It was an up- and- down day for Canadians Taylor, Hearn
Nick Taylor could have thought of worse starts to his first professional major, but bogeys on the opening two holes of the PGA Championship was bad enough.
“If you told me after the first two holes I’d shoot 73, I’d have taken it and walked in five hours earlier,” said the 27- year- old from Abbotsford, B. C. who played the last 16 holes 1- under par and emerged from a first competitive trip around the hazard- strewn Whistling Straits course all but unscathed.
“I felt pretty calm all day other than my start. I wasn’t really nervous, I just had a sloppy three- putt on my first hole.
“I felt good all day. I don’t think I played my best but I played solid enough so that I’m still in the tournament.”
He got through the front nine in 2- over, then played the back side with eight pars and a birdie at the 16th.
“We got a little lucky that the wind died down a bit at the end and made 17 and 18 a little easier, but every hole is tough. There’s no let- up at all.”
His 73 put him in a tie for 74th in the 156- man field.
So he’s hanging around the potential cutline and hoping the morning rounds Friday again have the best of the weather.
COLD PUTTER
David Hearn of Brantford, Ont. had a tougher time getting the ball in the hole. He gave himself a bagful of birdie chances but ended up with a 76.
“I’m going to kind of scratch my head on this one, because I felt like it was a good day, except for the result,” said the 36- year- old whose final round of the RBC Canadian Open in late July, when he had led after 54 holes, was not too dissimilar to Thursday’s effort.
In the first group off the 10th tee, he started with seven pars, and made eight in a row to begin his final nine, which included five makeable birdie putts he left hanging on the edges of the hole.
But nothing dropped all day and when his approach to the last hole, the 9th, plugged deep in the sand of the greenside bunker, he could do no better than a double- bogey six.
“Probably the worst lie I’ve ever seen in a bunker,” said Hearn. “And that kind of summed up the day. I hit a lot of lips, and a lot of good shots that just didn’t turn out. I felt like I played solid golf and really didn’t get anything out of it.”
He’ll need something special Friday to make the cut.
AN ECHO IN HERE?
Tiger Woods, on his round of 75: “I hit it great today, but I made absolutely nothing.”
It continued a pattern of mediocre to poor opening rounds at the majors this year. He shot 73 at the Masters, 80 at the U. S. Open and 75 at St. Andrews. In his last six rounds of major championship play, he is 27 over par.
Thursday he hit just seven of 14 fairways, and said: “I had complete control of the golf ball.” At least, until he put it on a tee.
CALL IT A DRAW
There was no blood in the first skirmish of the Rory McIlroyJordan Spieth battle for the No. 1 world ranking. They each shot 71, good scores in the windier afternoon conditions, with McIlroy bogeying the 18th to fall back into the tie.
His ankle passed the test with flying colours. His nerves, too. There was some rust early after six weeks away, but that dissipated quickly.
“It’s more just being a little bit anxious coming back and seeing how my game’s going to react whenever I’m put under a little bit of pressure and have a card in my hand and have to really score,” McIlroy said. “I think the purest shot I hit all day was a 3- wood into the second. It was 286 to the pin or something. I hit it to 15 feet. That was one of the best 3- woods I’ve ever hit. So to hit a shot like that, coming off that layoff... the only thing I was a little bit worried about, I guess, going into today is whether I could bring this good golf that I know that I have been playing into a competitive round. Thankfully, after those two shots on the second, I felt like I did that.”
If McIlroy was missing anything, Spieth couldn’t see it.
“I didn’t see any difference in his game,” said the Masters and U. S. Open champ. “He seemed 100 per cent ready. He had a couple of bad breaks today, they ended up in spots where he had to punch out sideways. Sometimes it’s spotty and you can miss the green from there, so that cost him a couple of shots. Everything seemed to be on point, and I expect him to move up the board.”
A LITTLE HELP HERE
Steve Stricker, playing both infrequently and not very well this season, has lost his caddie to rising star Justin Thomas, so he asked his wife Nicki if she would mind toting the clubs this week, on one of the most demanding pieces of terrain the pros play all year. Nicki caddied for him for several years earlier in his career.
“I think she does other things... I don’t want to say better, but just as well as other caddies. She knows me better than anybody,” said Stricker, a huge crowd favourite from nearby Madison, who holed long birdie putts at the 9th and 18th holes to finish with a 71.
“She knows what to say to me when things are either going well or going poorly, where it takes a while, if you have a guy, to build up that relationship. And still then, that guy may not want to say those things that a wife can say to you.”