“I feel like he could be anywhere from one under to five over,” I said to Joel.
“That’s interesting,” he replied. “He’s at two under, maybe three.”
Suddenly, it dawned on both of us. “You’ve been filling out his scorecard, right?” Joel asked ominously.
Uh, no. I had not. That scorecard he handed me on the 1st tee had 21 empty squares on it. Oh, boy. He snatched the card from my hands and pressed rewind.
Short on 2 for bogey.
Birdies on 3 and 4.
Hooped that 20-footer on 5.
But then he gave it back on 6.
On 7, par; 8, par; 9, par. Three putts on 10, par.
Joel rattled off every score Korhonen made in about 30 seconds, maybe the most impressive thing I saw him do on the course that day. Korhonen was indeed three under—nowhere near what I thought. Joel didn’t bother handing the card back, stuffing it away in his pocket and walking away with his 60-degree wedge. He bumped a hasty chip through the green and then shorted the chip coming back. He had left 12 feet for bogey in the kind of sequence of events where a good caddie steps in and verbally presses pause. Slow down. Go through your process. Let’s make this one.
When Joel tapped in for double, I couldn’t help but feel guilty. Facing a dicey up-and-down for 74 is not the time to go mentally wandering back to the 10th to figure out if Mikko had two- or three-putted from 60 feet. It was a 76 for us, six over.
The good news was Thursday afternoon became what locals call a “proper links day.” On the TV, it was perfectly sunny, with temps in the mid to upper 60s, but in person there was a constant wind of 15 mph and gusts pushing 25 mph. In America, it would keep people from submitting scores to their handicap. In the U.K., they call it “fun.”
Tournament officials had set up the 16th and 18th to play as long as possible. No. 16 was 575 yards on the scorecard but now played dead into the fan. No. 18 was a 483-yard par-4, also straight into the wind.
Players stormed in off the course. Patrick Cantlay was livid, coming up short on 18 after hitting driver, 3-wood. Tommy Fleetwood’s caddie, Ian Finnis, was flabbergasted. “Ridiculass. Ridiculass,” he said. The 6’6″, towering looper from Liverpool speaks so fast with that
Scouse accent he seems to skip some consonants. Maybe that’s why he repeats himself. “Tohmee could’n reach. Tohmee could’n reach. Justin Thoma could’n reach. If Justin Thoma can’t reach the fairway, is-somethin’ wrong.”
I wasn’t about to argue with him. That leaderboard was coming back to us much quicker than I imagined. When we finished, it looked like Joel would need a 65 on Friday just to make the weekend. Now, a smooth 67 would do the trick. Joel was plenty capable of that. We could even make a couple mistakes and survive.
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