Shane Lowry fired a third-round 77 to fall out of the lead at Royal Troon.
Getty Photos
Shifting day on the 152nd Open Championship was a brutal one.
With winds gusting and rain pelting the leaders, Royal Troon confirmed its enamel. Par 4s performed like par 5s. Gamers hit drivers(!) on the par-3 seventeenth. Pars had been trigger for celebration, and birdies had been practically not possible to return by. As soon as the climate obtained actually nasty within the afternoon, it grew to become a battle of attrition.
With a standard out-and-back routing, nearly your entire again 9 performed into the wind. Xander Schauffele hit a 3-wood into the breeze that he estimated would have gone 300 yards in heat circumstances; it barely went 220 on Saturday.
“That was fairly humbling,” he mentioned.
Scottie Scheffler known as the inward holes the “hardest that [he’s] performed,” after posting an even-par 71. Justin Rose mentioned it was a “survival take a look at.” Chief Billy Horschel joked that the again 9 featured 5 par 5s. Of the gamers within the final 11 pairings on Saturday, simply two gamers (Horschel and Schauffele) broke par.
“It was a tricky one on the market right now,” Horschel mentioned. “Simply knew going into the again aspect that it was going to be a grind it doesn’t matter what. You need to discover a option to grind down and make a rating.”
Horschel was among the many solely gamers close to the highest of the leaderboard to beat the tough circumstances. His two-under 69 was one of the crucial spectacular rounds of the day as he vaulted himself into the solo lead heading into Sunday as he seeks his first main championship title.
The 36-hole chief wasn’t so lucky. Shane Lowry, taking part in within the last pairing alongside Daniel Brown, fired a third-round 77 to fall three pictures behind Horschel heading into the championship’s last day. His disastrous shifting day included 5 back-nine bogeys en path to a five-over 40 on Troon’s most tough stretch.
“It was arduous,” an exasperated Lowry mentioned after the spherical. “Enjoying a par 3 hitting drivers isn’t a lot craic. Roll the ball again, huh?”
Lowry was one of many rivals who needed to hit driver on the 238-yard par-3 seventeenth on Saturday. Hours earlier, earlier than the nastiest of the circumstances rolled in, Si Woo Kim aced the opening with a 3-iron.
“You’d must query why there wasn’t a few tees put ahead right now, to be trustworthy,” Lowry mentioned. “Like 15 is 500 yards taking part in into that wind, it’s — yeah, they maintain attempting to make holes longer, but the perfect gap on this course is about 100 yards.”
That “finest gap” — the famed “Postage Stamp” par-3 eighth — didn’t deal with the 2019 Open champion kindly as he carded his lone double bogey of the day.
“I don’t actually know what to say,” Lowry mentioned. “It was a grind. It wasn’t a lot enjoyable.”
Lowry wasn’t the one competitor to voice his frustrations with the course setup after the spherical. Brown, his taking part in companion through the third spherical, additionally known as into query the size of among the holes on shifting day.
“Course setup in all probability wasn’t thought of an excessive amount of this morning when that climate got here in,” Brown mentioned. “However yeah, we obtained the kind of unsuitable finish of the draw.”
In hyperlinks golf, dealing with the weather is the secret. And the person who hoists the claret jug tomorrow night will probably be the one that handles these variables the perfect.
Buckle up.
