After the rain darkness falls at The Open – day 2
Dutch golfer Joost Luiten has got a long wait ahead of him to see whether, by any weird freak of nature, he will make the cut at the Open Championship.
After opening with a 74 (2-over par), his hopes for playing at the weekend looked slim. Yes, when you have to scale that far down the leader-board to see your name, the climb back to the top must seem pretty daunting. Especially when your putter isn’t responding to the call.
It’s true that 109th position after day one doesn’t exactly look promising, but hold on a minute, it’s not that horrendous, dear Luiten golf fans. With a birdie blitz on Friday, Joost can make a comeback. He’s a fighter, after all.
Murmurs that: “He’ll have to shoot at least 6 under-par to make the cut!”, are a little O.T.T. Out for the count? No, actually, he’s just two over par.
With bad weather forecast for Friday, scores on the leader-board could take a battering. At an Open Championship anything can happen. Players can easily drop a couple of shots getting nervous to make the cut. And Joost can just as easily find the pace on the greens, knock in a few birdie putts, and get himself back into the picture with red figures and so be back at the weekend.
OK, it’s a tall order, but it’s still anyone’s Championship. Joost just needs to hang on in there.
In fact, he ended up hanging around in the clubhouse for a huge chunk of Friday with the other 155 players in the field after torrential rain (nearly 20mm overnight) flooded the Old Course at St Andrews.
Patience needed after serious rain delays
After a three and a half hour delay while green-keeping staff battled to squeegee the course dry, it looks as if many players could be finishing their second round of The Open in the dark tonight or even on Saturday.
Luckily for Joost, he managed to complete his second round on Friday. A level par round of 72, which included 33 putts with his lukewarm putter, leaves him at 2-over for the tournament and heading in the right direction up the leader-board. Despite all the disruptions, the cut is predicted at level par.
Now he’ll have to wait and see what sort of weather tomorrow brings. Those unfortunate enough to still have to complete their second rounds will be up against gale force winds, according to the forecast.
Oh, what Joost wouldn’t give to have a comfy two-shot cushion to sleep on tonight. He’ll be recounting his putts in the first two rounds for sure. All 68 of them. But, you never know, if the predicted poor weather continues or gets even worse, scores could go sky high. Perhaps Joost’s two-over par might not be two too many to make the cut after all. It’s happened before.
Just don’t book your flight back to Holland yet, Joost …
Wendy Hoad