STARS BLOWN OFF COURSE IN 40mph GUSTS
AS ONE hardy spectator put it: ‘I wouldn’t want to drive a car in this weather, never mind a golf ball.’ With early-morning gusts accelerating into gales of 40mph come lunchtime, it wasn’t exactly a day for wearing a cap — which is a bit unfortunate given the tradition of golfing attire. But headgear wasn’t the only thing being blown around this brutally exposed links course. Most significantly, it was players’ balls which were being swept to destinations never intended by those at source. One Dustin Johnson shot slapped into the face of an unsuspecting observer who was left with a bloodied brow and cursing the wind which had caused his misfortune. Former Open champion Paul Lawrie was another who had the crowd cowering behind one another and laughing at the extent the wind had taken the Scot’s ball and dumped it among them on the 10th. Nothing was immune. Coffee cups were whipped across greens and the names and numbers on the scoreboard following Rory McIlroy’s group were swept back down the fairway, the teenage carrier giving desperate chase. It was around the turn of the course that conditions were particularly unforgiving. The 458-yard par-four eighth was plagued by headwinds and crosswinds and those spectators along its fairway doubled as members of an impromptu search party on several occasions. On the third, the weather wrecked the round of another former champion, Phil Mickelson. Nearly 100 fans joined marshals in a sand dune to search for his errant tee shot. He recorded a triple bogey and with it went his chances of surviving the cut. There was talk of play being suspended late in the morning but savvy greenkeepers had kept the grass slightly longer than usual in an attempt to slow the putting surface, for had balls started rolling before shots were taken then the hooter would have sounded. Not that too many players were finding the greens in regulation. On the par-three 14th, none of the marquee group of McIlroy, Johnson and Charl Schwartzel had a putter in his hand for his second shot. The howling wind had rendered redundant those stewards who ask for quiet before shots are taken, for a brass band could have marched up the fairway and no-one would have heard them. But as the wind dropped come late afternoon, so, too, did the temperature. And then came the rain. Jordan Spieth bemoaned the fate of his tee shot on eight, which stopped on the sodden fringe of a bunker and then rolled into the sand. ‘That’s bull****,’ seethed the American, who is used to much fairer climes. Play was soon suspended but when it resumed the scoring wasn’t as bad as those already in the clubhouse had hoped. Indeed, Spieth enjoyed back-to-back birdies at 12 and 13 and a quite brilliant eagle at 15. Pain in the rain? More like singing in the rain, for the leader somehow made it look easy.