Angus boys win Under-16s Tri-Area

Team Trophy at stormy Ballumbie

Angus Under-16 boys, led by team captain Grant Bowman, today won the Tri-Area Team Trophy at a very difficult and windy Ballumbie Castle Golf Club with a total of 140 points.
Lothians were runners-up with 136 points and Perth & Kinross third with 130 points.
The best five scratch Stableford points totals from six players in each team count, with the lowest player's total being discarded unless used as a tie-breaker.
It caps a great week for Grant Bowman who captured the Angus boys' stroke-play and match-play championships.

POINTS TOTALS

ANGUS 140pt
Grant Bowman 25
Sam Craigon 30
Connor Cook 22 (n/c)
Ross Munro 33
Calum McKay 28
Ian Douglas 24
Jevin Wilkie 30

LOTHIANS 136pt
Fraser Thain 29
Anthony Blaney 30
Lee Morgan 29
Adam Loch 29 (n/c)
Josh Rooney 26.
Adam Stirling 22.

PERTH & KINROSS 130pt
Sam Craigon 30
Greig Stewart 25
Bradley Neil 20 (n/c)
Allan Easton 23
Fraser Cramb 27
Stuart McMillan 25

Wednesday deadline for Scottish seniors' championship entries

The Scottish Seniors Golf Society is accepting entries up to next Wednesday (July 22) for its championship.
Newmachar Golf Club, near Aberdeen is the venue and the championship consists of qualifying rounds on August 24 and 25 with the match-play rounds on August 26-27-28.
See the SSGS website for more details and how to enter:

http://www.scottishseniorsgolf.com/

Munro completes Fraserburgh double,

Deeside's Henderson is U-14 winner

Fraserburgh’s Gordon Munro completed a double over his home course today (Friday) when he won the Paul Lawrie North-east Under-18 boys’ match-play championship.
He beat Jack Presly (Banchory) by 5 and 4 in the semi-final and then won by one hole in the fnal against Peterculter’s Andrew Carrell who had beaten Ryan Gordon (Alford) 3 and 2 in the other semi-final.
On Thursday, Munro won the Paul Lawrie North-east boys’ stroke-play title at the same venue.
Benjamin Henderson (Deeside) won the Paul Lawrie North-east Under-14 boys’ championship, also at Fraserburgh today, with a gross score of 77. He had two shots to spare from Grant Joss (Royal Aberdeen) and Ray Gordon (Alford) who both returned 79s.
Joss’s inward half gained him the runner-up prize.
Gordon’s net 67 off 12 won him the handicap award.
Henderson, who plays off 11, actually had the best net (66) as well as the best gross but players cannot win two prizes.

PAUL LAWRIE NORTH-EAST UNDER-18 BOYS MATCH-PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP – Semi-finals
Gordon Murno (Fraserburgh) bt Jack Presly (Banchory) 5 and 4.
Andrew Carrell (Peterculter) bt Ryan Gordon (Alford) 3 and 2.
Final
Munro bt Carrell 1 hole.

PAUL LAWRIE NORTH-EAST UNDER-14 STROKE-PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP
77 Benjamin Henderson (Deeside).
79 Grant Joss (Royal Aberdeen), Ray Gordon (Alford).
80 Ben Murray (Portlethen).
82 Liam Minty (Northern).
85 Jack Moir (Newburgh).
87 Colin Cheyne (Newburgh), Lewys Anderson (Deeside).
88 Lewis Mutch (Duff House Royal), Craig Lawrie (Deeside).
96 Liam Allan (Longside).
102 Danny Smith (Northern), Greig Carrell (Peterculter).
110 Michael Carrell (Peterculter).
111 Thomas Cameron (Fraserburgh).
Handicap winner – Ray Gordon (Alford) (12) 67.
Other net returns:
66 Benjamin Henderson (11).
71 Liam Minty (11).
74 Greig Carrell (28).
75 Thomas Cameron (36), Colin Cheynbe (Newburgh) (12)..
76 Lewys Anderson (Deeside) (11), Jack Moir (9)..
77 Craig Lawrie (Deeside) (11), Ben Murray (3).
80 Liam Allan (16).
83 Lewis Mutch (5).
88 Danny Smith (14), Michael Carrell (22).

David Orr digs in at top of Tartan Tour

money table with jt win at Prestonfield

New Scottish PGA champion David Orr (East Renfrewshire) dug in at the top of the Tartan Tour's money table with a joint success in the Prestonfield pro-am, Edinburgh today.
David and Stephen Gray (Hayston) both scored three-under-par 67s to win £984.67.
Robert Arnott (Bisopbriggs) was third on 68.
Orr's lead at the top of the money table has increased to more than £8,000. He has won £23,391.92 from 32 events this year.
Craig Lee comes next with £15,359.52 from 16 events.
You can read the top 10 money-earners after the scores from today's Prestonfield pro-am.
Par 70
67 David Orr (East Renfrewshire), Stephen Gray (Hayston) £984.67 each.
68 Robert Arnott (Bishopbriggs) £656.45.
69 Steven Taylor (Bothwell Castle), Alan Lockhart (Ladybank), Paul McKechnie (Braid Hills) £404.81 each.
70 Owen Leslie (Prestonfield), Greg McBain (Royal Dornoch), Craig Lee (unatt) £244.41 each.
71 Samuel Cairns (Colville Park) £185.78.
73 Edward Thomson (Senit Associates), Mark King (Kingsfield Golf Centre) £158.53 each.
74 Craig Ronald (Carluke), Andrew Oldcorn (Kings Acre), Graham Mackay (Prestonfield) £131.29 each.
75 Christopher Russell (RAW Golf Course Design), Graam Fox (East Kilbride), Chris Kelly (Cawder), Colin Gillies (Perry Golf) £93.05 each.
76 Jacky Montgomery (Dunbar), David Gemmell (Aberdour), Jason McCreadie (Buchanan Castle), Jonathan Lomas (unatt) £52.70 each.
77 Gavin Cook (Prestonfield), Craig Matheson (Falkirk Tryst) £48.39 each.
78 Neil Colquhoun (Merchants of Edinburgh) £48.39.
79 Lindsay Mann (Carnoustie) £48.39.
80 Tom Buchanan (Duddingston) £48.39.
84 Russell McIntyre (Prestonfield) £48.39.
TEAM EVENT
58 (-12) Team led by Christopher Russell.
59 (-11) GTeam led by Robert Arnott

TARTAN TOUR TOP 10 MONEY-WINNERS THIS SEASON
(number of events played in brackets).
1 David Orr £23,391.92 (32).
2 Craig Lee (£15,359.52 (16).
3 Colin Gillies £11,652.05 (29).
4 Stephen Gray £11,445.67 (28).
5 Mark King £10,680.59 (25).
6 R Arnott £8,973.76 (26).
7 P McKechnie £7,669.07 (32).
8 Alan Lockhart £7,228.06 (29)
9 Chris Kelly £6649.57 (21)
10 Craig Matheson £6,531.47 (23).

OPEN SCOREBOARD

QUALIFIERS
Par 140 (2x70).
Qualifying mark: 144 (+4) or better
135 S Marino 67 69, T Watson 65 70.
136 M Calcavecchia 67 69.
137 R Fisher 69 68, R Goosen 67 70, M A Jimenez 64 73, K Kuboya 65 72, V J Singh 67 70.
138 J B Holmes 68 70, J Kingston 67 71, L Westwood 68 70, S Cink 66 72, M Goggin 66 72.
139 M Kaymer 69 70, A Cabrera 69 70, J Furyk 67 72, J Overton 70 69, S Garcia 70 69, C Villegas 66 73, B Weekley 67 72, B Grace 67 72.
140 S Hanson 68 72, J Daly 68 72, R Sterne 67 73, A Wall 68 72, N Dougherty 70 7, J Leonard 70 70, C Wood 70 70.
141 E Els 69 72, J Rose 70 71, Z Johnson 70 71, F Molinari 71 70, F Andersson Hed 71 70, H Stensen 71 70, M Manassero (am) 71 70, P Hanson 70 71, G McDowell 68 73, G Fernandez-Castano 69 72, D Howell 78 73, T Jaidee 69 72.
142 A Romero 68 74, D Love 69 73, P McGinley 71 71, T Lehman 68 74, F Jacobson 70 72, R S Johnson 70 72, K Sutherland 69 73, D Drysdale 69 73, P Broadhurst 70 72, O Wilson 72 70, D Clarke 71 71, B Mayfair 69 73.
143 D Gaunt 76 67, R McIlroy 69 74, R Imada 74 69, P Harrington 69 74, S Appleby 71 72, T Aiken 71 72, N Watney 71 72, K Perry 71 72, S Stricker 66 77, S O'Hair 68 75, L Donald 71 72, B Molder 70 73..
144 S Kjeldsen 68 76, P Casey 68 76, P Lawrie 71 73, P Goydos 72 72, T Levet 71 73, G Storm 72 72, M O'Meara 67 77, R Allenby 70 74, J Edfors 71 73.

+A total of 73 players qualified to play in the last two rounds.

MISSED THE CUT
145 M Weir 67 78, B Curtis 65 80, C Montgomerie 71 74, T Hamilton 75 70, C Hoffman 71 74, P Hedblom 71 74, J Geary 70 75, A Scott 74 74, A Hansen 68 77, T Woods 71 74, D J Trahan 68 77.
146 A Kim 73 73, E Saltman 70 76, J Senden 66 80, R Ishikawa 68 78, A Kim 73 73, T Clark 71 75, L Oosthuizen 70 76, K J Choi 74 72, P Baker 74 72, M Kuchar 70 76, M Laird 74 72, B Crane 71 75.
147 R Davies 73 74, D Toms 72 75, D Duval 71 76, R Sabbatini 74 73, J O'Driscoll 76 71, C Schwartzel 71 76, R Pampling 74 73, R Green 71 76, B Baird 72 75, Y Ikeda 76 71, M Brown 71 76
148 S Lyle 75 73, G Orr 73 75, B Watson 73 75, A Quiros 71 77, C Howell, R Jacquelin 75 73, D Higgins 73 75, G Bhullar 71 77, P Marksaeng 73 75, M Brier 71 77, R Rock 73 75.
149 L Glover 72 77, B Gay 73 76, S Ames 72 77, S Gross (am) 74 75, D Smail 70 79, R Ramsay 77 72, R Echenique 72 77, W-C Liang 77 72, B Snedeker 72 77.
150 C Campbell 73 77, T Kondo 71 79, Timothy Wood 73 77, T Pilkadaris 68 82, S Surry 69 81, K Duke 71 79.
151 Sir N Faldo 78 73, T Stewart 74 77, J Kavanagh 74 77, H Mahan 72 79, C Pettersson 74 77, R Finch 73 78, M Cayeux 75 76.
152 G Norman 77 75.
153 G Ogilvy 75 78, B Vaughan 78 75.
154 I Poulter 75 79, K Oda 76 78, D Johnson 78 76.
155 D Wardrop 75 80.
156 M Wright 77 79.
157 O Fisher 78 78.
160 P Larrazabal 79 81.
161 P Ellebye 77 84.
162 J Ahlers 83 79.

Steve Marino and Tom Watson the unlikely leaders on -5

Tiger Woods (71-74) fails to beat the

cut as bad weather hits Turnberry

Oh, the shame of it! Red-hot favourite Tiger Woods will be absent from the last two rounds of the Open at Turnberry.

Not injured, just not good enough to be among those who have low enough 36-hole totals, i.e. four-over-par 144 or better to qualify for the sharp end of the championship.

Woods lost a ball with yet another wild tee shot, took two double bogeys and was seven over par with five holes left, needing a Houdini-type escape just to return to the first tee on Saturday morning. Strangely subdued, strangely uninspired, Tiger lost his teeth while Turnberry found hers.

At seven over par with three holes to play he looked dead and buried, before birdies at the 16th and 17th holes suddenly suggested that at last Tiger had picked up the scent of the championship. But one more birdie at the final hole was a necessity if he was to be sure of his place in the field after the halfway cut-off.

His second shot to the final hole ran just through the back right edge of the green and his make-or-break pitch pulled up three agonising feet short of the hole.
Woods had previously missed the cut in only one major championship as a professional, the 2006 U.S. Open following the death of his father. He didn't play last year at Royal Birkdale while recovering from knee surgery, but three wins since his return to the US PGA Tour led oddsmakers to make him a 2-1 favorite.
Instead, the leaderboard was topped by little-known American Steve Marino and a very well known compatriot, albeit 60 years old on his next birthday, "Old Tom" Watson.
Marino looked right at home in his first Open appearance, shooting a two-under 68 in windy conditions that made Turnberry the test it was meant to be.

Forty-nine-year-old Mark Calcavecchia - another light of other days you might say - with his wife on the bag, was one shot back after a 67-69 start to the tournament. But most amazing of all: 59-year-old Tom Watson rebounded from a dismal start, rolling in a 75-foot birdie putt, and was tied with Calcavecchia with only the 18th left to play.
``I'm real happy with the way things have gone,'' said Calcavecchia, who won his lone major title 20 years ago, up the road at Royal Troon. ``I'm getting some good bounces, and I'm getting lucky on occasion, which always helps.''
Marino, no better than a journeyman with a very small 'j' on the US Tour, claimed the lead all to himself at 5-under 135, safely in the clubhouse while most everyone else surrendered ground to the breezes whipping off the Firth of Clyde.
All eyes were on Woods, who opened with a disappointing 71 in much better conditions on Thursday. He trudged through the front nine, obviously not enjoying the experience one little bit - but as he said recently he does not play golf for un - showing no signs of making a move, then began to fall apart after the turn.
Woods' tee shot at No. 10 sailed wildly into the tall grass far right of the fairway - a familiar problem both days - and it was clear he was in trouble when he struck a provisional tee shot. Even with dozens of fans helping him look, Woods could only find someone else's ball, took a penalty for a lost ball and wound up with a double-bogey 6.
Then, from the first cut of rough only 159 yards away, Woods shockingly wound up with another double-bogey 6. A ragged approach missed the green, a sloppy chip failed to stay on, and a missed putt from about 5 feet sent him tumbling into an even deeper hole.
Watson followed a bogey-free 65 with bogeys on five of the first seven holes - including four in a row. Just when it seemed he was fading away, the five-time Open champion bounced back with two birdies around the turn. His best shot of all was at No. 16, the 75-footer that dropped right in the middle of the cup.
Watson threw up his arms and pumped his fists while the gallery roared. Can you blame him?
Marino, who struggled for years to earn his PGA Tour card, got in as an alternate though he had to improvise to make it happen.
``I didn't have a passport,'' he said. ``I was playing in the John Deere Classic last week and I had to fly my dad down from Virginia to (my home in) Florida so he could get my passport and FedEx it to me. ... I wasn't even expecting to play in the Open.''
When Shingo Katayama withdrew from the Open last weekend because of an injury, Marino received the spot. The rest as they say, is history. A little bit like the way the cookie crumbled for John Daly a few years back.

First-round leader Miguel Angel Jimenez struggled to a 73 but wasn't too upset about it. The ponytailed, cigar-smoking Spaniard got off to a grisly start - a 4-over 39 on the front - but held it together and joined the pack at 137.
``I'm pleased the way I finished, not very pleased with the way I started,'' Jimenez said. ``You need to put it on the fairways, and I started missing the fairways for a little bit.''
Japan's Kenichi Kuboya had the lead for a while, but lost it - along with his ball - when an errant tee shot at No. 13 led to double bogey.

A 72 kept him in contention among that crowded group at 137, which also included England's Ross Fisher (68) and South Africa's Retief Goosen (70).
John Daly, who won at St. Andrews in 1995, made it to an Open weekend for the first time in four years when a 72 left him at 140.
``It was brutal out there,'' moaned Daly, who might have said the same about his psychedelic green trousers. ``The pin placements were extremely tough. The way the wind was blowing, it was impossible to get at them.
``The course - whether it is calm or blowing - is always dangerous. You are always 5 feet or 5 inches from a disaster.''
Just ask Ben Curtis, like Steve Marino one of the US Tour's lesser mortals until he won the 2003 Open, who missed the cut after an opening 65 had him challenging for the lead. Curtis soared to an 80 in the second round for 145 - the same as Tiger Woods, if that softens the pain.
``I just hit it bad,'' he said. ``I got lucky yesterday with the weather. That helped me keep it in play. Today was different.''
And there's not a dissenting voice to that opinion.

That's more like it! Wind blowing for Open Day 2

Steve who? Marino's 68 could be

passport to fleeting fame

What is it about our Open that brings the best out of lesser lights from the US PGA Tour?
Steve Marino, 29 years old but hardly a household name in American golf, shot a two-under-par 68 in much more difficult, windy conditions at Turnberry for the second round.
Marino only got in the field when others dropped out and he had to get his father to fly from Virginia to Florida to pick up his son's passport and FedEx it to him as he played in last weekend's John Deere Classic.
Marino had never played a genuine links course until he encountered Turnberry but he felt that it was his kind of golf, keeping the ball under the wind and using a bit of imagination in club selection and production of the shots.
"I would consider myself a feel player," he said. "I kind of see shots before I hit them. I don't really hit the same shot every time. Over here, you kind of have to be that way a little bit and hit some low shots and some high shots and bounce them in there and use the slopes. I've really been enjoying the golf over here, for sure."
That Day 2 was a whole lot different from Day 1 can be judged by the difference in scores returned by Ben Curtis, another faceless American until he won the 2003 Open championship. He followed up an almost-leading 65 with a disastrous 80 for five-over-par 145. Will he qualify for the last two rounds? Difficult to judge with the way the weather is affecting some players such as Curtis.
Marino admitted that he had had a stroke of luck, in fact two of them! He holed out a sand wedge from 116 yards at the third , and did the same with a bunker shot at the sixth for another birdie. There also was a 30-footer for birdie at No. 5, not to mention a 20-footer for eagle at the 17th.
"It was probably one of the best scoring rounds I've ever had," Marino said. "There were points in the round where I felt I was one-putting every hole. I really don't think I could have shot one stroke less today, to be honest with you."
"We were hitting 3-woods into the wind from 210 yards," moaned left-hander Mike Weir, who struggled to a 78 after shooting 67 the previous day.
But it looked as though the afternoon starters -- Watson and Tiger Woods among them -- might be lucky with the weather changing in their favour.
be a nice break for those guys."
Overnight leader Miguel Angel Jimenez was four over par through 16 holes after he started to spray his shots into the long grass. Cue cigar-smoking advert!
But there are always some guys who can manufacture a score when its tough going.
Australian Daniel Gaunt had the best score among the early finishers - a 67, which was nine strokes better than his opening 76. England's Ross Fisher matched Marino with a 68.
"It suited me to have tough conditions," said Gaunt, a 30-year-old journeyman ranked 1,212th in the world but in position to make the cut with a 143. "I had nothing to lose after being 6 over yesterday. I'm delighted with that round."

GUNN ON TARGET IN ARIZONA SECOND ROUND

Dornoch exile Jimmy Gunn put together a brilliant, bogey-free round of seven-under-par 65 to improve to joint 13th place with one round to go in the Gateway Tour's Desert Summer Series No 6 event at Raven Golf Club at Verrado, Arizona.
Gunn had opened with a par 72, which put him well down the field on this highly competitive satellite tour, but he plundered seven birdies in his second round - at the first, second, fourth, fifth, 10th, 15th and 17th in halves of 32 and 33.
Just in case you are thinking it must have been a pitch-and-putt course, at 7,258yd it is almost exactly the same yardage as the Open championship players are competing over at Turnberry.
Mind you, the weather in Arizona is a lot better!
Gunn has four shots to make up on American l;eader Ryan Hogue whose 11-under-par tally of 133 has been made up of a 68 and a 65.

ends

Tartan Tour Scoreboard
SRIXON PATRONS' PRO-AM
Buchanan Castle Golf Club
Played Thursday, July 16

FINAL TOTALS
Par 70
62 David Orr (East Renfrewshire). £250.
63 Stephen Gray (Hayston). £175.
64 Jason McCreadie (Buchanan Castle). £125.
65 Steven Taylor (Bothwell Castle), Colin Gillies (Perry Golf).
66 Robert Arnott (Bishopbriggs).
67 Paul McKechnie (Braid Hills), Lindsay Mann (Carnoustie).
68 Graham Fox (East Kilbride), Jonathan Holmes (Buchanan Castle), John Ruth (Sandyhills).
70 Alan Lockhart (Ladybank), Mark King (Kingsfield).
74 Keith Baxter (Buchanan Castle).
76 James Mooney (Kingscliff).

Harrington believes he is turning the

corner - or is it just so much Blarney?

FROM THE AOL GOLF NEWS SERVICE
Padraig Harrington believes his game is turning a corner in time to give him a chance of lifting his third successive Open championship.
The defending champion shot a one-under-par 69 in the first round at Turnberry after three days on the range trying to iron out problems in his swing which had seen him miss his last five cuts in main tour events in Europe and America. Harrington has been working with coach Bob Torrance and while he admits there was still an air of apprehension about his round, he insists the belief is returning.
He said: "I would have taken that score before I went out. Any time you are shooting in the sixties in a major tournament you can't be too displeased."
He added: "I hit the ball well but played with a certain amount of trepidation. I wasn't the most confident after the last couple of weeks.
More News======================
Jimenez shines as Watson takes plaudits
Jimenez message to Seve
Lyle labels Monty a 'drama queen'
Tiger shows his human side
==============================
"I didn't really have the confidence to chase the pins and was trying to hole from 25 to 30 feet for most of the day. I wasn't shooting the lights out but it gives me hope for the next three days.
"I spoke with Bob and the plan was to try to build it every day in terms of my belief. I certainly struck the ball really solidly. If I trust it a bit more it's looking good."
Harrington birdied the 474-yard par-four fifth and the 559-yard par-five 17th with his only bogey coming at the 16th.
He was most pleased with the way he scrambled to save par.
"I made a really good up-and-down on the second and holed a good putt on the third and that's what has been missing from my game. I haven't exactly been saving myself," he added.
"I had a few 20-footers in the last few holes and it would have been better if I could have knocked one of those in, but one shot isn't going to make any difference when it comes to Sunday."

US PGA Tour Scoreboard
US BANK CHAMPIONSHIP
Brown Deer Park GC, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
FIRST ROUND SCORES
Par 70
64 Jeff Klauk, Greg Chalmers (Aus)
66 Tag Ridings, Skip Kendall, Jason Gore, Frank Lickliter II
67 Kirk Triplett, Chris Riley, Jeff Quinney, Joe Ogilvie, Mark Hensby (Aus), Stephen Leaney (Aus), Matthew Borchert, Joe Durant, Bo Van Pelt, Tommy Gainey
68 Michael Letzig, Colt Knost, Cliff Kresge, Mark Wilson, Nathan Green (Aus), Jeff Maggert, Brett Quigley, Tim Petrovic, Jay Williamson, Johnson Wagner, Troy Matteson, Deane Pappas (Rsa)
69 Matt Bettencourt, Nick O'Hern (Aus), Troy Kelly, Marc Turnesa, Jerry Kelly, Omar Uresti, Steve Flesch, Jeff Sluman, Steve Elkington (Aus), Kevin Na, George McNeill, Kevin Stadler, Leif Olson, Loren Roberts, Scott Sterling, Carlos Franco (Par)
70 Jonathan Kaye, Aron Price (Aus), Scott Hoch, Harrison Frazar, John Mallinger, Shaun Micheel, David Peoples, Tyler Aldridge, Nicholas Thompson, Brendon De Jonge, Kris Blanks, Tim Herron, Steve Lowery, Lee Janzen, Darron Stiles, Tom Pernice Jnr., Parker McLachlin, Brad Faxon, Brian Vranesh, Guy Boros
71 Spencer Levin, Marco Dawson, J.P. Hayes, Heath Slocum, Ronnie Black, Matthew Jones (Aus), Marc Leishman (Aus), James Oh, Matt Weibring, Chris Stroud, Kyle Stanley, Jason Dufner, Casey Wittenberg, Mark Brooks, Fred Funk, Kevin Streelman, John Rollins, Aaron Watkins, Glen Day
72 Kent Jones, J.T Kohut, Mike Van sickle, Mathias Gronberg (Swe), Garrett Willis, Peter Lonard (Aus), Billy Andrade, Cameron Beckman, Dicky Pride, Scott Gutschewski, Rick Price
73 Patrick Sheehan, Brian Davis (Eng), Chris DiMarco, David Berganio Jnr., Ryan Helminen, Bob Tway, Bill Haas, Dean Wilson, Robin Freeman, Jimmy Walker, David Mathis, Corey Pavin, Steve Allan (Aus), Jesper Parnevik (Swe)
74 Robert Gamez, Michael Bradley, Brian Brodell, Paul Stankowski, Neal Lancaster, Rich Beem, Rocco Mediate
75 Charles Warren, Bill Lunde, Brad Peck, Tim Cantwell Jr, Wil Collins, Scott Piercy, Jay Delsing, Arjun Atwal (Ind), Robert Damron, Brendon Todd, Bob Heintz
76 Peter Tomasulo, David Gossett, Eric Axley
78 Gary Woodland
80 Derek Fathauer
WD: Brian Bateman

EVEN LAUREL & HARDY SHOWED UP

Woods-Ishikawa-Westwood: A three-ring

circus the R&A could have avoided

FROM THE GOLFWEEK.COM WEBSITE
By JIM McCABE
Went to watch a three-ball game in the opening round of the 138th Open Championships. What broke out was a three-ring circus.
No surprise that Tiger Woods was involved; his presence always attracts a huge following. But for R&A officials to throw Ryo Ishikawa into the pairing could be called risky or foolhardy or anything in between.
Lee Westwood, the third member of Game 15, probably had a term in mind, but being the proper Englishman, he chose not to make a big deal of things. He did not deny, however, that there were moments when he felt as if he were one of 37 clowns jammed into a Volkswagen for the carnival crowd.
“I expected it to be busy out there and there to be a fair bit of activity,” Westwood said. “It gave me a nice chance to practice my Japanese.”
Before we get to the side shows that were such a big part of the Woods, Westwood and Ryo Ishikawa pairing, let us capsulize the golf. It was choppy (Woods hit just eight fairways and 12 greens to shoot 1-over 71), contrasting (Westwood started with three straight birdies but double-bogeyed the 16th to shoot 68), and compelling (Ishikawa showed that he’s a pretty poised 17-year-old by coming home in 33 to shoot 68).
And while nothing any of them did interrupted the real golf story of the day – 59-year-old Tom Watson’s 65 – everything they did was watched by seemingly every set of eyes in Scotland.
Indeed, claustrophobia was a very real concern, most prominently at the par-5 17th.
With Woods having followed a wide-right drive with a wider-right 3-wood, he was high atop a mound, knee-high in rough and up to his eyeballs in photographers, golf writers and radio reporters.
So congested was it up in the narrow path that R&A officials asked for a routing mulligan and granted permission for media members to come down into the fairway.
Unfortunately, they didn’t quite have answers for the snafus that added levity to the competitive mood at various points earlier.
At the 489yd, par-4 third, for instance. Woods’ tee shot had come to rest under a TV tower and he was entitled to a free drop. First, officials had to push back the crowd. Mission accomplished. Then they had to push back a few dozen Japanese photographers. Mission not accomplished, at least not at first.OK, so maybe there was a language barrier, but more likely this was the problem:
They were there to focus on Ishikawa, the teenage phenom, and his every move is their only concern. So as Woods tried to determine his drop at the third and as Westwood attempted to settle over a par-saving putt at the par-4 10th, they had to wait for the photographers to get settled.
“I can say a couple of times I stood off,” Westwood said, and for sure there were two moments when he shot an icy stare at the photographers. “But I didn’t play a shot where I wasn’t concentrating and wasn’t ready to play that shot.”
It had been a head-scratcher when R&A officials announced the Woods-Ishikawa pairing. (Westwood was no surprise. After all, it’s the fourth time he’s been grouped with Woods in the opening two rounds of a major. Must be a “w” thing).
Woods easily commands the huge majority of camera and reporting interest no matter where he plays. Ishikawa? If he were paired with Happy Gilmore and Judge Smails, the Japanese photographers would be out there three and four dozen strong.
So mixing the two media-magnets together, especially on a links golf course where so many of the pathways are narrow and demand slow, cautious travel . . . well, let’s just say that the R&A lads have made wiser decisions. (Of course, it must have thrilled the Japanese TV entity, but surely that’s a coincidence, no?).
Anyway, back to the golf – the par-5 seventh, to be exact, because that might have been the comical highlight of the day. Shoved down below a big hill so as to get out of the golfers’ line of sight, media members chuckled when an unmanned golf cart became the real issue.
“Whose cart is it?” yelled a security official.No one answered, and 80 yards away, the players waited. Trying to move it himself, a security official realized the engine was locked. “What’s the code?” he shouted.
The first code was wrong, a second one failed, too, until the third seemed to work. Abbott and Costello come to the Open Championship, or was it the Three Stooges? We know it wasn’t Laurel and Hardy, because they showed up minutes later.
Oblivious to the fact that golf was being played, the two men meandered down the right side of the fairway, backs turned.
“Hey, guys,” yelled Woods. With headphones on, the men didn’t hear, so Woods had to wait till the way was clear.What never did arrive was Woods’ game – he got to 1 under three times, but never went deeper.
Bogeys at 15 and 16 pushed him seven off the lead, his largest first-round deficit in his 12 British Opens as a pro.
Miserable day at the office, er, circus.But at least he had plenty of company.