No man’s land is a strange place, caught somewhere neither here nor there. Of the five Irish players in the early wave of play in this 151st Open Championship, that’s where they were left. And each one of them with the belief that shots had been left out on the links and the digits that counted and were scribbled on to scorecards could have been fewer.
Then, that’s the game. You don’t always get what you deserve, or what you feel you deserve.
Séamus Power, his hip injury much improved, signed for a level-par 71; Shane Lowry and amateur Alex Maguire for one-over 72s; Darren Clarke a 73, and Pádraig Harrington a 74.
Take Harrington, the one left with most work to survive. After his round he was somewhat downbeat and firmly of the belief that he was already too far adrift.
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“The problem with the Majors now is you don’t come back, you’ve got to keep yourself inside the top-15 spots. You don’t come back from way out in Majors [any more]. We’re completely bombarded with all the different gambling sites and stats these days and we know it’s basically not a realistic chance unless you are within x shots of the lead and in x position after two rounds. Three over takes me out of the tournament.”
You can bet your bottom dollar that he’ll fight to defy those statistical odds. But Harrington’s words were spoken with a clear mind after a few front nine lapses that came like punches below the belt.
There was a pulled drive off the fifth tee into a gorse bush when he seemed to be distracted by Talor Gooch’s movement on the tee. The ball finished up in a gorse bush and the salvaged bogey six could have been worse.
Not that Harrington pointed the finger at Gooch afterwards. “The problem was me. I lifted my head a bit on the backswing and I just pulled it. It happens,” he said. However, that was then followed by a double-bogey five on the par-three sixth hole and it was all a battle not to drift any further.
Power had mixed emotions after a round where he was stalled without momentum for long parts. “All in all pleased, but obviously a little bit disappointed. I felt like I had good chances. I was hitting it very nicely there for a while. But it’s not easy, there’s not any easy gimme holes.”
And Lowry’s demeanour was similar. “I felt like there was decent stuff in there and a few silly mistakes. A little disappointing where I feel like I might have played a little bit better than that. Look, it is what it is ... I don’t really know what to make of my day. It kind of felt pretty average. Some nice stuff but some average stuff, as well,” he said.
Much work to do, for each one of them, if they are to defy the stats men.
