Birdies on the fourth and fifth were followed by four in a five-hole stretch from the seventh to spark his run.
Advertisement
The world No. 61 has a history of going low at the Open and lit up the Old Course on a gloomy moving day at golf’s spiritual home. He’ll take good vibes from shooting a closing 65 a year ago at Hoylake to finish T-5, his best showing in the tournament.
Third at last week’s Scottish Open, Pepperell was flying high and had the course record in his sights standing on the 17 tee after sinking another excellent putt for birdie on 16.
Pepperell’s mistake meant it was Australia’s Marc Leishman setting the early pace in the clubhouse after a bogey-free round of 64.
Leishman’s unblemished round was just one shy of the best effort in 155 years of Open championships, a record jointly held by eight players including countryman Greg Norman, who fired a 63 when he lifted the Claret Jug for the first time at Turnberry in 1986.
Leishman had reasonable birdie attempts at the 16th and 17th holes but missed them both.
That propelled him to the top of the leaderboard at -10 alongside Dustin Johnson, but it all went pear-shaped on the Road Hole where Pepperell stuck his tee shot OB into the Old Course hotel and had to scramble for a double bogey.
Having ended the first day even-par, Pepperell negotiated the terrible weather with nine holes of his second round on Friday and the other nine on Saturday to complete a round of two-under.
Back in April, while preparing for the Masters, Leishman’s wife Audrey was hospitalized with a mysterious, flu-like illness. “We’re really lucky she’s on the mend”. “That was the most important thing, and I was all right with that”.
Advertisement
“When you hit a bad shot there’s no real point getting frustrated about it because you tried to hit a good shot, you didn’t, move on. There for a while it didn’t look like I was going to be able to do that”.
