Joaquin Niemann described his five-under 65 as “sexy” but there was nothing appealing about the six hour plus rounds at the Amgen Irish Open despite Shane Lowry, Tom McKibbin and Rory McIlroy all ending the day firmly in contention.
Lowry is sharing second place, two back of Niemann after he chiseled out a three-under 67 with McKibbin putting a mature 68 together while McIlroy recovered from a double bogey on the 13th to salvage a one-under 69.
But the main story of the day will be the six hour rounds with the Irish trio all surpassing that mark in the afternoon for eighteen holes while Liam Nolan must return on Friday morning to complete the final five holes of his opening effort from one-over.
“I can’t recall a round of golf that’s taken that long before. Like we’ve had some rounds that are maybe 5.5 or 5 3/4, but over 6 hours might be a first for me,” said McIlroy who added birdies on the 2nd, 4th and 15th to make a bright start to his title defence.
“But, yeah, that was tough, like it was tough conditions, it was very windy, and it was hard to get into any sort of rhythm out there, it was a lot of stop start, so I felt like, you know, shooting under par it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but at the end of the day I’m, I’m only 4 shots behind and, and not in a, not in a bad spot going into the next 3 days.”
McKibbin rode early momentum when he birdied three of his first four holes and he held things together with a streak of clutch par putts as he limited the mistakes to just 11 and 18 under the watchful eye of Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald.
The 23-year-old has two tour wins to his name but after a year on LIV where not much happened for him a T6 finish at the British Masters has him in form and ready to get to the next level which
“I feel like my game gets better every year since I’ve been out here, so, yeah, I think if I can sort of keep having these sort of top finishes and and sort of trying to get in contention more, yeah, absolutely.
“I feel like my game’s been very steady all year and the last month or so it seems to sort of clicked a little bit, so hopefully 3 more good days and I could be right up there.”
Elsewhere from an Irish point of view, Pádraig Harrington lamented late dropped shots with three bogeys in his last five holes for a one-over 71 but he feels he can shoot in the 60s tomorrow afternoon to get him back into contention for a first Irish Open title since 2007.
“Played well for 13 holes — no bogeys, a birdie — and I was thinking of something in the 60s,” he said. “It’s always disappointing when you bogey a few holes coming home. I felt the course was set up very playable. I thought there were plenty of opportunities.”
Séamus Power, Max Kennedy and Cormac Sharvin have work to do to make the cut from three-over while Thomas Higgins and Mark Power are a shot further back.
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