MAMMA MIA
CHEER WE GO AGAIN Italian Molinari misses flight back home... but keeps cool to win the Claret Jug while Tiger, Rory & Co crack
FRANCESCO MOLINARI gave himself such little chance of winning The Open that when he lifted the Claret Jug he should have been queuing for a flight home.
The 35-year-old became Italy’s first-ever Major champion when he concluded a bogey-free weekend with a final-round 69 at Carnoustie. But it was a roller-coaster round, with Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy
AFTER the chaotic enthralment of an epic afternoon, one thing should not be forgotten.
Francesco Molinari did not just win the 147th Open Championship, he won it with one of the great closing rounds in Major history.
Not in its number, nor its level of brilliance, but in its glorious grittiness. In its heart, in its nerve. As blows were traded on every parched patch of Angus ground, Molinari did not flinch.
As the game’s giants threatened to stand up, the smallest of the contenders stood tallest.
As playing partner Tiger Woods fist-pumped his way past him, amid all the hullabaloo and distractions that trail in his wake, the first Italian to win the Open did not blink.
Not, at least, until he had to blink away the tears as he sat in the scorer’s hut, absorbing the magnitude of his achievement, probably wondering where he found the mental fortitude to triumph on a tumultuous day.
Probably pinching himself at being, unofficially, the world’s best golfer – three victories and two runner-up finishes in his last six starts bearing remarkable witness to that.
And this from a man whose previous best in 10 previous Open appearances had been to tie ninth at Muirfield in 2013.
In a climax the organisers could not have scripted better, Molinari was the only man in the field not to take a mis-step. As challenger after challenger, in a capricious wind and cloying pressure, succumbed to serious error, Molinari simply kept holing clutch putts.
Only one of the 79 golfers who teed it up on this sunlit stage, did not have a bogey on his card – the winner. Not only that, he produced his second birdie down a final hole littered with the debris of shattered hopes.
That is why Molinari – his closing 69 giving him an eight-under total and a two-shot victory margin – is the Open champion, why it was one of the great rounds in one of the great finales to this Championship.
Even by the feverish standards of this summer of sporting love, this was an epic day, contenders appearing and disappearing like gulls on the wind.
One minute, Jordan Spieth was in the box seat, the next he was in a bush.
On the chart of surprises, the defending champion’s inability to take a grip on proceedings was right up there.
And then there was Rory McIlroy, withdrawing from the fight for a couple of hours before wading back in with a haymaker eagle on the 14th.
It was a tenacious finale to his Open but McIlroy has not won a Major in four years and that is too long for a player of his prodigious talent.
McIlroy finished tied-second alongside, among others, Justin Rose, who, on that generous 14th, almost holed out for an albatross.
After only making the cut with a birdie at the last, it was an outstanding effort from a player establishing himself as one of England’s most accomplished ever.
Kevin Chappell was in the hunt until finding foliage on the 17th, Kevin Kisner hung on after an early double bogey and the likeable Xander Schauffele was the last man out there with a chance but the minor meltdowns that had taken residence on Carnoustie’s links paid him a visit on the penultimate hole.
Schauffele needed an improbable eagle on the 18th to force a play-off and when it did not land, Molinari embraced everyone in his path.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw McIlroy, sending a thumbsup and applause from distance.
He is a popular guy, Molinari, a nice guy. Too nice, some have said in the past.
Well, on a day of nerveshredding drama, he showed that to be nonsense.
On a day, and in a tournament, when the psychological strain tugged at some of the game’s biggest names, Molinari was nerveless and ruthless.
Indeed a great round, a great champion.