Hatton uses his own anger to fuel charge
WHE NT yr re ll Hatton angrily tossed his ball into the burn after missing a putt on the first, he seemed set to ‘get in my own way’ again.
Seventeen holes and six birdies later, the sometimes irascible Englishman had constructed a 66 and could smile at himself, as he is more prone to do off the course.
Finishing on eight under par, he is well-placed for the weekend at a place which holds few secrets from him after previous successes. Selfcontrol will be needed if he is to replicate his two Dunhill Links titles, achieved in very different autumnal conditions.
Hatton enjoys a self-berating monologue when things fall short of perfection, although these can be beneficial if they stop at a certain point.
‘If I get too annoyedoyed and I get in my own wayay then it’s a problem,’’ he said. ‘ But if I hitt a bad shot and I letet it out, then it’ss not going to harm me. It would be worse for me if I try and act like everything’s fine because it’s just not my character.
‘Almost, for me, I wouldn’t even thinknk about some of the stuff I say and it just flies out of thehe gategate. Obviously it’s not well-liked, which is fine. But it’s just me, I’m not trying to offend anyone.’
By the time he holed a 35-footer on the 10th he was flying, but he knows his past record at the home of golf guarantees nothing.
‘The course is very different from how we play in October, also the pin positions are a lot tighter,’ he said.
The pace of play at the celebrityspecked Dunhill is notoriously slow, and experience of that will have helped.
Coming up close behind him on the leaderboard was US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick, whose seven-birdie 66 also leaves him poised to launch a challenge from six under.
Some can get distracted playing with Tiger Woods, but the only emotion he allowed himself were the goosebumps he felt walking up the 18th in the shadow of the shrunken champion.
He was more exasperated about how much time everything was taking, even on a course where the shared greens are bound to cause congestion.
‘It’s an issue that it is taking like six hours and nothing is done about it,’ said Fitzpatrick. ‘I know there isn’t anything to do about it, but I don’t know, I guess it’s just about the golf course.
‘Maybe it needs tweaks, I don’t know what the answer is. But it just shouldn’t take six hours and nine minutes to get round. Like I dondon’tt care wherew you play, I just thinthink that’s stupid.’ EverythingEver Sheffield touchestou in golf right nowno turns to at leleast silver, if notn gold, and his fellow Hallamshire club member Barclay Brown showed thatt his first-day surges was not a onone-off.
TheT 21-year- old amaamateur snaffled three birdies on the last foufour holes to also finish on six-siunder with an impressive 70, putting him in pole position to take the Silver Medal.
Sweating it out on the cut line last night was Wandsworth-based world No 1,779 Robert Dinwiddie. The bottlenecks meant he finished the first day at 10.10pm, but in joint third place. He slipped back to evens yesterday with a five-over 77.
During lockdown, Dinwiddie — who has come all the way through the pre-qualifying event — made ends meet by working as a labourer for a friend’s building company, fitting out houses in the posher parts of Surrey.
Bogeying three out of five holes after the turn, the 39-year- old clung on to get his par on the last four to give himself a chance of making the weekend.