THISCOURSE IS A SKOOSH
RORY McILROY last night branded the Scottish Open course too easy to help him gear up for the biggest Major of his career next week.
The Northern Irishman wants to use this week to tune up for The Open at Royal Portrush in front of a massive swell of home support but big soft greens and
easy pin positions at The Renaissance Club yesterday made it target golf for the pros, who took full advantage with more than 100 of the field shooting under par.
McIlroy’s four under par 67 was still four shots shy of the leaders including Matt Kuchar and Edoardo Molinari, chasing one of the last three qualifying spots that would see him join his defending champion brother Francesco at Portrush.
But afterwards McIlroy admitted the challenge should have been much stiffer.
He said: “They were pretty generous in terms of the course set-up because they have never been here before.
“The rain softened things up and any links course we come to without much wind, people are going to rip it apart.
“If I’m playing in the next two weeks, the easy week I want to be this week and the difficult one next week. You don’t want to get worn out but at the same time you want this to be a bit of a challenge.
“The greens have been slow all week. Definitely a lot slower than what we’re used to seeing week-in, week-out.”
Henrik Stenson, who shot a six under par 65, agreed and said: “Target golf is not the best prep. I’d prefer a more linksy course but the one thing we’re not super happy about is that we have had so much rain and it’s getting soft.”