There was wind, there was rain.
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The only time Oosthuizen had a score better than par over his 36 holes was his hole-in-one on No. 14 in the first round.
The only thing he couldn’t do was shake Henrik Stenson.
Phil Mickelson insisted there was still plenty of work to do if he is to win a second Open Championship on Sunday as appeared set to take the halfway lead into the weekend at Royal Troon, writes Simon Lewis.
Henrik Stenson is only one stroke behind Phil Mickelson at the British Open.
“I tried not to think about it but that’s why I had this on my hat”, Sordet told reporters after carding a 75 for an eight-over-par tally of 150 that is highly unlikely to make the cut.
“Disappointing because I actually hit the golf ball well the last couple of days”, McDowell said. It’s still early in the tournament, though. “We’re only halfway done with the tournament. So far, so good”. That left him at four over but it could have been so much better after a bogey-free four-under front nine 32. “It’s not easy out there”. History would agree. Of the seven previous players to open with a 63 in a major, only two of them managed to break par the next day.
After two-putting from long range for birdie, Mickelson also holed from five feet on the seventh and then saw his tee shot on the eighth spin back to within inches of the hole to leave the simplest of birdie putts.
“So I don’t see why there’s any reason why I can’t continue that, not just this week, but for years”. I made one or two bad swings that led to bogeys. “But for the most part, kept the ball in play”.
The nature of links golf, and this championship, is getting the good side of the tee times.
The top 14 on the leaderboard all played Friday morning.
Of the 20 players who broke par, all but four of them went off in the morning and at least had a stretch of decent weather. Defending champion Zach Johnson bogeyed the 18th hole for the second straight day and shot 70. He was five shots behind.
Having barely made the cut, Jordan Spieth moaned about “sheets of water moving sideways” as he stood at the 16th tee.
“It’s tough when we all realize before we go out that you’re kind of what would be the bad end of the draw before you even play your second round”, Spieth said. He said he might have felt different if he were 3 or 4 under.
Soren Kjeldsen again showed he is one of those golfers who thrives when the weather is grotty and wet as he ignored miserable conditions to power to a three-under 68 in the British Open second round on Friday.
World No. 2 Dustin Johnson (69) and fourth-ranked Rory McIlroy (71) were eight behind Mickelson. “I birdied 10 in those conditions”, the 40-year-old Swede said after his round. “So it’s too far off to start thinking like that, but certainly there is nothing more that I would love to add another Claret Jug, but I think there is a lot of pressure off me given the fact that I’ve already got one”.
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But, while he accepted he had no excuses for his poor finish, the two-time major champion was keen not to let it detract from a strong start to his defence of the Claret Jug.
