GOLF ABERDEEN ASSET MANAGEMENT SCOTTISH OPEN
AT DUNDONALD LINKS
HOME hopeful Stephen Gallacher has set his sights on bagging an Open Championship place after finishing in the top 10 during round one of the $7 million Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open at Dundonald Links.
While flying Finn Mikko Ilonen was heading into day two with a two-stroke lead after a fine 65 and Rory McIlroy toiled to a 74, Gallacher hit a tidy 68 to sit alongside fellow Scot Richie Ramsay in a share of eighth spot.
Former Ryder Cup player Gallacher, a three-time winner on the European Tour, is not currently exempt for next week’s Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.
There are three tee-times still available from the leading finishers here at Dundonald and Gallacher, 42, is hoping his final throw of the dice in the lastchance saloon pays off.
He said: “I’d love to play in the Open. Richie [Ramsay] and David Drysdale managed to get an Open spot through the Irish Open last week which was brilliant for them and I want to do that and get more Scots in that Birkdale field.
“It’s been my goal for the last three weeks during this run of big events. This is my only chance to make it now and this is the perfect start for me.”
Gallacher’s round came alive with a telling thrust on the back nine as he reeled off a trio of birdies at 12, 13 and 14 to clamber up the leaderboard.
He added: “That was a nice wee run because for five holes before that, I was struggling a bit and was just hanging on.
“It was one of those days where it could have got away from me.
“I had about five or six holes in a row where I hit it in the rough and didn’t have a lie and just had to get it out.
“I didn’t drive it very well today, but I kept my head and my short game was sharp. That kept me in it.”
While Gallacher made purposeful strides, the local contingent in the field had a mixed day. Glasgow’s Marc Warren posted a 72, but Martin Laird, who was three-under after nine holes, was left cursing a triple-bogey seven on the 10th as his charge was derailed. The US-based Glaswegian stumbled home in a 42 on his way to a 75. Cathkin Braes man Scott Jamieson had to settle for a 76.
With Ilonen setting a brisk pace, two-time Open champ Padraig Harrington showed his powers of recovery with an eventful 67.
Not so long ago, the 45-yearold was fearing that his golfing career may be over after a player he was giving a lesson to accidentally clattered him on the elbow while swinging a club.
Having battled back from that, Harrington produced a fine salvage operation to keep himself among the leaders after a wayward drive on the 16th.
ALL seemed to be lost as everybody rummaged in the thick, sodden rough but having managed to locate his ball – he still needed to take a penalty drop due to the appalling lie – Harrington gouged it out some 30 yards short of the green and holed a raking putt for an unlikely par.
As an uplifting encore, the Dubliner, who sits alongside Ian Poulter and Rickie Fowler, then chipped in on the 17th for his birdie after flying the green with his approach.
“It was miraculous,” reflected Harrington of that great escape on 16. “We were luck y to find it. We were looking in a 40-square-yard area and it was getting to the point of desperation.
“I gladly would have taken my bogey five and ran off to the next tee but to make a four was a minor miracle.”
At the end of a day which saw the current Open champion, Henrik Stenson, start his round with a seven on his first hole en route to a 72, it was Ilonen who had assumed command with a neat seven-under card.
Having missed his last four cuts, there was hardly much form to cling to but, after starting on the back nine, he charged home in 31 during a profitable surge that included five birdies in six holes.
“It’s the round of my season,” said Ilonen who won the first of his five European Tour titles a decade ago.