Willett clubhouse leader at rain-hit Open
Danny Willett, pictured by courtesy of Getty Images(c), admitted it was "pretty
cool" to be the clubhouse leader of
leading The Open Championship after carding a round of 69 to
establish a two-shot lead midway through the weather-affected second
round at St Andrews.
Torrential early rain meant the first group had not completed the opening hole before play was suspended due to waterlogged greens and fairways on the Old Course, leading to a delay of three hours and 14 minutes.
When play resumed at 10am, Willett - who carded an opening 66 to lie one behind overnight leader Dustin Johnson - took full advantage of the relatively benign conditions with five birdies and two bogeys, both of which came on the tricky back nine.
The 27 year old birdied the second and fifth to move into the lead, and after briefly being caught by Zach Johnson he holed from 25 feet for another gain on the ninth and just five feet on the tenth, as former Masters Tournament winner Johnson three-putted the 11th and dropped another shot on the 12th.
As the wind strengthened, that gave Willett – who started the season with a second European Tour win at the Nedbank Golf Challenge - a three-stroke lead over Dustin Johnson, who did not go out for his second round not until 5:48pm alongside Masters and US Open champion Jordan Spieth due to the earlier delay.
Willett made his first mistake of the day by three-putting from just off the 15th green and his lead was down to two when Scotland's Marc Warren, who carded a closing 64 in the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open on Sunday, birdied the 18th to complete an excellent 69.
Johnson had stopped the rot with a birdie on the 13th but also bogeyed the 15th and was joined on six under by fellow former Masters Tournament champion Adam Scott.
Scott, who persuaded former caddie Steve Williams to come out of retirement at the start of June, had gone to the turn in 34 and picked up shots on the 11th and 12th.
Another three-putt bogey on the 17th cut Willett's lead to a single shot, but the World Number 39 took advantage of the downwind 18th to drive to the edge of the green and pitch to eight feet for a closing birdie.
That gave Willett a second round of 69 and halfway total of nine under par, two ahead of Warren and Johnson, who had also picked up a shot on the last.
“It was a tricky back nine,” said Willett. “At 15 I got a bit of a flier and went long and at 17 just got on it a little bit instead of holding it up the right. From 50-70 feet they are not gimme two putts.
“It was nice to birdie the last, we hit some good golf shots today and it’s a good score.
“You throw wind and rain in there and it becomes a bit of a lottery. If it’s just wind it’s playable. That strength wind out there it’s playable – you’ve got to hit good shots and you can make birdies.
“Hopefully it’s the same strength tomorrow and I think we’re in for a great weekend.
“You can’t put it out of your mind – leading The Open – it’s pretty cool isn’t it?”
With the last group scheduled to tee off at 7:27pm, many players will have to return on Saturday to complete their second rounds.
But R and A chief executive Peter Dawson insisted that significant changes would not be made to the order of play, unlike last year at Royal Liverpool when a two-tee start was used for the first time in Open history due to a bad weather forecast for Saturday's third round.
"[We've] only done it once, at Hoylake," Dawson told the BBC. "The prospect of changing it during competition and doing a two-tee start is not something we are going to do. The order you play the holes in on a links course is very important.
"The forecast is for very strong winds so it is a very tough course today and tomorrow, but because we have had so much rain it's nowhere near as fiery as it can be so I'm very hopeful that (wind) won't affect play.
"Our target is to finish on Sunday. We do have the ability to go into Monday (the last time that happened was at Lytham in 1988), but we certainly hope not to."
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Torrential early rain meant the first group had not completed the opening hole before play was suspended due to waterlogged greens and fairways on the Old Course, leading to a delay of three hours and 14 minutes.
When play resumed at 10am, Willett - who carded an opening 66 to lie one behind overnight leader Dustin Johnson - took full advantage of the relatively benign conditions with five birdies and two bogeys, both of which came on the tricky back nine.
The 27 year old birdied the second and fifth to move into the lead, and after briefly being caught by Zach Johnson he holed from 25 feet for another gain on the ninth and just five feet on the tenth, as former Masters Tournament winner Johnson three-putted the 11th and dropped another shot on the 12th.
As the wind strengthened, that gave Willett – who started the season with a second European Tour win at the Nedbank Golf Challenge - a three-stroke lead over Dustin Johnson, who did not go out for his second round not until 5:48pm alongside Masters and US Open champion Jordan Spieth due to the earlier delay.
Willett made his first mistake of the day by three-putting from just off the 15th green and his lead was down to two when Scotland's Marc Warren, who carded a closing 64 in the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open on Sunday, birdied the 18th to complete an excellent 69.
Johnson had stopped the rot with a birdie on the 13th but also bogeyed the 15th and was joined on six under by fellow former Masters Tournament champion Adam Scott.
Scott, who persuaded former caddie Steve Williams to come out of retirement at the start of June, had gone to the turn in 34 and picked up shots on the 11th and 12th.
Another three-putt bogey on the 17th cut Willett's lead to a single shot, but the World Number 39 took advantage of the downwind 18th to drive to the edge of the green and pitch to eight feet for a closing birdie.
That gave Willett a second round of 69 and halfway total of nine under par, two ahead of Warren and Johnson, who had also picked up a shot on the last.
“It was a tricky back nine,” said Willett. “At 15 I got a bit of a flier and went long and at 17 just got on it a little bit instead of holding it up the right. From 50-70 feet they are not gimme two putts.
“It was nice to birdie the last, we hit some good golf shots today and it’s a good score.
“You throw wind and rain in there and it becomes a bit of a lottery. If it’s just wind it’s playable. That strength wind out there it’s playable – you’ve got to hit good shots and you can make birdies.
“Hopefully it’s the same strength tomorrow and I think we’re in for a great weekend.
“You can’t put it out of your mind – leading The Open – it’s pretty cool isn’t it?”
With the last group scheduled to tee off at 7:27pm, many players will have to return on Saturday to complete their second rounds.
But R and A chief executive Peter Dawson insisted that significant changes would not be made to the order of play, unlike last year at Royal Liverpool when a two-tee start was used for the first time in Open history due to a bad weather forecast for Saturday's third round.
"[We've] only done it once, at Hoylake," Dawson told the BBC. "The prospect of changing it during competition and doing a two-tee start is not something we are going to do. The order you play the holes in on a links course is very important.
"The forecast is for very strong winds so it is a very tough course today and tomorrow, but because we have had so much rain it's nowhere near as fiery as it can be so I'm very hopeful that (wind) won't affect play.
"Our target is to finish on Sunday. We do have the ability to go into Monday (the last time that happened was at Lytham in 1988), but we certainly hope not to."
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Labels: OPEN
posted by Colin |
See story on its own page | Friday, July 17, 2015
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