Lytham greens speeded up for 2nd round
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Tiger Woods has got his big Open wish for faster Royal Lytham greens.
Woods played superbly yesterday but regularly came unstuck on the greens, his putts more often than not coming up short.
Afterwards Woods claimed the greens were sluggish and admitted he would have bagged more birdies had he given some of his putts a firmer thump.
Well, Woods and the rest of the field arrived at Lytham with he news that the greens have increased in speed – this morning, the greens were double cut at 3.25mm and were rolled. The average pace is 11.2ft on the Stimpmeter, compared to 10 ½ feet yesterday.
It will be interesting to see how Woods (67, -3) fares when he tees it up in the 2nd round at 2.43pm alongside Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia.
Once again calm and benign conditions greeted the players when they turned up and indeed winds will be light and variable in direction for much of the day.
However, of the early starters nobody has a significant move and charge though we fully expect the fireworks to fizz at lunchtime when the early pacesetters, including Adam Scott (1.43pm), Paul Lawrie (1.32), Zach Johnson (2.10) Bubba Watson (2.21) – and of course Tiger – follow one another.
Woods found himself way down in equal 77th place in the 1st round putting stats (see below) with 30 putts made for an overall 1.67 average.
*1st round putting statistics
1st 2 (position) LAWRIE, Paul 23putts 1.28average
2 22 SCHWARTZEL, Charl 24 1.33
3 2 JOHNSON, Zach 25 1.39
3 14 AIKEN, Thomas 25 1.39
3 22 JAIDEE, Thongchai 25 1.39
3 22 JONES, Brendan 25 1.39
3 37 SINGH, Jeev Milkha 25 1.39
3 80 DYSON, Simon 25 1.39
9 1 SCOTT, Adam 26 1.44
9 6 MCDOWELL, Graeme 26 1.44
9 14 DONALDSON, Jamie 26 1.44
9 22 KUCHAR, Matt 26 1.44
9 54 JIMENEZ, Miguel Angel 26 1.44
9 54 WHITNELL, Dale 26 1.44
9 80 DALY, John 26 1.44
9 80 KELLY, Troy 26 1.44
17 6 MUTO, Toshinori 27 1.50
17 22 DA SILVA, Adilson 27 1.50
17 22 SLATTERY, Lee 27 1.50
17 37 MATTESON, Troy 27 1.50
17 54 FUJIMOTO, Yoshinori 27 1.50
17 54 ENGLISH, Harris 27 1.50
17 54 RAMSAY, Richie 27 1.50
17 80 TILEY, Steven 27 1.50
17 80 CASEY, Paul 27 1.50
17 80 ODA, Koumei 27 1.50
17 99 MICKELSON, Phil 27 1.50
17 150 ICHIHARA, Kodai 27 1.50
