Rónán MacNamara in Royal Troon
Tom McKibbin is looking ahead to the weekend at the Open Championship with a quiet optimism after admitting he was too hard on himself after round one.
McKibbin made the cut at ease at Royal Troon meaning he will play all four rounds at his first two major championship appearances after a second round of 72 left him on three-over and in a share of 26th place.
The Holywood man has had the worst of the draw and had he not three-putted the 18th he would have shot an almost priceless level-par 71 but he was pleased with his performance and upon reflection has hung in very well.
“Yeah, it’s been pretty good. I would say sort of not make any huge numbers, especially because it’s difficult out there. It’s very windy, and it’s so hard to predict what the ball is going to do in the air and especially what it does on the ground. It’s very, very hard.
“Yesterday I was very disappointed. I just didn’t play very good. I sort of felt like I got round the course quite well and same today, but just haven’t really felt too comfortable, especially with my approach shots and stuff the last couple of days.
“But yeah, once yesterday when I seen the scores, I thought, geez, maybe I was a bit hard on myself. So it was a little bit better today.”
The 21-year-old’s goal for the weekend is to shoot at least one round under par and given that he is one shot outside the top-20 at the time of writing and four outside the top-10 anything under par on Saturday could shoot him up the leaderboard.
“I’d like to try to shoot an under-par round. That would be quite nice. Yeah, to shoot under-par at a major would be pretty cool. That would be my goal for the next couple of rounds. Try to get one in the red numbers.”
Teeing off a shot above the cut line, McKibbin started quickly with an opening birdie before following up a dropped shot on the third with a bounce back birdie on the par-5 4th.
Shots went at the par-3s 5 and 8 but McKibbin rallied with a birdie on 13 and despite a blemish on the last he has been pleased with how he has managed to limit the mistakes on his first two major stints.
“I’ve played quite nicely here and at Pinehurst. I think I just did a good job of not making too many big mistakes or big numbers, which I think is sort of key around these courses. It’s very easy to throw in a double or a triple very quickly.
“I think, when I’ve been out of position, I’ve been quite good at getting myself back out of it and back in play. I think that’s sort of been the key for those two weeks.”
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