The task, especially with a game not entirely firing on all cylinders, was difficult enough for Shane Lowry as he manoeuvred his way through sand hills in the first round without the added inconvenience of marshals constantly moving in his sightline.
At one point, frustrated with it all, Lowry pleaded to one marshal seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was about to play a pitch shot from off the green: “Can you move please? Keep on moving . . . go on. It’s just your jacket, okay?”
The problem was that all the course marshals had been issued with bright orange jackets – provided by apparel sponsors Hugo Boss, mind you – which were definitely not designed for any camouflaging into the tall fescue grasses or gorse bushes. They could be spotted a mile off.
“It’s a horrendous outfit, isn’t it? They’re just in the way. It’s mind-boggling, the choice of colour this week,” remarked Lowry after his round of 72, which never really sparked into any life at all.
Any time he got a chance to put the metal to the floor, he hit the brake instead: after an opening birdie, he bogeyed the second; after a birdie on the ninth to turn one-under, he bogeyed the 10th. And it all got worse with a double bogey six on the 16th.
Not his day, not at all.
“Ah, it was a very disappointing day on the golf course,” said Lowry, who added of his patience levels: “They’re being tested really quite a lot at the moment. It’s a hard game sometimes. I’m trying my best and I feel like I’ve put in the best week of preparation I’ve put in for a tournament . . . I just have to keep plugging away because this game is very difficult at times. You really just have to keep plugging away.”
Drug testing
If there was an obvious sense of frustration from Lowry in not quite getting the numbers he wanted at the endgame, there was a different kind of frustration for Pádraig Harrington – winner here in 2008 – who endured a difficult opening round, signing for a 73, and then found himself being selected to provide a sample for drug testing. Dehydrated, it took him 45 minutes.
“It’s standard,” he said of being a chosen one. “This would be my third. I normally have five a year. It’s pretty standard. The fact I wouldn’t be playing as much in each area, they tend to come. They’re random but if you haven’t played for three months, you can expect one coming up pretty quickly.”
Harrington had a number of birdie chances early on in his round but failed to hole any of them. He got no momentum going and, then, was sucker-punched by a double bogey six on the 11th where he put his tee shot into a drain and ended up three-putting from off the front of the green.
“All of my good shots, they all came up 15 feet short of the hole rather than finishing three feet from the hole. That happens so hopefully [in the second round] I will get the reverse and score a little bit better than I play.
“It just really wasn’t my day, and I wasn’t taking chances. At the end, I hit a beautiful shot into 15, and I am thinking in the air I am going to be making eagle and I end up making par. And I didn’birdie 17. That’s just the nature of the game.
“I played okay and didn’t score well . . . . I will be going out there trying and playing my game. The key is to get a bit of momentum in the round and there is certainly a good one in there, a good score. But we will wait and see what happens. it is not like you can go out there and force it either,” said Harrington.
