TOP of the standings, leading the Open and whisked off the course to be plonked in front of the world’s media after a rousing ovation from the galleries?
Life in the rarefied air of major championship golf is full of razzmatazz. Well, not quite. Stuart Manley’s two-under 68, which set the early clubhouse standard for about an hour-and-a-quarter, caught a few folk on the hop, most notably the technicians in the media centre interview room who hadn’t switched the microphones on.
“Can you speak up please,” came the harrumphing plea from some of the elder members of the golf writing fraternity. The R&A press officers just about had to hand out complimentary ear trumpets.
Given the shimmering global stars that were behind him in the draw and making menacing advances on the links, the Welsh journeyman’s stint in the spotlight was always going to be brief and fairly low key. It was a moment to be savoured, though.
These can be once in a lifetime experiences, after all. Manley, a Walker Cup winner with GB&I back in 2003 during his successful amateur days, certainly deserved his 70 odd minutes of fame.
Holing out from the bunker for an eagle on the 17th stirred the senses before the 38-year-old trundled in a raking birdie putt on the last to finish with a flourish.
“I didn’t really dream I’d be sitting here as the early leader,” said Manley into a microphone that was mercifully working by this stage.
Manley’s professional career has had the kinds of ups and downs that would get him honorary membership of the Grand Old Duke of York’s marching battalion.
He has been on a yo-yo between the second-tier Challenge Tour and the main European Tour for the past decade or so and has never had more than one full season at the top table, event though he managed a runners-up finish in the Hong Kong Open a couple of years ago.
The fluctuating nature of his career in the paid ranks is probably best illustrated by a round he put together during the 2014 World Cup. After starting with a brace of birdies, he made a hole-in-one on the third before scribbling down an eye-watering 11 on the fourth.
Yesterday’s neatly assembled round in the vigorous early morning conditions was slightly less eventful.
The build up to it was hardly ideal, mind you. Having been left struggling with a heavy cold in the earlier part of the week, Manley, a winner on the Challenge Tour in 2013, has the small matter of a six-month old baby son to deal with.
“I tried to go to bed early last night, but I was maybe too excited,” he said. “I didn’t get to sleep until quite late and then my son woke up at 3am. He needed his dummy put back in.
“I woke up again at four or something and just ending up looking at the clock as you do.”
Despite his lack of sleep, as well as that kind of bunged up feeling that made him sound like the fellow in that old Tunes anti-congestant lozenge commercial, Manley mapped out a tidy route amid the weaving duneland as others were veering wildly off course.
“I didn’t take too many risks today,” he said. “But I didn’t warm up too well so I thought, ‘okay, this is the game I’ve got, I’m just going to have to plot my way around’. It seemed to work.
“I just tried to make par on every hole and then capped it off with a great finish.”
Back in his younger days, Manley was a reasonable prospect in another roon ba’ game and had trials with Manchester United and Crystal Palace as a footballer.
On the green, green grasses of his native Wales as a teenager, Manley would go toe-to-toe and head-to-head with the likes of Michael Owen and Craig Bellamy, who would both go on to forge highly successful careers.
“I shouldn’t really say it, but he (Bellamy) was a bit of a horrible git,” said Manley of the well-travelled Bellamy who had spells at Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester City as well as a brief loan spell at Celtic.
“He was nasty. I was a centre half and he was a striker. I gave him a few kicks and he wasn’t happy. He was just like that all the time.
“Some people say I should have stayed in football and gone professional but deep down I didn’t believe I was good enough.
“And I didn’t really enjoy it; I thought it was too much pressure. And I loved golf so much.”
Yesterday, that golfing love affair provided a brief encounter with the top of the Open leaderboard.
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