Strange start to new Zim era
McIlroy’s extra effort pays off in second round at Ridgewood
RORY McIlroy blamed a first-round 74 on a lack of preparation, but after putting in extra time on the range, the Northern Irishman came out firing on Friday afternoon and put himself in contention at The Barclays.
The world No 1 fired a six-underpar 65 in the second round at Ridgewood Country Club to stand five shots behind co-leaders Adam Scott and American Cameron Tringale.
“The work I did yesterday on the range really helped, just sort of got back into the rhythm and into the flow of things,” McIlroy said of his postround practice. “I don’t think I missed a green on the front nine. I knew that my game was there and I just needed to take advantage of the chances I was giving myself.”
McIlroy, 25, said after Thursday’s round that he had not regained his focus after a week celebrating his brilliant run of three successive wins, including the British Open and PGA Championship titles.
“I was asked yesterday, after I played, if (I’m) going to battle to make the cut or whatever. I said missing the cut isn’t an option,” McIlroy said. “I know how well I am playing and how comfortable I am with my game, so even to miss a cut feeling like that would have felt really bad.
“So that’s why I put a little bit extra effort in yesterday, and this morning and made sure I was ready to go out there this afternoon.”
McIlroy was especially pleased with his par-fives on the back nine, using his new three-wood to set up a pair of birdies, and was looking forward to the weekend.
“It’s a very bunched leader board. I’m five shots behind, but there are a lot of players between me and the leaders,” he said. “So I’m going to have to shoot a couple of rounds similar to today to maybe win this thing.”
Meanwhile, Phil Mickelson, a fan favourite for his bold play and friendly disposition, gave spectators an unusual treat as he played a shot from a hospitality tent dining deck.
The five-time major champion blasted an errant drive at the 295-yard par-four fifth hole at Ridgewood, and a bad bounce placed the ball on the artificial turf floor among the dining tables on the deck of a grandstand overlooking the green.
With the crowd around the green roaring encouragement, Mickelson climbed the stairs and surveyed his lie as patrons parted to let him through.
After some tables were shoved aside and backpacks cleared from the floor to give him room, Mickelson played on.
“I hit a crappy drive, hit the cart
ZIMBABWE have had an interesting start to their new era, to put it mildly. Last month, as Peter Chingoka stepped aside as Zimbabwe Cricket chairman after 22 years at the helm, the board approved changes at coach and captaincy level.
Former Zimbabwe batsman Andrew Waller was removed as national coach and appointed national director of coaching, a position seemingly created so that Stephen Mangongo could take charge of the national team. Waller’s new job is to groom Zimbabwe’s coaches, but there are no more than a handful of them now, so he spends most afternoons playing golf.
The captaincy has been split, with Brendan Taylor in charge of the Test side and Elton Chigumbura retaking the limited overs reins – a strange decision given how little cricket Zimbabwe play.
The Test against South Africa was relatively uneventful, but things got weird in Bulawayo, where Zimbabwe used 16 players in the threematch one-day series. While experimentation is all well and good ahead of the World Cup, there appeared to be little method behind the selections.
It was decided, for example, that Neville Madziva deserved an opportunity at international level, despite the fact that the 23-year-old seamer had just 10 wickets in three seasons of List A cricket. His “opportunity” was to bowl on the flattest, slowest pitch in the country at a full-strength South African line-up. By the third match, he was gone.
Mangongo had been assistant coach for the past four years, and he’s never been shy to express the opinion that Zimbabwe’s senior players keep failing, and so a new generation deserves its chance.
It is true that Hamilton Masakadza, Chigumbura, Vusi Sibanda and Taylor have been around for a decade and have around 150 ODIs to their names, but only Taylor averages over 30.
Yet the idea that the young Madzivas in Zimbabwean cricket can step up from franchise cricket and compete with South Africa shows a lack of understanding of international cricket.
Needless to say, Mangongo never played international cricket and so he is unfamiliar with its realities. It would be no surprise to see the likes of Taylor walk away after next year’s World Cup in frustration.
Especially as Zimbabwe’s administration is not about to change. While many saw Chingoka as the problem, in truth his replacement, Wilson Manase is even more conflicted given that he is chairman on the board of Metbank, the financial institution to whom ZC owe most of their debt at eye-watering interest rates.
The ICC’s new Test fund, which promises an end to lossmaking tours, will help Zimbabwe more than anyone.
But with mismanagement rife both on the field and off it, cricket here will continue to limp along for the foreseeable future. path and went into the grandstands, and my drop was going to be in hay,” explained the big left-hander.
“I had a clear lie on nice ground there and played it. I hit it a little too hard, went over the green, hit a bunker shot to 20 feet and made bogey.”
Mickelson, who posted a 72 to make the cut right on the number at one- over 143, said it wasn’t the first time he’s hit off a grandstand.
“If you hit it off-line enough, you’re going to see those spots,” he said.
Mickelson said the flop shot he tried from there wasn’t that difficult. “It wasn’t hard to make contact. It was hard to hit it on that skinny little green and get it to stop. That was it.”
Despite the bogey, Mickelson, who bumped fists with a young spectator on his way off the grandstand, rather enjoyed the moment.
* South Korea’s Ryu So-Yeon stretched her lead to five strokes after firing a six-under par 66 in Friday’s second round of the LPGA Canadian Women’s Open.
Ninth-ranked Ryu, the 2011 US Women’s Open champion, opened by matching the London Hunt and Country Club course record with a 63, and followed up with another solid effort to stand on 15-under 129.
South Korean Choi Na-Yeon, America’s Danielle Kang and Sweden’s Anna Nordqvist shared second on 134, with American Cristie Kerr another stroke adrift.
Ryu, who had 10 top-10 finishes without a victory last year, and has nine more this year without lifting a trophy, birdied three of the first four holes to pull away after carrying a one-shot lead into the round. – SapaAFP