McGinley on glory hunt at new-look Old Course

IT was a relatively uneventful second morning of the 1996 Open Championship at Royal Lytham St Annes when Paul McGinley struck.

A beautifully played nine-iron pitched once and then rolled gracefully into the ninth hole for an ace that shot the Irishman to the top of the leaderboard.

From there home, most things he touched turned to gold, until he stood on the 18th tee leading the championship by a shot. Sadly, that hole cost him a stroke but at the halfway stage he was still tied for the lead after rounds of 69 and 65.

As McGinley recalled last night, the wheels came off after that and he eventually had to settle for a share of 14th.

But the excitement that coursed through his veins on that great day has never abated and it remains a burning desire for the Dubliner that he should once again challenge for golf’s most coveted title.

Decent starts (69, 72) at St Andrews in 2000 and again at Lytham the following year (69 and 72 again) served to whet the appetite still further.

“This is what it’s all about, why we play this game,” he said.

“A great tournament, great venue, good weather, what more could you want. The Open is the place where you feed off the crowd and the buzz of the event itself. I’ve played St Andrews a lot so I have local knowledge on my side and it will stand to me if I get into contention.

“St Andrews is about two things, the wind and pin positions. They control St Andrews. You cannot make a game plan to play there until you wake up in the morning, you see the pin positions, you see where the wind is, you get the forecast of the way it’s going to change and you make a plan based on your tee time.

“Normally, at the US Open or the US PGA or other tournaments on the European Tour, you’d have a game plan by now but I can’t formulate a game plan until Thursday morning. I’ve 20 different game plans in my mind and I’ll have to wait until I get up to decide on one over breakfast.

“That doesn’t happen anywhere else, even on other links courses, not to the extent it does here,” he said.

“The greens are so massive and the pin positions determine so much. The first time I played here I had a local guy caddying for me the first day and I got to the fifth hole and he said ‘it’s 99 yards to the front and the pin is a further 82’.

"I went from a sand wedge to the front of the green to hitting a five-iron to the pin. That sums up St Andrews, how it can vary so much.

“Hopefully one of us will stop the Americans this week. I don’t know why they dominate it. At a St Andrews Open, you can prepare all you want but you’ve got to have the skills, the ability to perform the shots. You’ve got to have the ability to putt really well around here.”

McGinley’s mind drifts back to Lytham ’96 when there was so much in the offing on Friday, so little to show on Sunday.

“I’ve played decently in the Open over the years but I’ve really only got in contention once,” he said.

“But I then shot 74 in the third round. I’ve never been in the heat on the last day. I’ve been in seventh or eighth place but that’s not near enough.

"I was sixth in the PGA last year. I was two shots off the winner. I played really well that week and that’s the bottom line. You can plan all you like but if you don’t have the shots or sink the putts it’s not going to happen.”

And then came the most positive of punchlines.

“I feel the percentages are on my side. I’ve played so well in other tournaments and not won, I feel it’s only a matter of time before my turn comes. I feel I’m due a big win.

“I’m not saying it’s going to happen this week but I look at the way Kenneth Ferrie won the European Open. He did everything but win the tournament. Everyone else lost it.”