Less than twenty players have won today’s match at the Old course of Royal Troon. Among them, Jon Rahm (+1, round of 70) and Jorge Campillo (+6), who has also been one of the scarce six players who have handed in a card of 68 strokes, the best record of the day. The Extremaduran had to do something special to pass his first cut in a Major and he has done it. The south wind, hard and persistent, has made the differences in this second day of an Open ruled by Shane Lowry (-7), but still needs some clarification to establish the group of real candidates. Let’s let Saturday pass its sentence and finish separating the good from the very good.
In that second club, the one of the very good, Rahm aspires to finish the week. He does so after a rather tricky and grey year in the majors, as if wanting to make clear until the last moment that it has been an accident, a lapse, and that his natural place is, at least, where he is now, eight strokes from the leader with 36 holes to go, one stroke from the top ten and therefore with some margin still to appear in the first positions, who knows if even to fight for the victory.
“Starting with +2 and with the day as it was, there was no choice but to let go and play, knowing that if things didn’t work out, it wouldn’t matter,” the Spaniard explained. Indeed, Jon has been seen today with a greater point of determination. You never know, but maybe that’s why he has received the reward of an unexpected birdie on hole 9, where he was putting from outside the green and in a complicated position, with the ball in the rough and much lower than the feet… A birdie that has arrived loaded with vitamins and from which Jon has reminded us more than ever this year of his best version, powerful and challenging, say what the numbers and even the occasional mistakes say.
The fact is that Jon returns to the front line in a Major over the weekend. The equation, in his case is very simple: if he achieves one of the best results of the day tomorrow, he will still have an option on Sunday, as long as Shane Lowry (-7), Daniel Brown (-5) and Justin Rose (-5) do not take the lead much further.
Indeed, Rose has been a protagonist on this second day. At times it seemed that the Englishman was hitting the ball without taking into account the wind, especially for the first half of the course, which is being played this week against the wind. In addition, he ended up plugging a good cigar on the 18th to reach Brown on the table and definitely postulate himself as a clear candidate for victory, eleven years after his first and only victory in a Major, in case there was any doubt.
The LIV aspirants’ battery is more than interesting, with Burmester (-2) as the tip of the iceberg and some heavyweights in a threatening second row: Joaquín Niemann (PAR), Dustin Johnson (+1) and Brooks Koepka (+1), in addition to Rahm himself. Niemann, whether he likes it or not, will be remembered from now on every time the Open returns to Royal Troon, since he has signed an ‘8’ on hole 8, par 3, the legendary postage stamp, and one of the favourite entertainments of journalists and documentarians is precisely to remember the tragedies that have occurred on such a short par 3… His has been a big one: tee shot to bunker, from there to another bunker, where he needs two shots to get it out and send it back to a sand trap, new exit and three putts… The injustice is that, in a few years, when this accident is remembered, the story will surely not be finished by remembering the splendid reaction of the Chilean, who was going to sign a partial of four less for the last ten holes. Niemann has a very hard head and a well-sharpened self-esteem.
