Eighteen holes into the 146th Open Championship, there was a spring in the step of at least six Australians who had finished within a handful of shots of the lead. Less than 24 hours later they were all fighting to make the cut.
South-easterly winds gusting up to 45km an hour greeted players for round two, but the Australians knew the conditions would deteriorate even more during the day. None of them, however, was able to make the leaderboard inroads they had hoped to from being on the better side of the draw.
In fact the best rounds of the day from the Aussie contingent came from South Australia’s Adam Bland and Tasmania’s Ryan McCarthy, who both carded two over 72s but had started the day well down the leaderboard and, despite their efforts, they missed the cut.
Adam Scott followed his opening round 69 with a four over 74 to be three over at the halfway stage and nine strokes behind leader Jordan Spieth. It could have been worse.
The Queenslander was already two over par through his first eight holes when he seemed to “lose his swing”. He hit a wild drive right of the 9th fairway but still managed to extricate his ball from the heavy rough and find the green. He rolled in the putt to make an unlikely birdie.
But the wheels were obviously falling off as one mis-hit iron shot followed another. Three bad iron shots led to three consecutive bogies from the 10th hole and it looked like he was quickly heading for the weekend off.
The 37-year-old steadied the ship with a trio of pars but threw another bogey into the mix on 16. Desperate to reverse the trend, Scott blasted two 285-yard plus shots, into a howling wind, onto the green of the par-5 17th hole and two-putted for birdie.
The 2013 Masters Champion said as the wind increased during the round it was “just a matter of survival out there.”
“It was just difficult. I don't know how else to assess it,” he said.
“It was a tough wind for this golf course … it made angles pretty tough, fairways tough to hit.
“After the turn, the wind was picking up, I knew it was a matter of survival and I survived. I didn't do a great job of it but it was pretty tough out there.
“As soon as you hit a shot up in the air … I hit three bad tee shots in a row on 10, 11, 12 and I did well to make bogies on some of them. I was fighting it a bit today and I kind of did well to only lose a few shots out there rather than completely capitulate.”
Scott will be out mid-morning for the third round and hopes he can piece together a good round to have a shot at winning on Sunday.
“Hopefully we’ll get a little lucky and tomorrow morning offers nice conditions … I can try to put 18 good holes together and I'll be right back in it,” Scott said.
Fellow Queenslander Andrew Dodt fought hard all day to card a 75 and heads into the third round at four over. The major championship debutante couldn’t buy a birdie on day two but he made some great par-saving putts under pressure to stay in the tournament.
Four more Australians – Aaron Baddeley (76), Marc Leishman (76), Jason Day (76) and Scott Hend (74) – are a shot further back at five over and scraped into weekend play by a shot.
Day was visibly disappointed after his round, which ended with a trio of 6s on the card – double bogey, bogey, double bogey. Again, he struggled throughout the round to get his ball in play from the tee, but still managed to keep in touch within sight of the first page of the leaderboard until his disastrous finish.
In contrast, Leishman was pleased with the way he played in the conditions and is hoping he can emulate his 64-66 finish in the 2015 Open to be in contention here on Sunday.
“I didn’t play that bad, I just couldn’t get anything going,” the 33-year-old said. “It’s not what I was after but I’ll get out here tomorrow morning and see what the weather does and hopefully I’ll have another weekend like I did at St Andrews.”
The big Victorian also suggested he might change up his game plan before round three.
“Might be time to go and have a pint … I haven’t had one since I got here.”
Hend was the last of the Aussies to make the cut, having survived despite four back nine bogies.
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