McDowell cashes in on calm before storm
GRAEME McDowell admitted dream conditions at Castle Stuart helped him on the way to an overall score of 11 under par at the Barclays Scottish Open on Friday.
The Northern Irishman, who shares the lead after the second round with Scottish duo Peter Whiteford and Scott Jamieson, insists some of the early players were even thinking of score of just 60 given the dry and windless conditions – hours before thunderstorms and rain brought play to a halt on safety grounds.
The 2010 US Open champion said: “We got to the course in the morning and realised conditions were going to be easy and it was going to be there for the taking a little bit. It was nice to get off to the start that I did.
“I made a good birdie on 10 and a good par save on 11 and I eagled the 12 and birdied 13; that’s four under par through four holes. That was a dream start.
“I continued to play some nice golf, hit a lot of quality iron shots, didn’t convert them all, but that’s the nature of links golf. You’re going to give yourself chances. And the greens are running pretty good, they are a nice pace, not particularly fast and you can really have a go at your putts.
“The golf course doesn’t offer much of a challenge off the tee, but the greens are tricky. It’s tough in and around the greens here. Like any links golf, I suppose, any links course in the world, if you don’t get the wind, if you don’t get the elements then it will be taken apart and that’s how it was on Friday morning.
“I knew there was a low score out there. We were talking about someone doing 60, it was that kind of easy.”
When asked whether the low scores leave the danger of the championships at Castle Stuart this weekend being turned into a turkey shoot, McDowell said: “It’s links golf and links golf without the wind is generally pretty low scoring. There’s plenty of fans out there to see us play good golf and we are certainly giving them that.
“The balance is just right. It’s going to give us some confidence for sure going into next week’s Open, but it’s probably 20-something to win the Scottish Open this weekend. We’ll certainly not be doing that at St George’s (Open venue). If the wind gets up, this course is tricky enough in and around the greens to where you start tucking pins away, it would be tricky.”
