However, with 40mph gusts of wind blowing balls across greens, officials indefinitely suspended play at 07:32.
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Then came Chambers Bay, where – somehow – he was tied with Branden Grace, Dustin Johnson and Spieth with 18 holes remaining. The more of a challenge the elements pose, goes the thinking, the better.
With little hope of play before 4pm on Saturday, the R&A decided that completing the tournament on Sunday was a remote possibility and announced a Monday finish for only the second time in Open history.
The forecast calls for winds to abate around 1 p.m.
“But as I said, we’re coming down the stretch, I’d be fighting for myself as much as anything else, but it is nice to see another player coming out of Ireland, a young guy”. At that time, “we considered the golf course to be playable”.
“What had happened, and the wind readings show it, is that the wind speeds after 7am increased by about six miles an hour over what we had been experiencing prior to the start of play, and that was enough to tip it over the edge”.
Translation: Sorry, you players who watched the gusts play havoc with your early-morning shots.
This isn’t the first time Johnson has faltered at a major. The Columbia native flubbed a chip at the 14th hole that barely reached the green. He remarked then replaced his ball.
He knows how to win the tournament but when Record Sport asked him if Dunne could do it, his answer was emphatic.
“They will ease into the afternoon but the public should be aware of possible minor impacts to transport and travel, resulting from either wind or rain, the latter not helped by the fact that the ground is saturated”. And so Im going to play my game to stay in the mix if its not all there at the beginning, and if it is, Im going to continue to play that way to try and get out in front. But in the third round, he lost a few precision with his short-iron approaches and kept missing putts. Scotland didn’t discover wind, rain and chill this week.
That gave him a one-shot lead over Danny Willett of England, who for the second straight year did not hit a single shot in the British Open on Saturday.
McIlroy’s ire was due to having to finish his round before play was halted.
Spieth has a one-shot lead over another Dubliner, Padraig Harrington (65), who won this in 2007 and ’08.
After all, the stakes are as high as you can get in sport.
Or, in many cases, not.
He said: “I don’t think you’ve got to go put a ton of yardage on this golf course. You know it’s obvious I didn’t have the round today to get me in it for tomorrow, but I still appreciate being able to play here.”…
“It was obviously a fun event today just to see the scores the way they were going up”, he said. He laughed. “I can’t walk in 45-mph wind”. “We should never have started”, Spieth said at the time.
If this schedule-wrecking weather was extreme even by Open standards, it hardly was a new thing.
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By day’s end, not only had Grand Slam seeker Jordan Spieth made his inexorable way to the top of the leaderboard (though he was subsequently passed), a virtual cast of thousands had gathered within spitting distance of the Claret Jug, including just about anyone who could grip a club and whack the little white ball in the general direction of the hole. After shooting a 67 in the second round, he let several opportunities slip through his grasp and shot 70 on Sunday.
