THE FOURCE IS
Snedeker keeps a five off his card, but can’t shake off Scott and miracle man Woods
In 141 Open Championships filled with miraculous achievements and staggering deeds, few feats are more mindboggling than this: someone has just played 36 holes at Royal Lytham while registering nothing worse on his card than a four.
Yes, by tomorrow night we might be saluting the bunker shot holed by Tiger Woods on the 18th hole as the stroke that changed the destiny of the Claret Jug and set him on course for his 15th major championship.
But, for one day at least, let’s give the lesser name his due. Say hello to the personable american Brandt Snedeker who, on a course protected by brutal rough and 205 bunkers, has had four twos, six threes and 26 fours to compile a 36-hole total of 130 strokes that ties the halfway record set by Sir nick Faldo at muirfield in 1992.
no doubt it will all end up in sixes and sevens as it so often does for members of the chorus line thrust into the spotlight. But anyone who has ever played this forbidding course will surely look at those remarkable figures and go: wow. His second most remarkable achievement is not bad either — on this course with all these bunkers, he has not been in one.
It was still only good enough, mind, for a one-stroke advantage over the australian adam Scott, who shot 67 for a nine- under- par total as these two established clear daylight between themselves and everyone else.
So, a two-man sprint for the Claret Jug? not when you see who is leading the peloton. not when you consider his final blow of the day.
How often have we seen it in the past, a stroke of genius from Woods at the death resonating with menace when it comes to the hopes of anyone else?
It looked as if a fine second round was going to end limply when he pushed his approach to the 18th. We should have known better. Into the sand stepped Woods, and the man who is reckoned to be a very average bunker player executed the shot to perfection. It rolled into the hole for his second round of 67 and a six-under-par total that leaves him right where he needs to be in pursuit of two men who haven’t won a major between them.
This is the eighth time Woods has opened a major with two rounds in the sixties and he went on to win the first seven. Playing with Woods in today’s third round is Thorbjorn Olesen, the exciting 22-year-old Dane living up to his billing in Sportsmail on Wednesday as the coming man of European golf. What an experience awaits him today.
a classy group on four under include two in-form americans in matt Kuchar and Jason Dufner and two of the United Kingdom’s toughest nuts in Scot Paul Lawrie and northern Ireland’s Graeme mcDowell. Lawrie made up 10 shots with a round to go to win The Open at Carnoustie in 1999 and is playing the best golf of his life at the age of 43.
‘I’ve not had a chance to win since that victory in 1999 so to lie tied fifth at this stage is nice, and I’d like to keep going,’ he said.
mcDowell has that look in his eye again, as he had when winning the US Open in 2010. He will be aggrieved, however, not to get any reward for two iron shots to the final two greens that left him with good looks at birdies. The one at the 18th, in particular, was from no more than five feet but he could not convert. Thirty summers have passed since a young american called Bobby Clampett caused widespread astonishment at The Open by opening up a five-stroke halfway lead. Here the spirit of Clampett was manifest in the extraordinary performance of Snedeker, who looks a little like a young Tom Watson and for two days has played like him. and so the leader on a course where only those who have reached the world no 1 spot have won the Claret Jug in the last quarter of a century is a man who had never previously made so much as a halfway cut in this championship.
Part of the reason was the near-apocalyptic rain that fell overnight and led to this classic links playing almost like a country club lay-out in Florida. How often do you see bunkers full of casual water on a seaside course in July? When do you see golf balls spinning back on links greens at this time of year? Where’s a Wimbledon- style roof when you need one?
Thankfully, it sounds like nature will give the course a break over the weekend and so, by tomorrow, it might well have recaptured a few more of its natural characteristics.
Can Snedeker hold on? If he sprays it off the tee like he has for the first two days, he will be reeled in, just as Clampett was by Watson in 1982.
‘I’ve been fortunate that my misses have been bad ones and finished where the galleries have trampled down the rough,’ acknowledged Snedeker.
Yet he is no mug. Last year, he defeated current world no 1 Luke Donald in a sudden- death play- off for the Heritage Classic title on a South Carolina course that was right up the Englishman’s alley.
Speaking of the world no 1, he capped off an eventful day with a second-round 68 to be eight behind on two under. Donald awoke to discover the wife of his normal caddie John mcLaren had gone into labour. He told him to head home to Surrey and called in Gareth Lord, who normally caddies for Robert Karlsson. Given that the first two majors were won by men who are devout, perhaps asking for Lord’s advice might have seemed an omen.
Donald made his score with three successive birdies on the front nine and, for the first time at an Open, the cries of ‘Luuuke’ carried real exuberance. He has given himself a sniff of a chance but he needs a score in the mid- sixties today.
The cut fell at three over and who should make it in on the number but none other than the remarkable Watson, who will soon be 63. He did so by holing a 20-foot putt on the 18th to complete the day for Snedeker, who grew up with pictures of the great man on his wall.
Over two successive groups in the evening shadows, two of the great figures in the history of the game in Woods and Watson had delivered two moments of magic.
Forty-four thousand people must have been glad that they came.
derek.lawrenson@dailymail.co.uk
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