A Scott and a Scot flourished in the balmy calm of Royal Lytham and St Annes as the 141st Open which was supposed to be a grind turned into a mad dash.
Australia’s Adam Scott leads after a six-under 64, Scotland’s in-form Paul Lawrie shares second a stroke back, and a truly quality leaderboard is packed to the gunnels with major champions and those of that calibre.
Lack of any wind after it had blown so strongly on Wednesday night and soft greens made for target practice.
Off-line there were horrors to be found and many did, but on the short stuff it was, as the leader said later, ”a walk in the park”.
Some big names faltered Phil Mickelson got in all sorts of comical scrapes in the afternoon but the top 10 looks like a who’s who of modern major championship golf with seven champions there.
Lawrie, after many feared he might be edging off this recent outstanding run of form, showed an admirable cool through an edgy start and a mid-round slump.
”I’m a cool dude,” he claimed unconvincingly and his teenage sons back home in Aberdeen certainly dispute it but after a momentary blip at the Scottish Open last week Lawrie got back in his career-best groove to equal his best round in the championship, dating from Royal St George’s in 1993.
It was anything but straightforward, however. With chip-ins at the third and fifth Lawrie needed only three putts in the first five holes to stand at three-under for the championship, after a wash of early blue figures had indicated it wasn’t going to be as easy as the drooped, motionless flags suggested it would be.
In fact, these were good scoring conditions, as the better bulk of the field quickly began to prove. Lawrie’s success was to regain his momentum mid-round and finish strongly, birdies at 14, 15 and the last taking him in a shot behind Scott.
He said: ”It was the strangest start of my career, I didn’t really hit any good shots and I was three-under, but after that I played some nice shots.”
The nicest of them might be the 169-yard seven-iron to a couple of feet at the last, as Scott was bogeying the home hole behind him to reduce the gap to just one.See more Open coverage in today’s Courier”I took the pin on,” he said.” It would have been easy to played safe there and taken a par but I was swinging it lovely and through we’d try to draw one in there.”
He had one bogey at the eighth and holed a 15-footer down the hill for par at the sixth.
”It’s a great start and it was nice to hear my name quite a lot today, which down in England is a bit surprising, but everyone is here to support all the British players,” he added.
”I’ve built up confidence over the last couple of years so what happened at the Scottish can be just a blip.”
It also gives Lawrie a further boost in his Ryder Cup campaign, and he had an endorsement from the rival captain, playing partner Davis Love III.
”When I think of him I think of perseverance and how he just keeps grinding away at it. We’ll see him again I’m sure in Chicago,” he said.
Scott, since he went to the long putter a couple of years ago, has alleviated the biggest weakness, but admits he’s still some mental chips short of what it takes to win.
”I’ve been playing well at the majors but shooting myself in the foot in the first round and making too much work to get back in,” he explained, adding that redoubtable caddie Steve Williams, Tiger Woods’ long-time looper, had given him the kick he needed.
”He wanted me to go to that first tee today like it was the 72nd hole. That was a good little trigger, because I can cruise out there sometimes,” he said.
With the conditions taking a lot of the terror out of the back nine, Scott didn’t start his charge until the turn, five birdies through 16 setting up the chance of at least equalling the major championship record of 63 and perhaps even beating it.
”I know there’s never been a 62 and I saw a leaderboard at 17, and guessed then I wasn’t going to the guy,” he said.
Sure enough he pulled a two-iron into the rough off the tee at the last and took five for his 64, still the low round in an Open at Lytham.
Former Masters champion Zach Johnson also reached six-under but settled for a 65 to share second with Lawrie and Belgium’s up-and-coming Niclas Colsaerts, like the Scot a Ryder Cup hopeful. His 65 was clearly the best of the afternoon starters.
In their wake are Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Bubba Watson, Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy.
There’s a while to go yet, but the odds on a tenth successive first-time major winner are lengthening.
Photo by Peter Byrne/PA Wire