MIGUEL ANGEL JIMENEZ, THE CAREFREE, 49-year-old Spaniard, is the halfway leader at the 142nd British Open. Jimenez carded a 71 after an opening 68 to sit atop the leaderboard at 3 under. Four players are one stroke off Jimenez’s pace: Tiger Woods, Lee Westwood, Dustin Johnson and Henrik Stenson.
“I feel relaxed, I play golf for a living and I’ve been doing the same thing for 25 years,” Jimenez said. “I’m going to hit some balls, I’m going to have a nice cigar, have dinner with my girlfriend and with my sons and when the sun comes up tomorrow I will deal with everything.”
Jimenez might lead on the scoreboard, but no player is winning.
The course was the real winner on this day—dry as a bone and firm as a snooker table, giving up only four scores in the 60s. Another warm, sunny day along the Forth of Firth had nearby beachgoers frolicking in the surf, like this was Southern California instead of Scotland, but it made things miserable out on a course that is more brown than green.
There were balls scooting all over the place. They wound up behind grandstands, in knee-high grass, up against the face of pot bunkers. Dustin Johnson had to intentionally hit a sideways shot into the rough just to escape a bunker. Phil Mickelson four-putted a hole. Darren Clarke made a quadruple-bogey. And … they were all still in contention for the claret jug.
Many of the players are unhappy. Some are vocal about their unhappiness.
Count me among the unsympathetic. I tire of the whining about the golf course. I don’t doubt that it’s over the edge, especially some of the greens and pin placements. That happens at majors.
But it’s the same for everyone, no? And can complaining about the course help the complainer? I wouldn’t think so.
BBC golf commentator Peter Alliss said this:
“So many of these players just aren’t used to these conditions. Before fairway watering, all links courses were like this and you just got used to it. You played them as a matter of course; you didn’t think about them. Now so many players over think. Some great players have played very badly here this week, with a lot of European and British contenders being especially poor. They seemingly haven’t even tried to adjust to the conditions …. “
Folks, would I be way off if I say the winning score Sunday night will be -2 ?
I would wait to see how MR. Tiger performs on Saturday before I say he is likely to win.
He is more likely to fall off the leaderboard as has been his pattern in Majors the last few times.
And I say that cuz the type of golf Tiger is playing now is the same kind of golf he played at Augusta and he was well off the winning score at Augusta.