Much importance has been attached to golf’s world rankings over the thirty plus years since their introduction, but as a form guide to The Open Championship they once again proved valueless yesterday as the top two both missed the cut, while third-placed Justin Rose, the top placed European on that list, had to hole a 10 foot birdie putt on the final green to sneak in with nothing to spare.
For no.1 Dustin Johnson, the 2016 US Open champion, it was the final hole which pushed him over the brink, since he finished six-over par for the event having taken a triple bogey seven at the 18th in his opening round and a double bogey six when he revisited it yesterday.
Carnoustie’s finishing stretch also killed off the challenge of Justin Thomas, the man closest to him in those rankings. He had looked to be well set for the weekend when he opened with a two-under-par on Thursday and when he immediately followed his first bogey of yesterday’s second round, at the fourth hole, with a birdie there seemed no cause for alarm, but three successive bogeys at the next three changed that drastically and while he looked to have righted things with birdies at the 13th and 14th holes, that good work was undone with another bogey brace at the 16th and 17th, to miss out by a stroke.
They were accompanied by many of the sport’s biggest names as more than half the Major winners in the field were eliminated, including their US compatriots Tom Lehman (+4), Bubba Watson (+6), Mark Calcavecchia (+7), Jimmy Walker (+8), Todd Hamilton (+9). Of the Continental contingent Martin Kaymer and Sergio Garcia both missed out by a shot, with the latter’s fellow Spaniard Jon Rahm, yet to win a Major but the second highest placed European in the world rankings, a further shot behind, while South African Major winners Charl Schwartzel (+5), Ernie Els (+7) and Retief Goosen (+9), all departed. David Duval meanwhile withdrew due to illness and Darren Clarke could have been forgiven for feeling rather queasy after failing to improve on his opening day 82 by taking one more shot to get round yesterday and from the other side of the Irish border Padraig Harrington was unable to get anywhere close to repeating his Carnoustie heroics of 11 years ago, running up scores of 76 and 74.
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