Rónán MacNamara in Royal Troon
Every club golfer watching the carnage unfold on Saturday would have been leaning forward in their armchairs and quoting the famous line from Apu in the Simpsons. ‘Ha! Now you know how it feels!’
Drivers into par-3s, drivers off the fairway, the ball scuttering along the ground. Royal Troon has bitten back at the modern game this week and brought out the authentic side of golf.
Yet remarkably people don’t seem to like the raw emotion, the swearing, the grimacing, the wild gesticulation. But for 99% of the year the same keyboard warriors will lament the unwatchable robots on the PGA Tour and think back to yesteryear when there were characters in the game.
It’s one thing to give out about swearing when conditions are flat calm and Tyrrell Hatton is chastising the fact he could only hit a wedge to 20-feet but conditions on Friday and Saturday afternoon a few F bombs are warranted after whiffing and whaffing in the long grass.
Bobby MacIntyre couldn’t miss last week now he was made to look like your local 36 handicapper, yet your money for your Sky Sports subscription is bloated by Andrew Coltart and Nick Dougherty apologising for ‘industrial language.’
Then the criticism of Shane Lowry was just bonkers. The American and British mafia on Twitter seem to take pleasure in seeing him struggle and get angry but as someone who walked nine holes yesterday and is still wet! Conditions were outrageously tough so he should make no apologies for getting thick.
Sometimes you can’t win.
However, Lowry was wrong yesterday. His comments about the course set up were wrong. The Offaly man got the favourable side of the draw in the opening two rounds and yesterday conditions were the exact same for all the leading groups so while he arrived in the media room perplexed as to how he shot 77, he certainly can’t blame it on the course.
A back nine of 40 was by no means a disgrace given the difficulty of the conditions and he wasn’t the only one to walk of the 18th battered and bruised.
The back nine proved to be one of the toughest stretches players have faced in many a year. Course set up had nothing to do with it. Mother Nature ruled the roost.
“I mean, the cumulative clubs that I hit into the green in terms of length of club, I don’t think I’ve ever not since I was a junior have I played a round of golf where I’ve hit 4-iron into 10, 2-iron short at 11, 8-iron into 12, 3-wood into 13, 4-iron into 14, 3-wood into 15. 16 is a par-5. 3-wood into 17, 2-iron into 18. Yeah,” said Justin Rose.
Dustin Johnson: “The back nine, that’s the hardest nine holes I think you could ever play in golf.”
Scottie Scheffler: “The back nine was probably the hardest nine holes I will ever play.”
Anyway, Jordan Spieth continues to be a menace. Couldn’t hit a barn door from 100 yards, missed the postage stamp by about 30 yards and chips in for a standard Spiethean two.
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