The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
A new philosophy puts Law into lead in Qatar
David Law is focused on the next shot rather than whatever has gone before and the result is the freedom to sweep into the lead in the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters.
Two years ago in Australia the Aberdonian golfer bagged his debut win in his just his first few weeks on the Tour. But he has struggled to build on that success and needs a strong season in 2021.
That has brought a change in philosophy – which paid immediate dividends in Qatar yesterday. A first-round seven-under 64, without a bogey on his card, left him a shot clear of a group of four.
During the break after the first Desert Swing, Law, now 29, sat down with coach Alan McCloskey and his long-time mentor, 1999 Open champion Paul Lawrie, to plot through why he couldn’t maintain consistency.
Law said: “I’ve been guilty over the last few weeks when I’ve had decent rounds going but not finishing them off.
“Over the past couple of seasons I’ve been guilty of asking myself why I’ve hit bad shots, instead of just focusing on the next one.
“Over the break we had a sit down with my coach Alan and with Paul and we discussed it. It’s all about getting the ball in the hole now, trusting that you’ve done the hard work and that part’s done.
“This was a great score and I played really well, and I was semi-conscious of sticking with it and trying to go low.
“I was really happy with how I stuck to my routines and processes and I came out of it with a good score.”
Law’s had good starts in tour events throughout the last two years and not been able to sustain them. But he’s feeling confident about the rest of the weekend.
“Conditions were quite
easy but I’m looking forward to getting back out there, even if it’ll be different,” he said.
“Although it was hot and muggy it was calm and it’s never normally like that here. Tomorrow will be a bit more like normal, a bit of wind and it’ll be testing.”
Glasgow’s Scott Jamieson – whose home is at Sawgrass in Florida where the other tour is this week – started with a 67 in the morning. He thinks he got the tough
end of the draw with the wind set to be strongest this afternoon. He said: “I knew if I got off to a good start this morning it would be OK. If you don’t have a great start today then tomorrow might be a big ask.
“I had a bit of time off since the last tournament so you’re never sure what to expect.
“But I’ve been working pretty hard at home, trying to tidy up the swing a little.
“I hit it OK in the Middle
East, but my driver is something I always battle with. I don’t hit it straight enough. This course probably suits that because there’s a bit of room off the tee. Also there’s not a lot of drivers, but the ones I did hit were very good.”
Other Scots Richie Ramsay, Connor Syme (both 69), Stephen Gallacher (70) and last year’s runner-up David Drysdale (70) also scored under par.
Ireland’s power game should be no issue for Scotland if they can handle England like they did at Twickenham, reckons Scott Cummings.
The lock will be in the frontline against Ireland’s physical pack on Sunday at Murrayfield, and the visitors believe that has been the crucial element in their run of four wins against the Scots in the last four games.
The physical confrontation is big in every game, Cummings agrees, but he doesn’t think that Ireland have anything more than teams Scotland have coped with in the past.
“I would say physicality is key for pretty much any team anywhere,” said the Glasgow lock.
“If you don’t get at least parity up front, you are probably not going to win the game.
“Going into this match the way that we dealt with some of the things that England were doing, for example, in our win down there is our starting point.
“We were really strong in a lot of those set-piece areas, and we continued that against Wales when we were really good in the lineout apart from one loss, and there was some really good scrum battles as well.
“So, we know we can be physical up front and that gives a target for the forwards going into the game.”
One area Ireland are sure to target is the Scottish maul, excellent at Twickenham but it surprisingly struggled against Wales, as Cummings acknowledged.
“It was something we weren’t our best at on the day,” he said.
“It is something trained at a bit.
“We’ve looked at one or two really simple things that we know we can do better, to stop 50-60% we have of what was happening. We’ve just got to react a bit better, get in quicker and stop it at source.”
As for Ireland’s successes over Scotland recently, Cummings believe the Scots have the measure of that.
“There’s definitely a couple of things to focus on and I think we’ve changed a lot of things over the past couple of years,” he said.
“We’ve become tough to beat and we’re still working on that. We know it’s going to be a massive game against Ireland.
“They’re always a great team and they probably haven’t changed that much.
“They have a lot of the same sort of players they have played with for the past five or six years at least, so we know what they’ll bring.
“They’ll keep possession constantly, playing away with the ball, so we’ll have to be very strong defensively and on form in attack too.”
A key will not be giving Ireland the chance to kick penalties or use them to set up territory close to Scotland’s line, but Cummings says the Scottish discipline has been good in the championship so far.
“It’s still something talk about,” he said.
“The red card against we
Wales happened and how you adapt to it.
“But I’d say our discipline has been pretty good over the last two games, apart from one or two key instances.
“The number of penalties we’ve given away has actually been pretty good, we’re at the lower range of that in the Six Nations compared to other teams.
“It’s definitely been a focus for us, not giving away as many penalties and making sure you don’t let teams back into the game by doing that, because it can snowball.
“It gives them territory and puts you on the back foot.” it’s