Trio have work to do

Winning any golf tournament is primarily about attitude and momentum given you are a player of McIlroy, Clarke or McGinley’s calibre.

The three have notched numerous victories but all would dearly love to add their first Irish Open title to that tally. So the priority yesterday for all of them was to start fast, to quickly eliminate any possibilities of missing the cut and to build a score good enough to compete for the title over the weekend.

The weather early in the morning suggested this was indeed possible and, encouragingly, they all got good starts, all at least a couple under for their rounds over the opening holes. The cut it seemed was no longer an issue and more importantly they all had built up a head of steam.