What a difference a day makes. After the perfect weather of the first round, during which 74 men finished par or better when playing in a gentle breeze and shirtsleeve weather, Friday brought a complete change in wind, weather and golfing attire.
Steve Williams, who caddies for Adam Scott and always wears shorts, had come prepared and had a pair of black waterproof trousers on from the start. Phil Mickelson wore his short‑sleeved rain jacket and knew what to expect, with a heavy-duty version in the bag for later. Even Sweden’s Henrik Stenson, who does not like waterproof clothing as it makes him feel “a little claustrophobic”, wore an extra layer underneath, although seemingly nobody told the US Open champion Dustin Johnson, whose brother and caddie Austin requested a supply of fresh towels when they were playing the 7th hole, meaning the marshals had to send back to the clubhouse to get them.
The day had dawned cold, damp and with the wind blowing out of the south-west, a complete reverse from Thursday, which meant the first six holes were playing into the wind rather than with it and for most of the back nine there was the unusual bonus of being wind-assisted, although with the downside of it becoming increasingly wet.
The rain which had been promised started with a few spots just after 9.30am, almost three hours after the start of play, and within the hour had become a steady downpour under a leaden grey sky from which the only sign that planes were approaching the nearby airport was the gathering roar of the engines and the headlights on the front and wings.
Out at the Postage Stamp, the iconic 123-yard par three on the more exposed part of the course and right in Prestwick’s flightpath, the queue for yet-to-be-vacated seats in the greenside stand was about 25 deep by 10.15am. The smaller stand behind the tee was full too, as the bigger names began to arrive, with heavy rain setting in.
The jelly-bean-shaped green is set in the side of a huge sandhill and missing it, or pitching in the wrong place, can cause problems, as it did for Bubba Watson in the first round when he took a six after being forced to exit the cramped Coffin bunker by hitting away from the hole. Yusaku Miyazato of Japan racked up a seven after hitting into a bush, taking a drop and two shots from the same bunker.
On Friday, however, the pin position was more central and the wind was less problematic, left to right, with Mark Calcavecchia the first to make bogey after four birdies and 13 pars had been completed. A run of 11 pars was to follow before Andrew Johnston made birdie. Then the Mickelson game arrived and Ernie Els, who made a hole in one at the Postage Stamp when the Open was last at Troon in 2004, hit his ball to two feet for a tap-in.
Mickelson immediately surpassed that, hitting his shot to about 10 feet and, to the delight of an increasingly wet crowd sitting beneath a sea of umbrellas, saw it spin back to within two inches of the cup for a birdie which nevertheless saw him reach his own high-water mark of 11 under for the first time.
It was the second day in a row the American had picked up a shot there. “I just love that hole and I’m fortunate to have capitalised on it,” he said later. “I just felt the conditions were right. I kind of saw the shot the last two days and I got a little bit more aggressive to that pin than is probably smart, but it’s paid off. It’s a hole that you’ve got to be very cautious on and as the pin gets further back [on Saturday and Sunday], I’ll be more cautious.”
In the first round on Thursday, the Postage Stamp, with the pin a few feet further to the left, was played into the wind and yielded 33 birdies, 25 bogeys and seven scores worse than that for an average of 3.06 for the 156-man field, making it the eighth most difficult on the course. By mid-afternoon on Friday, with the rain abating and the wind unchanged, it was playing as the easiest hole on the course with an average score of 2.81.
None of that helped England’s Andy Sullivan just before lunchtime, however, and he played a loose shot which trickled into a greenside bunker on the right to slip back to level par after failing to get up and down. Miyazato made some sort of amends with a birdie, as did his partner Mark O’Meara, and Miguel Ángel Jiménez produced the save of the morning after landing squarely in the Coffin to the left of the green and chipping to two feet for a sandy par.
The next threeball included the last of the big beasts for some time, Sergio García and Keegan Bradley, and after they failed to match their Indian playing partner Anirban Lahiri’s two and tapped in there was a serious exodus from both stands. The rain had intensified and the attraction of the nearby Open Arms and the various eateries along with big‑screen viewing behind the 12th hole became more attractive than ever.
