Links golf can still stymie golf’s sorcerists
The problem was that if the script had already been written, no-one told Rory because over a cold and unrelenting Royal County Down test, the world’s best player was humbled — not by ambition but by indecision and a poorly performing putter.
Links golf courses can do that to you, but it was a shame too that despite Rory’s best laid plans, the weather took centre stage just as the tournament was about to kick-off.
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The elements compounded the test on an course that was already tough enough with cold gusting squally showers and a wind blowing from an unfamiliar direction to the practice rounds, the northwest.
That said, the course was fair, and as simple as it sounds, it required a conservative, uncomplicated course strategy and solid short game that took advantage of the opportunities, while minimising the damage on the other side.
The world’s best players would have been familiar with these type of tests in Major championships but championship links golf has this uncanny ability to dismantle your game in a way that parkland golf courses simply cannot.
Yesterday McIlroy began his round on the 10th hole with a solid iron shot to the green followed by a decidedly poor putt which came nowhere near threatening the hole.
By the time he three-putted his third hole the 12th, you feared that he might struggle over the round. While comfortable and accurate off the teeing ground, he never really seemed to grasp or execute with authority the right approach shots to the greens. That ultimately left him in the type of putting range which exposed any doubts he may have had with his short game. And once he began chasing birdies, his performance seemed to go from bad to worse.
It was the type of golf we witnessed from Rory, oddly enough, at the Walker Cup here in 2007 and early on in his professional career — but certainly not the golf of the world’s best player and major champion we know him to be.
Making the cut alone would be a remarkable feat for McIlroy at this stage but I expect him to rally today, if only to exorcise his demons and entertain his adorning supporters.
The course was not impossible, as his playing partner Ricky Fowler proved. Buoyed by a fast start he too developed a crisis in confidence mid round before manfully getting back on the saddle to produce an impressive level par round of 71 while others were imploding.
In such circumstances it is often hard to keep your composure but once again The Players’ champion — only recently rated as being “over-hyped” by his peers — proved his mettle. His ambition to prove himself outside America has won me over as a fan.
While he may love playing links golf, yesterday taught him the value of good course management and the need to respect a cold windy environment where a strong gust of wind can have such a profound effect on the golf ball’s performance.
He would not have witnessed anything like this in the US or even in his Open Championship appearances, played in the warmer weather of July.
On days like yesterday there are times when you simply cannot compete against the wind and Fowler managed his game brilliantly, allowing the ball to be fed by the wind onto the safe front half of the greens before relying on his short game to keep his card mannerly.
His performance not only demonstrated his maturity but also his steely resolve and he will be the better for it now over the coming days.
Unfortunately for the tournament he may no longer have to worry about the likes of McIlroy and Kaymer in the field but he will know that there are other experienced contenders — many of them Irish in the field who will challenge him all the way. As if that wasn’t enough, Fowler now knows that perhaps his greatest challenge over the coming days may be his mind and how it copes with the ever-changing and ever-challenging environment that is links golf.
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