When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Karma, preparation, experience and incredible skill on a fiery links added up to a historic win by Phil Mickelson, who captures his fifh major and is a U.S. Open away from the career Grand Slam.
He appropriately joins a list of superstar winners at Muirfield and put away a leaderboard for the ages. It's hard to image a more impressive win and validation of both Mickelson's career along with Muirfield as a venue.
Your kneejerk reactions...
Sunday is noticeably cooler and the overcast more stubborn, with the same easterly winds we've seen since Friday. Whether the hole locations are more accessible--well, not placed on humps and bumps--remains to be seen but with a stellar leaderboard we should be in for a doozy. I'll be trailing the Woods and Scott group from the moment they hit the range but will be following on Twitter and via The Open's Lee Westwood Radio Network (87.7 on the dial if you are in Scotland).
Previewing the finale, Jim Moriarty thinks Lee Westwood has a shot at breaking his 0-61 record in majors.
For a UK take, James Corrigan and Kevin Garside understandably feel it's Westwood's chance and and based on post round comments, the Englishman is certainly sounding confident.
I wrote in Golf World Daily about Tiger's decision not to lay-up on 17 yesterday and how his refusal to play driver there could be key to today's finale.
Bob Harig breaks down what's at stake for the various leaders and their chances of winning.
In the polling here, after nearly 900 votes, Tiger is your pick at 37%, Lee at 29% and Adam at 14%.
Oddschecker turns into exchange wagering Sunday and might make for fun viewing.
The Guardian's live final round blog for those of you unable to watch, or if you are on Twitter, ByTheMinuteGolf will be joined by Mike Clayton and Lloyd Cole today.
Kevin Murray with the strange saga of Martin Laird not speaking loudly enough for his playing competitor or referree to hear him tough his ball to identify it in the 10th hole rough.
After a 9 on the third hole, this happened at the 10th:
On the par-four 10th, he found the rough twice in succession and, on the second occasion, did not tell playing partner Dustin Johnson or the referee he was going to touch his ball to identify it.
Laird is adamant he told the ball-spotter, but that is not enough under the rules.
He said: "If I had said, 'Dustin, just went down to find my ball,' or, 'Rules official, I'm going to identify my ball', loud enough for one of them to hear, it would have been fine.
"It's the fact that none of them heard it, even though I said it.
"A spotter said to me, 'There's a ball here. I'm not sure if it's yours'.
"I said, 'I'm going to identify it'. I put the tee in the ground [to mark it] and didn't even lift my ball, just moved it a quarter roll to see the number.
"At the time I was thinking more about the golf shot I had coming up than about the ruling. It's one of those lovely rules of golf."
Here is the Q&A with David Rickman explaining why a penalty was incurred:
Q. Can you explain what happened?
DAVID RICKMAN: Well, my understanding and what's been explained is that Martin hit his tee shot in the rough. He then looked to identify that by just gently parting the grass on that occasion. That was fine. He then hit a second shot, also stayed in the rough. And on that second occasion he marked the position of the ball and touched it and just moved it ever so slightly. This is now a situation, by putting his hand on the ball, this is a situation covered by Rule 12-2, which requires the player to announce to his fellow competitor, before getting his hand on the ball, either to move it slightly or to lift it, in either of those circumstances, and he didn't do that. Obviously this week we've also got a walking referee and an observer. Those two individuals would also have qualified as somebody to make that announcement, but I'm afraid by not doing that, it's a breach of Rule 12-2 and it's a one-stroke --
Q. (Inaudible.)
DAVID RICKMAN: Well, I believe he maybe said it to the ball spotter, who was in closest vicinity. But the rule is very specific. It needs to be the fellow competitor, the fellow competitor is there to protect the interests of the rest of the field, and therefore, we are specific about who that needs to be. Because you need to give that fellow competitor, or as I say this week, the referee, the opportunity to come over and observe the player's actions. That's the protection that the rule gives.
Q. (Inaudible.)
DAVID RICKMAN: The ball spotter saw that this was happening. The referee also saw a tee, on this occasion, a tee coming up and down, and that, of itself, indicated that perhaps there had been more than just the parting of the grass, I'm afraid.
Q. (Inaudible.)
DAVID RICKMAN: I don't believe it was a spectator, no.
Here you go...for what it's worth my money (really) is on Adam Scott but I feel like anyone listed below could do it. The golf course is just not set up to allow for a 66. Or hasn't so far. Tomorrow might be different, but I doubt it.
As Paul Newberry's AP game story notes, 22 start day three at Muirfield within five shots of the lead. Early groups showed some signs of scoring life but now that the sun is drying things out and the breezes are kicking up scoring has neutralized.
Alex Myers off a "cheat sheet" on what to look for today. And as I noted in Golf World Daily, things have set up well for a plodder and Tiger Woods seems to be one of the players willing to play that game.
The forecast calls for winds of 10 mph with gusts to 15 mph.
In case you were wondering if the fans were coming dressed as empty green grandstand seats, the answer is now. Prices may be harming Open attendance at Muirfield despite great weather and sound infrastructure work by the R&A to get people here with relative ease.
Ron Sirak Tweeted the shocking drop from the last Open at Muirfield through two rounds.
Attendance at Muirfield down from 2002 in @The_Open with 23,393 Thursday compared to 30,620 in '02 and 29,144 Friday vs. 34,479.
The Daily Mail's Mike Dickson wrote in the Tee Room notes today that "Charging 75 pounds for a ticket is looking very steep in this economic climate."
** Jeff Ritter talked to patrons and tried to get R&A comment on the attendance decline. He backed up the idea that the end of a senior discount has been a blow.
The Telegraph's James Corrigan follows up his original story with more backstory on how an accidental meeting and conversation led to Lee Westwood's putting advice from Ian Baker Finch.
Through the first 36 at Muirfield, Westwood has 18 one-putts.
When contacted last night, Baker-Finch, who has been watching on American TV, welcomed the transformation. “Lee looks different on the greens – more confident and calm,” said Baker-Finch.
That much has been obvious, as Westwood has cut his way through the field, using the putter as his scythe. As revealed in last week’s Telegraph Sport, Westwood had “a light bulb moment” when he had an hour-long session with Baker-Finch a fortnight ago.
At 6-1? Confident in the Englishman!
The breakdown from OddsChecker.com.
My Rory-missed cut winnings will be parlayed into Adam Scott at 20-1, Phil Mickelson at 20-1 and Jordan Spieth e/w at 80-1.
Martyn Herman with Rory McIlroy's post round assertion that he began hitting drivers after a bad start, all to start preparing for the next major.
"I decided that I was going to hit driver every hole that I could, because that's going to be a big factor the next few weeks, and I actually drove the ball pretty well, and ended up playing the last 11 holes even par.
"That was encouraging, but obviously I'm disappointed to be going home for the weekend. It's the first time I've missed a cut at the Open."
Jonathan McEvoy assesses the state of Rory's game and life, wondering what Rory will "ponder in the barren hours of an unexpectedly free weekend." Caroline is all but blamed, Andy Murray cited.
...will he talk through with his tennis star girlfriend Caroline Wozniacki? This brings us — in the absence of Freud — to an instructive comparison between two of the most exciting talents in UK sport: Andy Murray, 26, and the troubled McIlroy, 24.
Murray has in place a lifestyle geared to top-level sport: a steady girlfriend, Kim Sears, who travels with him some of the time and knows how to lend her support unobtrusively, settled management in Simon Fuller’s XIX Entertainment and a coach in Ivan Lendl who is as grizzled a relic of the cold, old East as the Berlin Wall.
For McIlory, the story is strikingly different. It has been estimated that he attends 70 per cent of Wozniacki’s tournaments. He was at the Italian Open for four or five days; he hot-footed to the Eastbourne Championships from the US Golf Open to see her and then on to Wimbledon.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
