Key events
Rory McIlroy meanwhile didn’t get the fast start he was talking about in his post-round interviews last night. Bogeys at 3 and 4, and the Masters champion looked a busted flush for this championship. But he’s responded in spectacular fashion: birdie at 5, then a chip-in from the side of 9 for eagle! He drove that green on the gettable par-four on both of his first two rounds, but it’s only when he missed it that he’s hit paydirt. That’s golf for you! He’s suddenly -2 and not out of this by any means. Not with the conditions as they are.
As for the actual golf, the big news this morning is the performance of Ryan Fox. The temperature has dropped a little – down to around the 20C mark and lower during the night – so there’s a bit more moisture in the air. That’s not made a jot of difference to the fairways, but it has made the greens a tad more receptive. So there’s every chance of some very low scoring today, as yesterday. And the 39-year-old Kiwi, whose best finish at the Open was a tie for 16th in 2019, is on a burner. Birdies at 2, 3, 5, 6 and 8 sent him out in 29 strokes – one off the championship record (28) set by Denis Durnian here in 1983 – and he’s since added more birdies at 10, 14 and 16. Just the one bogey at 13, so with two holes to play, he’s on for a 63 if he pars home. Fox, incidentally, is a past master at going on a tear-up at the Open: he’s already joint holder of the record for lowest back nine, 29 at Portrush in 2019, a score subsequently matched by Lee Westwood last year.
Good afternoon, patrons, and with perfect timing, here comes Mark Darbon, the chief executive of the R&A, to have a word with Sky Sports on that rules infraction. “We have a clear process … an unfortunate set of circumstances … from a rules perspective this was really clear cut … we communicated it to Bryson … we understand there’s some emotion around that … we can all empathise with it … but from a rules perspective this played out as we would hope it would.”
As for the man himself, DeChambeau is on the property, so if there was any residual concern of his not teeing it up, that can be put to bed. So we can all move on. That’ll never be mentioned again, then. Eh?
Preamble
Welcome to Moving Day at the 154th Open Championship! After 36 holes, the top of the leaderboard looked like this …
-8: Lucas Herbert-7: Bryson DeChambeau
-6: Cameron Young, Ryan Gerard
-5: Sam Burns, Bryson DeChambeau, Kim Si-woo
-4: Matt Wallace, Bud Cauley, Thomas Detry, Robert MacIntyre, Alex Fitzpatrick, Francesco Molinari, Scittie Scheffler, Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm
… while these (selected) big names missed the cut …
Cameron Smith, Aaron Rai, Henrik Stenson, Harris English, Tom Kim, Justin Rose, Maverick McNealy, Joaquin Niemann, Matt Fitzpatrick, Viktor Hovland, Jason Day, Li Haotong, Darren Clarke, Stewart Cink, Padraig Harrington, Gary Woodland, Brian Harman, David Duval and the 2017 champion Jordan Spieth
… and that left us with a tee sheet that looked like this (all times BST, GB&I unless stated). It’s on!
9.10 am: J McDonald, R Henley
9.20 am: Min Woo Lee, R Hisatsune
9.30 am: JL Ballester Barrio, K Higa
9.40 am: M Plunkett, N Kataoka
9.50 am: P Uihlein, B Koepka
10 am: A Potgeiter, K Bradley
10.10 am: A Noren, A Smalley
10.20 am: R Fowler, M Homa
10.30 am: R Fox, X Schauffele
10.45 am: K Reitan, M Penge
10.55 am: C Jarvis, K Kitayama
11.05 am: L Canter, S Theegala
11.15 am: M Brennan, E Chacarra
11.25 am: E Cole, MJ Daffue
11.35 am: K Kobori, N Taylor
11.45 am: J Thomas, J Matsuyama
11.55 am: B Griffin, H Du Plessis
12.10 pm: A Sullivan, P Cantlay
12.20 pm: J Bridgeman, R McIlroy
12.30 pm: J Svensson, S Norris
12.40 pm: J Parry, M Thorbjornsen
12.50 pm: J Smith, Im Sung-jae
1 pm: M Southgate, N Echavarria
1.10 pm: R Neergaard-Petersen, C Morikawa
1.20 pm: A Scott, C Gotterup
1.35 pm: P Reed, J Keefer
1.45 pm: C Conners, S Straka
1.55 pm: T Hatton, V Perez
2.05 pm: D Brown, C John
2.15 pm: L Aberg, S Lowry
2.25 pm: JJ Spaun, P Coody
2.35 pm: J Rahm, T Fleetwood
2.45 pm: S Scheffler, F Molinari
3 pm: A Fitzpatrick, R MacIntyre
3.10 pm: T Detry, B Cauley
3.20 pm: M Wallace, Si Woo Kim
3.30 pm: B DeChambeau, S Burns
3.40 pm: R Gerard, C Young
3.50 pm: J Suber, L Herbert
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