Smith’s pressure play to make British Open cut, Day in the hunt
By Mark Tallentire
Brian Harman has a decent history with Hoylake and Fridays, making the cut by two shots despite teeing off in the last slot and finishing at 10.15pm on his Open debut. This time in the second round, he teed off in the morning and shot a tournament-best of 65 to hit the top of the leaderboard mid-afternoon and stay there all day.
The Georgia native, who says his other main pastime is hunting pigs and wild turkeys, was the last man into the 2014 Open. He probably surprised himself with his 26th-place finish, but four successive missed cuts at subsequent Opens suggested that the vagaries of links golf were maybe not for the American. Not so any longer.
British Open leader Brian Harman.Credit: Reuters
His six-under total took him to 10 under for the tournament on 132, matching the Open-record low score for 36 holes held by Tiger Woods in 2006 and Rory McIlroy in 2014, the two previous champions at Hoylake.
Four successive birdies from the second hole and an eagle were the highlights. “The last couple years I had some good finishes and now at least I feel like I love the golf, and I’m playing decently over here,” he said. “I was excited to come for the Scottish Open the last couple of years to try and get adjusted and get ready, so I think that’s helped.”
He will play with Tommy Fleetwood, who was round in level par and was five shots off the pace, though given the weather forecast for a wet weekend and a change in wind direction, that may suit the local more.
“I’ve put in chases before in the past and if somebody said you’re going out in the last group on Saturday, I don’t care what the situation was or what anybody had shot, I’d have probably taken it,” Fleetwood said.
Jason Day was among Australia’s best after the second round.Credit: Getty Images
Jason Day, with a 67, and Min Woo Lee, 68, are the best placed Australians on three under, Adam Scott had a 74 to scrape through on the cut-line at three over and 2022 champion Cameron Smith, who was four over playing the last and looking like he might be packing up early, hit a six iron 210 metres to a matter of centimetres, and made the eagle putt to reach the weekend with something to spare at two over.
“Yeah, I was aware that I had to make birdie. It was nice to hit a good drive down there. I hit plenty of good drives all day today, and a few of them found the bunker. It’s basically a shot penalty. It’s a very frustrating golf course,” Smith said.
The good news for Smith and the rest of the field is that the R&A has backtracked and all 82 bunkers will be re-raked to help the lie of the ball, rather than the flat sand of the first two days which punished shots as balls rolled and lodged under the revetted face, making some of them impossible to extract with one shot.
“There’s a lot of pressure on Brian right now to kind of extend that lead, but there’s a lot of good players there right now that are trying to catch him.” said Day.
Lee was out early and after dropping a couple of shots he hit back with an eagle at the fifth and picked up two more shots on the back nine. Lee has had some good performances since missing the cut at this year’s Masters, finishing 18th at the US PGA and fifth in last month’s US Open, and shrewd judges reckon he has a big-time game.
“He hits it a very, very long way and has a very good short game. That is typically a good formula for success, especially around major championship golf courses,” Day said.
McIlroy’s challenge is still alive, although a one-under 70 was not what he was looking for, and world No.1 Scottie Scheffler made the cut with a birdie. “I think if you’re under par you’re still in the tournament,” Smith said.
Lucas Herbert had a disastrous day, slumping to a five-over 75 with two double-bogeys. There were also early departures for Connor McKinney (11 over), David Micheluzzi (10 over), Haydn Barron (nine over) and amateur Harrison Crowe, who had seven bogeys on the back nine and signed for an 80.
Travis Smyth, eight over, also had an early flight to finalise, although he did achieve the first hole-in-one at Little Eye, the new 17th hole.
Meanwhile, Four Just Stop Oil protestors were arrested at the 17th hole after throwing an orange substance to the side of the green, with American Billy Horschel helping to restrain them.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.