Martin Laird loves The Open but The Open hasn’t yet reciprocated.
Tied 12th after the first round, the Scot justifiably had high hopes of building on an encouraging start and challenging for the Claret Jug over the weekend.
Royal Birkdale had different ideas, however, with a nine over par 79 instead handing him an early flight back to Arizona.
It just hasn’t happened for Laird at an Open. Four missed cuts out of six is a poor return for a player of his calibre – a three-time PGA Tour winner.
And it’s hard to escape the conclusion that, as admirable as his attitude and endeavour are, Laird has a game ill-suited to links golf when the wind gets up.
“I wouldn’t want to play this every day, let’s say that,” he said.
“It’s fun coming back. I still love this week and links golf.
“But I’ll take playing golf in Arizona year round rather than links golf all year round.
“My fade wasn’t suited to this wind.
“It is hard to prepare. I’ve not played in conditions like that for a good few years. It’s hard to make yourself hit six-irons from 140 yards.”
Laird had no problem identifying where it all went wrong for him yesterday.
“I putted terribly,” he said. “It was obviously playing really difficult but, honestly, I didn’t actually play that bad tee to green and shot nine over.
“I missed two or three three-footers and didn’t make anything. You have to make 10-footers because you get a lot of them for par.
“The golf course is just a beast in that wind. I was hitting driver and two-iron in there when yesterday I was hitting lob-wedge.
“There’s no doubting the course plays harder with that wind direction. It’s disappointing to miss a cut when you’re playing well.”
The next major is the PGA in America and Laird will be in his comfort zone at Quail Hollow.
He said: “I live about 45 minutes from the course and I’ve played it a bunch of times in the Wells Fargo tournament on the PGA Tour.
“It’s going to be unbelievably warm and generally in the summer it isn’t that windy. It’s going to be a lot different to this week. It’s definitely a course that will suit my game of hitting it high and fading.”
Carnoustie is the next Open venue and maybe it will be the links Laird manages to thrive on.
“I’ve never played an Open there but I love Carnoustie,” he said.
“I’ve played the Dunhill a couple of times and casually. It’s a great course and hopefully I’ll do better there. The plan will be to come back for a two week stretch again and hopefully play the weekends.”
