Wind keeps contingent of Canadians guessing during opening round

PORTRUSH, NORTHERN IRELAND No Canadian broke par at Royal Portrush Thursday, but none shot themselves out of this year’s Open Championship.

The low round of the day from Canada’s three representatives belonged to Corey Conners, who teed off in the morning and shot a 1-over-par 72.

“I would have liked to have struck the ball better,” said Conners, of Listowel, Ont. “I missed the green on a few iron shots where I would have liked to give myself birdie chances, but I made some nice saves and rolled in some nice putts for pars. Overall, it was a decent round.”

Conners made two early birdies at the second and fourth holes and then, more or less, held on for the rest of the day as all four seasons took turns showing up on a wild Thursday of weather in Northern Ireland.

“A little tricky out there, the wind was up a little bit,” Conners said. “Literally in five minutes it can change.”

Adam Hadwin teed off in the afternoon and it was more of the same. The sun would come out for 10 minutes followed by a five-minute torrential downpour, not to mention a changing wind all day.

“It was pretty crazy,” said Hadwin, of Abbotsford, B.C. “I’d rather have that than just a dumping pour-down all day, but it was weird.”

Hadwin shot a 3-over 74 with four bogeys and a birdie. The 31-year-old came into the season’s final major playing his best golf of the season with two top-six finishes in his last three starts.

“I’m disappointed,” Hadwin said after his round. “I played better than I scored.”

Hadwin recently has been working on his ball-striking — already a strength of his game — with the thought that elite ball-striking can carry you through the season consistently while you wait for your putter to get hot. That’s exactly what happened as the putts started to drop for him in Hamilton at the RBC Canadian Open and also two weeks ago at the 3M Open in Minneapolis, Minn.

“It’s kind of been a hot putter coming in and it cooled off,” Hadwin said.

Neither Hadwin nor Conners have much experience playing links golf. Hadwin has played in two Open Championships, but outside of those, the closest he has come is playing Cabot Links in Cape Breton. Conners has even less experience, having never travelled to Ireland, Scotland nor England and having never played a links course before this week.

Conners’ crash course seems to be going well and he said earlier in the week that he has always thought his ball-striking and ability to send the ball on different trajectories would serve him well over here. Conners watched to see how the wind and turf affected shots of his playing companions David Duval and Zach Johnson more than he normally would.

“It’s still the same game,” Conners said. “I know the course plays differently, but I’ve got a lot of confidence in my game and I just trusted it. It’s a lot of fun to play links golf.”

Hadwin said this style of golf requires a lot more thinking than the average PGA Tour stop. He said earlier in the week that growing up in British Columbia and living in Arizona he’s never been a great player in windy conditions, although he’s improved every year.

“There’s definitely more thought that goes into it,” Hadwin said of playing links golf. “Especially coming off the week in Minneapolis where if we had 165 (yards) we were playing 165. We could fly it to the hole and stop it. There’s a lot of thought of landing it before ridges, past ridges, 10-12 yards short and playing for bounces, so it can certainly be more of a mental challenge.”

Conners faced quite a wait on the seventh hole Thursday as Duval made an adventure of the par 5, losing three tee shots, playing the wrong ball and eventually carding a 14.

“You’ve got to be ready for that to happen and it was unfortunate,” Conners said. “I felt bad for David.”

Conners chatted with Johnson during the wait and tried to figure out if they were going to have to let the group behind play through.

“Just had to reset there on the eighth tee and try to get refocused,” Conners said.

Austin Connelly, the third Canadian in the field, shot a 4-over 74 that included a triple-bogey 7 at the par-4 ninth hole.

Connelly, 22, plays on the European Tour and qualified for the championship two weeks ago in England.

He finished 14th at Royal Birkdale in the 2017 British Open.