Murphy shares lead at Carnoustie

YOU don’t win 72-hole golf tournaments on the first day, but three of the six strong Irish challenge in the Dunhill Links are sitting nicely after yesterday’s opening round in surprisingly agreeable weather conditions over the Old Course at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns.

Gary Murphy, who only got into the event on a sponsor’s invitation, overcame very obvious flu symptoms to shoot a superb 66 at Carnoustie, a links widely regarded as one of the toughest in the game, to share the lead with the little-know Scot Simon Yates and last year’s Murphys Irish Open champion Soren Hansen.

Darren Clarke continued his recent run of good form by finishing on 67. Over at St Andrews, Dubliner Peter Lawrie really enjoyed himself on his way to another splendid round of 67.

And on a still positive note from an Irish perspective, Paul McGinley, 71 at St Andrews, and Padraig Harrington and Des Smyth, both 72 at Carnoustie, are still reasonably well in touch.

Only Graeme McDowell, whose disappointing season continues after a 79 at St Andrews, is out of the hunt for one of the top prizes in this lavishly endowed 4.3m.

And even though they are well back in the pecking order right now, Clarke and his amateur partner, financier Dermot Desmond, are still well in touch in the team event at nine under, three off the pace, while the holders, Harrington and J.P. McManus, are quietly confident that they can make up the deficit, having settled for seven under yesterday.

Gary Murphy readily admits that his career has taken a remarkable swing for the better since mid-summer. Fourth place in the Scottish Open, 34th in the British Open and 11th in the Nissan Irish Open convinced the burly 30 year-old Kilkenny man that he can live with the best of them.

He is now 54th in the order of merit with a very healthy 331,148 in official earnings to his credit. He still misses the odd cut, but now that he has set the bar that little bit higher, it hurts an awful lot more.

He suffered no such frustration yesterday where he really set himself for a big week with a six-under par score at Carnoustie. Confined to quarters by a high temperature for much of the last few days, he had his first look at the course when he walked the 18 holes on Sunday before having a practice round on Tuesday.

“I was a bit scared walking around there and I looked in the burn where Jean Van de Velde threw away the Open and around the hole in general and still can’t understand what he was thinking,” said Murphy.

“However, once I was out there, I realised the course suited me because I like hitting long shots into greens. I laid up short of the bunkers to take them out of play.

“If you go in those bunkers, it’s a definite dropped shot so I took three wood off a lot of tees and left myself three or four irons for my second shots.

"At the 6th for instance, I hit two iron, two iron and four iron and made birdie. You need a lot of patience out there and of course I played really well which helps. I missed only three greens which is pretty good.”

He had taken some sound advice from Padraig Harrington, who shot 66 in the same round last year but who also assured him that 72 at Carnoustie in difficult conditions was no bad score.

Given the favour weather yesterday, he set himself a target of equalling Harrington’s 66 and managed to do that that. He started at the 10th and struck it rich with hat-trick of birdies from the short 13th (eight iron to a foot), long 14th (five iron to six feet from where he missed the eagle opportunity) and 15th (25 foot putt).

The 18th, where Van de Velde suffered so grievously four years ago, was a bit of a pushover. Murphy followed his nine iron approach with a 20 footer for a three.

He went five under and clear at the top of the leaderboard with a 10 footer at the 3rd, quickly gave away that gain with pushed drive at the next, before holing a thirty foot bunker shot at the 8th to finish in spectacular fashion.

Just as Murphy wouldn’t have been expected to lead the Irish challenge with the holder Padraig Harrington and in form Darren Clarke in the field, there was little to suggest before the tournament began that Peter Lawrie would finish a mere shot out of the lead.

He enjoyed the purple patch that currently has him 52nd on the money list with 335,917 back in May when he got into a play-off for the Spanish Open.

His star has shone a lot less brightly in the more recent times and he has missed the cut in each of his last four tournaments. Such a dispiriting fate should not befall Lawrie on this occasion. Yesterday’s blemishless 67 over the Old Course should be a huge boost to his confidence.