling pretty bad.”
What a difference a day makes.