PRO-AM day at Royal County Down and one thing appears certain – this week is going to be a test of technique and mental resilience.
Squally showers scudded across the links all day and left both Shane Lowry and Padraig Harrington wondering just what a realistic winning score could be.
“Practice day is always tough. You always think the worst in practice,” said Harrington who is making his 29th consecutive Irish Open start this week.
“It is feeling difficult at the moment but obviously a lot depends on the weather that we get and then some depends on the set-up we get.
“It’s always better to have a difficult golf course that could be set up easy than to have an easy golf course that they kind of have to trick up for the scoring.
“If you hit any green out there in these conditions, you’re playing well. So it’s not like they have to tuck the pins. The greens are drying out quick. They are very firm to chip on to and they are reasonably quick to putt on.
“Yeah, I don’t know if you want to play good golf out there more so you want to think well out there. You want to get your head in the game and work your way around the golf course, be clever. And be patient, I suppose. But a lot does depend on the weather and the set-up.”
The weather forecast could best be described as ‘mixed’ for the week ahead so patience will be the watchword if you want to compete.
Harrington added: “Right now it’s nothing to do with being a great swinger of the golf club or ball-striker. It is full on a hundred per cent course management.
“You’ve got to make the right decisions at the right time. You’ve got to work your way around the golf course. Challenge where you need to challenge and be patient where you have to be. You can’t do one thing all the time.
“I’m finding the golf course tough, and you know, as my caddie keeps saying, ‘if you’re finding the conditions tough, how do the rest of them think about it?’ I’m taking some solace from the fact that everybody is finding it difficult this week. In these conditions, it is very, very difficult.”
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hane Lowry played the back nine in the pro-am and went straight back out to walk the front nine after, ‘playing six shots from the gallery’.
The 2019 Open Champion, who made a quick visit to Royal Portrush on Tuesday, was still trying to find his bearings ahead of his 12.40pm tee time today.
“I haven’t played it enough. I haven’t had the opportunity to come up here and play as much as I would like. I tried to come up in the summer and didn’t work out.
“I would like to know it a little bit better. But for me it looks like you try and just hit the front edge of every green and try to make par on every hole, and I think if you do that you’ll be okay.”
He added; “I forgot how hard it was. It’s going to be an unbelievable test. “The course is firm and fast for some reason because it has not stop raining in Ireland all summer. I don’t know what they are doing up here.
“It’s going to be a really tough test and I think it could be one of the highest-winning scores ever in a the European Tour event this week. Would I take level par and sit here and wait? Possibly.
“That’s how tough it’s going to be. But we have played in probably just the toughest conditions.
“It will take a lot of good golf, a lot of patience and a lot of holing a lot of putts for pars and it will take a lot of good stuff to do well this week.”
