Seamus Power admitted that his opening round at the Amgen Irish Open was a game of two halves after struggling with the wind on the greens on the back nine having taken just ten putts on the front.
Power took to Royal County Down very well on his front nine, rolling in birdies from eleven and eight feet on the 11th and 12th holes and he completed the front nine with stress free pars.
A pulled drive on the par-5 1st cost the Waterford man a shot before he three-putted the 2nd from 25-feet and as the wind got up on the course heading into the difficult stretch, it got knocked out of Power’s sails as dropped shots on the 4th, 5th and 9th saw him home in 40 and a disappointing round of three-over 74.
“Yeah, that was a strange one. I didn’t do a ton wrong. Struggled on the more exposed greens on the front for sure, two, three putts from no distance and a bad tee shot off the first,” said Power who missed the K Club edition last year due to a hip injury.
“Besides that, it’s tricky out there. The front nine is very tricky. Disappointing with the finish.
“A lot of the greens on the back are much more sheltered than I kind of realised until today. Obviously the Pro-Am yesterday, I only played the front and they were all tough going.
“The back is actually much easier to putt on, at least I thought. You’ve got 18 sheltered by the grandstand and then some of the gorse bushes and stuff like that. I struggled on the front. I did hit some good putts, but you get a little gust in the air, and there’s not much you can do.”
At the time of writing, Power is in a share of 112th place but this is already a very bunched leaderboard. In ordinary conditions on the PGA Tour, the 37-year-old would be facing a seriously uphill battle to make the cut, but at Royal County Down he is just five shots off a seven-way tie for the lead that includes 2015 champion Soren Kjeldsen.
Power knows it’s a time for patience not agitation.
“It’s just in general, it doesn’t give you much of a break. There’s a lot of good holes. You know, the first is a bit of — 18 and 1 was kind of the turn, I felt really good. I thought had I hit a good second shot into 18. Had the wrong bounce and didn’t make birdie and then obviously hit a bad tee shot off the first and made a six. Kind of got me on the back foot. That’s kind of golf. I three-putted the second as well. So all of a sudden you’re back to even, and that’s a tough stretch coming up there, and you kind of need a couple shots.
“But did a lot of good things, so that’s kind of the frustrating part but just didn’t handle the greens on the front side which is poor.
“2-, 3-under is going to be a very good score. It’s tricky. Because even if you hit good shots, you need the right bounces, and even if you hit a good shot at 10, 12 feet, it can be tough on certain greens.
“There’s a couple good chances that you kind of need to take and I didn’t really take them, especially on the turn there. It puts you going the wrong way and obviously disappointing way to finish there. I had a couple of lovely shots and then made a mess of it.
“But that can happen. You get a gust of wind at the wrong time, and it happened to me there. But it happens sometimes in the wind.”
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