Royal Troon savages Canadian hopes at The Open

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TROON, Scotland — Corey Conners’ visions of having a late tee time in the final round at the Open Championship blew up on the seventh hole on Saturday at Royal Troon.

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By the time he walked off the course late evening, the Canadian’s plans had changed.

“Do you want to just head to the first tee now for Round 4?” Conners deadpanned to caddie Danny Sahl, referring to the early Sunday tee time he will have after tumbling down the leaderboard.

In treacherous conditions that saw the leaderboard shaken like a snow globe, Conners shot a nine-over par 80, dropping from a tie for seventh into a tie for 62nd.

The sweet-swinging Canadian’s third round was sunk by a rare mishit iron shot off the tee at the par-4 seventh hole. One that, after a series of unfortunate events, led to a triple bogey seven.

“It’s certainly the shot I would love to have over,” Conners said.

The 32-year-old from Listowel, Ont. stood on the seventh tee at one-under for the championship. At the time, he still had Claret Jug dreams and planned to take the conservative option of splitting the fairway pot bunkers with one of his famed trusty long irons.

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Unfortunately in linksland, the golf gods are quick to laugh at your plans.

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“I just really bladed a three-iron trying to guide one down the fairway, it flew really low,” he said.

Despite the poor contact, Conners figured his ball would be in the long fescue grass just short of the fairway. It wasn’t. In fact, it ended up in a gnarly patch of coastal sand just 152 yards from the tee.

“I don’t know exactly what it hit,” he said. “But it ended up being way behind and right of the line I thought. I think it might have hit one of the posts holding up a rope or something.”

How’s that for rub of the green? Then, things got worse.

“I was in a sand dune on a big downslope and had to get it up in the air and didn’t quite get enough air under it, and it went straight into some gorse bushes.”

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Lost ball. Penalty stroke. Drop it back in the dune.

“I got rewarded with trying the shot again, and it was better the second time.”

By the time he got his ball into the hole, it added up to a triple bogey seven; which Conners followed up with a bogey at the Postage Stamp eighth, another at the ninth, and a double bogey at the 10th after losing a second ball to a gorse bush.

By that point in the late afternoon, Royal Troon was savaging most players with heavy rain and winds. A soggy and bone-weary Mackenzie Hughes described the extreme conditions he faced during his four-over round of 75 that saw him fall from 13th to 40th position.

“It was just really, really hard with that kind of rain, and then the wind on that back nine was all into our face. We were hitting three-woods into par-fours,” Hughes said. “It was pretty much playing impossible.”

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Hughes hit a three-wood into greens at par-four 11th and 15th, as well as a three-wood into the par-3 17th.

Like his pal Hughes, Conners was also in disbelief with the severity of the wind on the back nine.

“I hit a very solid three wood on my target and it just didn’t carry 230 yards and ended up in the bush, I didn’t think it was going to be any trouble,” he said of his lost ball at the 10th. “I had to go back to the tee. I was walking up to the fairway and the official said they haven’t found your ball yet.”

On the 18th hole, Conners’ tee-shot with his driver travelled just 249 yards.

“It’s crazy. I absolutely smoked my drive,” he said. “I couldn’t have hit it any farther.”

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In the end, Royal Troon battered, tested, and bested many players on Saturday, but the two Canadians suffered a worse fate than most, and both were left reflecting on a pair of very difficult rounds.

“I didn’t wear rain pants, and I’m soaking wet. My pants are just absolutely drenched,” Hughes said. “Yeah, that was a tough day.”

Golf can be a cruel game, and there’s no room for pictures on the scorecard. We pointed out to Conners that the tournament shot-tracker had a very succinct explanation of his tournament-crushing calamity at the seventh hole.

Shot 1: To Dirt.

Shot 2: To Bushes.

“That was correct,” the golfer said.

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