PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Monday was a more important day this week than at most professional golf tournaments. In a typical week, players roll into town, get their bearings and maybe hit a few balls. But Monday at this Open was important because it offered the same type of wind as Thursday.
Still, scouting can only get you so far. Just look at the first-hole scores of the first few groups at Royal Portrush Thursday:
Birdie, par, bogey.
Bogey, par, bogey.
Bogey, bogey, bogey.
Bogey, double bogey, birdie.
Par, bogey, bogey.
Bogey, bogey, par.
The 1st at Royal Portrush’s Dunluce Links is a par-4 that played 425 yards Thursday. It’s called Hughie’s, named after a local man who used to own the land up its right side. If you crossed over the out-of-bounds markers, you were now in Hugh’s property, and you were expected to re-tee.
It is the rare hole that is double-flanked by O.B., which isn’t just difficult — it’s controversial. Up the left side is internal O.B., which is, again, land the club didn’t own during its earliest days. Nowadays, it’s all part of Portrush, but members prefer to keep it as it’s always been: nerve-wracking and maddening. (And costly, if you’re Rory McIlroy.) Especially with a 15-20 mph wind ripping right to left and into players’ faces.
First off at 6:26 a.m. was Irishman Padraig Harrington, who said he practiced 30 to 40 3-irons on the range trying to replicate what that first shot of the day would feel like. He went 3-iron, 3-iron to 15 feet for birdie. No big deal! Much more nervous was Northern Ireland’s 22-year-old phenom Tom McKibbin. Ever since his fellow countryman McIlroy made a disastrous 8 on this hole in 2019, McKibbin has been eery of it. “That’s all I could probably think about for the last three days,” he said.
Think about it enough and you might just do it: McKibbin missed left but safely in bounds, escaping with bogey. One group later, K.J. Choi hit driver and only advanced it 176 yards. They call it “native area” left of the 1st, but unlike the native areas at Pinehurst, which offer plenty of sandy, open ground to play from, this native area grabs your ball and gobbles it down.
Max Greyserman, much younger and more limber than Choi, didn’t even carry his tee shot to the fairway, advancing his ball just 183 yards forward. But Cam Smith made Greyserman feel long. The 2022 Open champ advanced his ball only 153 yards off the tee. (Mid-handicappers everywhere nod their heads in approval.)
Taylor Pendrith, in the fourth group off, was our first player to find O.B. and the first to make double. Kevin Yu followed suit, with less than driver in hand, making a second-ball par (that’s a scorecard double).
As the morning wore on, the wind turned more directly across from right to left, and scores reflected the change: Almost as many birdies as bogeys. More pars than anything else. Enough to settle in as the 6th-toughest hole of the morning wave, playing to an average of 4.27.
