Spain’s Jimenez scores even par to hold Open lead on blustery day
Just in case divots flying sideways aren’t sufficient, the official wind speed and direction of the Open Championship may be calibrated Saturday, for the final pairing at least, based on smoke from Miguel Angel Jimenez’s cigar.
He was probably reclining in a lounge chair with one Friday afternoon — and possibly a bottle of Rioja, for good measure — having a grand old time watching the late finishers get punished for the softer morning conditions they had enjoyed the day before.
As for Jimenez, the 49-yearold ponytailed Spaniard needed no more than an evenpar 71 to get to the clubhouse at 3-under 139 for two trips around Muirfield’s devilishly difficult links, then signed his scorecard and let the sun and breeze and hard-baked fairways do the rest.
At day’s end, after first- round leader Zach Johnson’s double-bogey at the 15th, and Phil Mickelson’s at 16 (with three putts from three feet) and assorted disasters of similar ilk befalling luminaries and plumbers alike, the man they call The Mechanic held a one-stroke lead over an estimable cast of four pursuers: Tiger Woods (71), Lee Westwood (68), Henrik Stenson (70), and Dustin Johnson (72).
Canada’s Graham DeLaet rallied to make the 36-hole cut, rebounding from his opening-round 75 to shoot 72 Friday, including a gritty 33 on the brutal back nine.
“It’s much better to feel when you are on top of the leaderboard than when you were somewhere else, no? Obviously, it’s much nice, no?” said Jimenez, who is so laidback, he might actually be the World’s Most Interesting Man, that Dos Equis beer guy notwithstanding.
He may or may not keep his promise to eschew cigars while he’s playing — it’s dry enough, he could burn the course down — but he intends to enjoy the journey.
Asked how he could be leading the Open at 49, as if Tom Watson’s near-win at 59 wasn’t only four years ago, Jimenez feigned indignation: “Why? I have not the right to do it? Only the young people can do it? Why? I’m fine. I still enjoy myself on the golf course, I love what I’m doing.
“It’s the only thing I like to do in my life. And then I enjoy myself. I keep elastic and flexible.”
In the future, he said, “if I cannot shoot low, I will not be here, don’t you worry. I wouldn’t waste my time moving around the world kicking my a--.”
Muirfield was doing a lot of the butt-kicking Friday, for the second day in a row. After complaints about the hard, “crispy” conditions, the Open’s course setup people watered the greens overnight and maybe even secretly put a little on the fairways. But if the players thought that would make this legendary links more manageable, they learned that the marginally softer, slower greens — and a breeze blowing from the opposite direction — only made it a different kind of difficult.
Twenty players broke par in the opening round; only nine were under par after 36 holes.
Westwood, who played early, was 6-under-par for his round and tied for the lead after 12 holes, but the course took back three strokes on the way in. The story repeated itself, over and over.
“You come out in the morning and you expect that you have slightly better scoring conditions, and they were, the greens were slightly softer. They start to firm up pretty quickly,” he said. “I was playing some great stuff. But it was just getting harder as the holes progressed, tougher to score, tougher to get it close.
“The golf course got really difficult. The finish is tough: 16, 17, 18 are playing hard. So it’s like most major championships, it’s a grind out there. We had an advantage. I’ll kick back this afternoon on the couch and watch some struggles, and the cricket.”
He would not have watched in vain. There were plenty of tales of woe. U.S. Open champion Justin Rose shot 77 and missed the cut. Brandt Snedeker was closing in on the lead until he ballooned to an 8-over-par 43 on the back nine.
Zach Johnson lost three strokes from his overnight lead after eight holes, got them back by the 13th, and spent them all, and one more, by the time he got the ball in the hole on No. 18. He dropped into a tie for sixth at 141 with Scotland’s Martin Laird (71), Rafael Cabrera-Bello of Spain (74), and Angel Cabrera (72).
Stenson survived a doublebogey at the sixth, and Dustin Johnson eagled the fifth to get to three-under-par, but could never improve on it.
Els, who shot a second straight 74, was running hot when he came off the course.
“I just made two bogeys from the middle of the bloody fairway,” said the defending champion. “It’s firm, it’s brown, it’s bouncing all over the place. There’s two greens that are getting, can I say it, not very playable: 15 and I want to say 14.”
Asked if the organization could do something to make them better, he said: “Yes, yes they can. Water.”
“They need to put some water on it,” Snedeker fumed. “Everything is dead. You’ve got fairways that are running 15 (on the Stimpmeter) in spots. You can’t stand up. You can slip.”
Woods, who’s trying to end a five-year major championship drought, was in better humour. Though he hasn’t performed any fireworks — no one is doing that — his putter has: he’s one-putted 18 of 36 greens and is in great position for the weekend.
But even he admitted the conditions make it a bit of a lottery.
“I’m putting good this year,” he said. “I do feel good over it, like I have most of the year. It’s tough out there right now with the wind blowing a little bit. It’s moving putts. We had to allow for some. We needed to hold it or to move it. And that’s all feel.
“And hopefully you guess right.”