Rory McIlroy extended his Round 1 lead at the 143rd edition of The Open Championship on Friday, after shooting 66 for the second consecutive day at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England.
Sitting at 12-under at the midway point, he now has a four-shot lead over American Dustin Johnson who shot the low round of the day at seven-under 65. Johnson is in solo second place after starting the day tied for 33rd, five shots behind the lead.
McIlroy blitzed the course on Thursday with his opening 66, but was mindful that his second rounds as of late have been a total opposite to his opening brilliance. In 14 first rounds so far this year, McIlroy is 50 under; in his 13 second rounds he is nine over.
Last week at Royal Aberdeen he followed up an opening 64 with a second-round 78 and three events before, at the Memorial, he appended a 78 to a 63. But this was not the start of it. So, no one could blame when the Northern Irishman admitted his concerns about his Friday ‘curse’ striking again.
Things didn’t look good at the start as McIlroy made his first bogey of the tournament at the first hole. But the two-time major champion from Holywood would settle down and birdied seven of the next 17 holes, including three of the last four to complete his second dominant round.
Johnson, who was playing in a group right after McIlroy with Ian Poulter and Jimmy Walker, managed to avoid trouble and went bogey-free on Friday. He moved up 31 spots on the leaderboard thanks to his low-round of the day that featured a four-under on the key back nine at Hoylake.
Two shots behind at six-under is a six-player tie for third place between Italy’s Francesco Molinari, Americans Rickie Fowler and Ryan Moore, Spain’s Sergio Garcia and South African’s Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel.
Molinari had a very eventful front nine today. He started by making a bogey on the opening hole, and then reeled in three birdies in the next four holes to move into a tie at the moment with McIlroy atop the leaderboard.
But then he went out of bounds at the eighth and found a bunker with his fourth shot. A splash out to eight feet left the Italian a chance to salvage a double bogey, which he made to hold on at five under. He would drop another at the ninth, but would recover nicely on the back nine going three-under.
Fowler had an up and down day mixing in five birdies and two bogeys for his 69. He birdied the 16th and 17th, and had a good chance for a closing on, but he couldn’t close it with a birdie, despite a sensational bunker shot.
Moore made bogeys on the second and seventh holes on the front nine. But then caught fire making three in-a-row to move to one-under for the day, then added three more the rest of the way including the last two. When he finished, Moore and Molinari had the clubhouse lead at six-under.
Garcia started his day by yanking his first drive way left over some fencing and onto the wrong hole. The shot was so bad and so far right, however, that he got a good lie on the next fairway and was somehow able to get up to the green to make a ‘lucky’ bogey.
But things turned for the better on the very next hole when ‘El Niño’ mixed in a bit of his amazing ball-striking talent. Garcia went pin-seeking at No. 2 and it worked to perfection as he holed out with his approach shot for an eagle. He would move to five-under, one shot off McIlroy’s lead at that moment.
Then he would go back to the dark side as he would bogey the Par-4 third. Garcia would add three birdies and a bogey the rest of the way to join the big tie for third place.
Oosthuizen, the 2010 Open Champion at St. Andrews, had a great round going at four-under thru 12 holes and at the moment just a couple of shots from the lead. But he would go even-par ( two birdies, two bogeys) the rest of the way to stay at six-under after two rounds.
Schwartzel, the 2011 Masters Champion, also had a good round at four-under for the day with only one bogey thru 13 holes. But he lost his ball on the 14th and made a double bogey. But he showed the field that he knows how to close a round with a flurry, by making it look easy with three closing birdies to join a group of players tied at six under.
Rounding up the Top 10 are Scotland’s Marc Warren (68), South African George Coetzee (69) and American Jim Furyk (71).
Defending champion, Phil Mickelson, is a man who can thrill the spectators. And he does very well with his roller coaster rounds and his 70 today could have been a disaster. His opening nine went with two bogeys a birdie and an eagle, and he was fortunate to start the back nine with a par after he gave up on finding his ball on the 10th. He would birdie the last hole though to at least go with some momentum into the weekend.
Tiger Woods had to survive a double bogey and a triple bogey to barely make the cut line at two-over. He started the day the wrong way with a six on the opening Par-4 hole, but was able to get one back with a birdie on the very next hole. He would par his way into the terrible 17th triple bogey.
The 17th included a first wayward tee shot out of bounds to the right and a second tee shot pulled horribly left. He managed to scrape out a triple bogey 7, setting up the need for a birdie at 18 to avoid missing a cut for the second successive tournament since returning from March back surgery. He was able to make the delicate up and down from about hole-high to assure he’d play the final two rounds.
Woods is 14 shots behind McIlroy’s lead. He finished with the same score as 17 others, including Tom Watson, the five-time champion who became the oldest player, at 64, to make the tournament cut.
The cut fell at two over par and inevitably that meant there would be some notable casualties including Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Bubba Watson, Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington and Webb Simpson among others.