STEVE PERKIN looks at round two of the British Open and sees things you may have missed:
- Andrew “Beef” Johnston hit the opening tee shot on day two of the Open at 6.35am The Londoner was supporting a jumper bearing a logo for Arby’s, an American chain of sandwich shops specialising in, yes, meat fillings.
- What terrible weather. The early players had strong winds while the latter players had rain and, subsequently, greens that were flooding.
- Rory McIlroy started his second round by smashing his opening tee shot 372 yards (340 metres) with his three-wood. The Irishman was five over par after the first nine holes of his opening round and was hitting it everywhere, but it turned around within a couple of holes on the back nine. At one point during the first round, one betting agency blew him out to 100-1 to win. That was despite McIlroy saying on the Wednesday: “Good time to back me, I think. Twenty-to-one?”
- Englishman Paul Casey has 40 written on the heels of his golfing shoes, for reasons that only he could explain because he can’t see them (They actually recognise his age. He turned 40 on July 21). At one stage Casey looked like carding 40 on his front nine, but luckily it wasn’t so. He carded a 39.
- Matt Kucher has two kids. Their names are Cameron Cole and Carson. Does he realise Kucher starts with a K?
- It got so windy in the afternoon that many of the plastic numbers blew off the man-operated scoreboard. Imagine the confusion that would have caused.
- Who’s the most unlucky, the spectator who gets hit on the head, or Dustin Johnson, who hit the ball and watched it bounce off the chap’s head into deep rough, resulting on a bogey on the 9th?
- Any chance of the producers scrolling all the scores through under the action? Between the 5th and final holes, we saw and heard nothing of Jason Day’s round. As for Marc Leishman, is he playing?
- Why do players finish their round, remove their cap, wipe their hand across their sweaty forehead and hair, then use the same hand to shake the hand of their playing partners.
- Is Bubba Watson, a devout Christian, saying “Oh God!” or “Oh Gosh!” when he hits a bad shot? It sounds like the former.
- Coming out of add breaks there are packages featuring the Australians. It’s a pity, however, that they’re at least three holes behind the live action.
Here’s the Leader Board going into Day 3: Jordan Speith -6, Matt Kucher -4, Ian Poulter, Brooks Koepka -3, Richie Ramsay -2, Austin Connelly, Rory McIlroy, Gary Woodland, Richard Bland -1.
The Aussies: Adam Scott +3, Andrew Dodt +4, Aaron Baddeley, Jason Day, Marc Leishman and Scott Hend +5,
STEVE PERKIN had a long and distinguished career as a journalist, covering sport and general news and writing daily columns for The Age and the Herald Sun. He was also executive producer of The Footy Show on Channel 9 for three years.
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