{"id":7351,"date":"2025-07-19T05:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T05:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/7351\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T05:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T05:49:08","slug":"conners-keeps-his-cool-to-avoid-the-pratfalls-of-the-open-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/7351\/","title":{"rendered":"Conners keeps his cool to avoid the pratfalls of the Open Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Corey Conners shot two-under on the second day of the Open Championship to make the cut at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland.Warren Little\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

There\u2019s isn\u2019t much that\u2019s memorably good that you can do on the second day of a golf<\/a> tournament. <\/p>\n

On Friday, Rory McIlroy<\/a> kept himself in it. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler put up the best round of his major career, and took the lead. Great stuff. Unless either one wins this year\u2019s Open, no one will remember any of that. <\/p>\n

But memorably bad? That\u2019s definitely doable. <\/p>\n

On Friday, Shaun Norris scored a 10 on the par-four fourth. Up on the big board, they really have to squeeze in the double digits, so it popped all day long. <\/p>\n

How does a professional golfer score a sextuple bogey on a hole that isn\u2019t on water? It\u2019s an involved process.<\/p>\n

Norris\u2019s tee shot was out of bounds, so he dropped and shot again. That one went into a fairway bunker \u2013 one he\u2019d also hit the day before. The next shot hit the lip of the bunker. Same with the next one. <\/p>\n

Opinion: The pressure lifted, McIlroy can ease into back nine of his career<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that, the mind sort of like went a little numb,\u201d Norris said later.<\/p>\n

Four shots later, he\u2019d finally gotten it onto the fairway. Then he missed the green. He did manage to one-putt it, and then birdie the next hole. <\/p>\n

Norris, a 43-year-old South African journeyman, was having a pretty good Open. Were it not for the fourth hole, you\u2019d be seeing him again on Saturday. But that happened so he\u2019s headed home. On the mused scale, he came out more a- than be- about his day. He even laughed about it.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Shaun Norris of South Africa carded a 10 on the par-four fourth hole on Friday at the British Open.Warren Little\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThis game can break the biggest person and people on this planet,\u201d Norris said. \u201cI learned a lot again from this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like the \u201910, the word \u2018again\u2019 really pops in that sentence. <\/p>\n

The Open Championship is different in many ways, but the one that\u2019s most instructive is its unfairness. You can do things the right way, and they just break wrong.<\/p>\n

Unlike almost every other sport, there is never anyone to blame that on. It\u2019s only you and the ball. On this terrain and in this air, the ball does what it likes. <\/p>\n

Last year at Troon, Japan\u2019s Aguri Iwasaki scored a nine. Twice. On consecutive holes. The second was a par-3. <\/p>\n

Iwasaki is a good golfer. He\u2019s won tournaments. But go watch the video of him trying to hack his way out of a bunker. It\u2019s like watching someone who doesn\u2019t know what a trench is trying to dig one. <\/p>\n

On the opposite end of the scale there was Bryson DeChambeau. <\/p>\n

On his first day at the tournament, DeChambeau was a mess, particularly at the end. He bogeyed the two final holes, finishing the day seven over. At several points, you could see him about to throw a rod, or a club, or maybe his caddie. Once the pain was over, he stalked off the course in a huff. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Bryson DeChambeau of the United States recorded six birdies on Friday, including four on the final six holes, to make the cut at the British Open.Christian Petersen\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

About 16 hours later, DeChambeau could do no wrong. Six birdies, including four in the last six holes. He\u2019d just snuck back up to the cutline at plus 1. No one had a better day. What changed?<\/p>\n

\u201cI played the same as I did yesterday,\u201d DeChambeau said. <\/p>\n

You read that line and assume it was said in a friendly way. It was not. Everything had broken his way, and he still wasn\u2019t happy. <\/p>\n

DeChambeau said the only reason he hadn\u2019t freaked out earlier was because, \u201cI want to be a good role model for kids.\u201d <\/p>\n

I can imagine the many at-risk teens who are taking their life cues from this guy, a golfer. <\/p>\n

For the four Canadians here<\/a>, it was a mixed bag. <\/p>\n

Nick Taylor played well, was unlucky and missed another Open cut by two shots. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very frustrated from yesterday because there\u2019s just a lot of dumb things I don\u2019t do,\u201d Taylor said afterward. <\/p>\n

Then Taylor explained that he\u2019d hit the ball where he wanted to, but the \u201cfeel\u201d wasn\u2019t there. As in, the ball did what it wanted after he hit it to the place he meant it to go. Unfair. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Nick Taylor hits his tee shot on the 14th hole during the second round of the British Open on Friday. The Canadian missed the cut by two shots.Russell Cheyne\/Reuters<\/p>\n

His countryman, Corey Conners, was on the other side of the ledger. He skated along the cutline all day long. Midafternoon, it moved above him. Later, as the rains came, it ebbed below him again. <\/p>\n

Conners came up the 18th needing a par to remain. Facing a four-foot putt \u2013 the disaster distance \u2013 Conners holed it. He\u2019ll be the only Canadian to play this weekend. <\/p>\n

Barring a Twilight Zone-esque couple of days, he\u2019s not going to win this thing. But Conners will at least get to wave the flag while the world watches. <\/p>\n

That seems fair. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Corey Conners shot two-under on the second day of the Open Championship to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,2922,82,8023],"class_list":["post-7351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-noastack","tag-sports","tag-topstory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}