McIlroy nixes Friday jinx
Irishman is in control; Woods is in trouble
On a thoroughly pheasant afternoon at Royal Liverpool, Rory McIlroy flipped the bird at the mental wreckage of his recent Friday disasters and had most of the 143rd Open Championship field pretty much stuffed and mounted.
Freaky Friday happened, instead, to Tiger Woods, who went from Top 10 one day to needing a birdie at the 18th hole to make the cut — thanks, in large part, to an apparent death-wish determination to hit his driver on a course where he won without it eight years ago.
But even with a cluster of reputable names almost succeeding in keeping him in sight, the second round of the Open was all about Rory, the 25-year-old Irish superstar who made seven birdies and ignored an eighth — a male pheasant who moseyed across the eighth green, through McIlroy’s sight line as he was lining up a 10-footer for birdie.
The pheasant eventually departed, stage left, McIlroy grinned, and holed the putt.
Seeking his third major championship — only Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have won three or more by age 25 since the Masters became a major — McIlroy rocketed a downwind approach shot over the back of the first green en route to his only bogey of the day, then roared back to life in full command of his game.
His second straight 66 wasn’t quite as sexy as the 65-65 Martin Kaymer shot in the first two rounds of last month’s U.S. Open, but it’s only numbers: Pinehurst played to a par 70, so the German was 10 under par after 36 holes, McIlroy is 12.
Still, his lead is only four strokes over Dustin Johnson, who birdied 17 and 18 to shoot the week’s low round, a 65, while six players — Francisco Molinari, Ryan Moore, Rickie Fowler, Sergio Garcia and South African mates Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen — sat a further two shots adrift.
“I don’t know if I can quite describe it,” McIlroy said of the feeling he gets when he has the bit in his teeth at a major, having won both his U.S. Open title at Congressional and the PGA at Kiawah Island in runaways.
“It’s like I have an inner peace on the golf course. I’m very comfortable doing what I’m doing right now. I’m able to do it a few times a year; I wish I could do it more often.
“I haven’t been in this position in an Open Championship. I’m just really looking forward to the weekend.”
The Friday jinx? Never a factor.
“I didn’t have that in my head at all,” he said. “In a way, you know, it’s nice to go out and shoot a good one today so I don’t have to be asked about it again until I might shoot a goof score on Thursday in Akron. But it’s understandable. My second rounds this year have been terrible.”
Not this time. In his gray outfit with Day-Glo yellow accents, McIlroy was in amazing control of the golf ball, and on the few mistakes he made, he was brilliant out of the rough, making birdies, saving pars, doubling his Thursday lead.
“I’ve been talking about it all year: driving is the foundation to any golf game. I hit six drivers today,” he said, including a 396-yard bomb on the 17 th. “If my driving is there, everything else sort of feeds off that.”
It was the opposite for Woods, who missed the first and second fairways, was three-over-par after two holes, and then recovered with 14 straight pars until he hit his driver out of bounds right on 17 and hit his provisional almost as wildly to the left, but still in play.
His triple-bogey at 17 almost cost him the cut, but he had to make birdie at 18 with a flop shot over a greenside bunker and a six-foot putt.
“That’s not the first putt he’s ever made,” said Fowler, whose second straight round of 69 paled by comparison to McIlroy’s work, but was still pretty strong.
Woods said he thought he needed to be more aggressive, and could take some of the bunkers out of play by hitting it over them — “Either you lay up short or go ahead and go over the top. And I decided to take a little more on today … I just didn’t drive it well.”
At any rate, all previous strategies may go out the window in the third round, with severe weather forecast and the field going off in threesomes starting at 9 a.m. local time, from both the No. 1 and No. 10 tees, trying to get the round played between the storms.
Virtually all the leaders and contenders took advantage of better, calmer weather Thursday morning and Friday afternoon. The only afternoon score to crack the list Thursday had been Adam Scott’s 68, and the lone top-10 score after 36 holes that came out of the late-early group was George Coetzee’s 69, leaving the 28-year-old birthday boy from South Africa at five-under par, tied with Jim Furyk and Marc Warren.
Canada’s entries had mixed results Friday: Open rookie David Hearn of Brantford, Ont., ended at even par after a 74, and made the cut by two strokes, while Graham DeLaet’s late rally after a disastrous front-nine 42 fell just shy of qualifying him to play the weekend. His 76 was one too many.
But 64-year-old, five-time champion Tom Watson made the cut on the number, after a second 73, breaking his own record for oldest competitor ever to survive the Open cut.
“Brilliant,” said Darren Clarke, who played alongside Watson and Furyk. “He’s just a gentleman on the golf course, and he played quite beautifully.”