As Colin Montgomerie tonight sets his alarm clock for ungodly o’clock, will Shane Lowry’s words be playing on his mind?
Monty, who has famously never won a major, will be teeing off tomorrow morning at 6.35am as part of the first grouping at this year’s Open in Royal Troon.
Montgomerie and his playing partners, Luke Donald and Marc Leishman, will be dragging themselves out of the scratcher pretty damn early. Like, 4 o’clock in the morning early.
You might say the early bird catches the worm and starting at an obnoxiously early time last year didn’t do Irish amateur Paul Dunne any great harm, but nobody wants to be out in the first group of the day.
It is not a nice place to be, and Shane Lowry just said what everyone else was thinking on Wednesday.
“I’ve been in plenty of shitty groups over the years, so with all due respect to the golfers, I shouldn’t say that, should I?” said the Offaly native.
“But you know what I mean. I’ve been like last off and first off. I don’t mean by the players I was playing with but I meant the times more so.”
Not this year though, the 29-year-old will be looking to make amends for his final round US Open collapse in a plum grouping with World Number 3 Jordan Spieth and 2013 US Open champion Justin Rose. Not teeing off until 9.03am on Thursday seems to please the World Number 27 also.
Poor old Monty won’t even have the lyrical welcome of Ivor Robson to look forward to at the first tee as the legendary starter has hung up his microphone, to be replaced by corporate executive speech trainer David Lancaster.
Elsewhere two-time winner Padraig Harrington heads out at 8.25am alongside Louis Oosthuizen (SA) and Jamie Donaldson. Last year’s surprise package, Dunne goes out just after Harrington, alongside Scott Piercy and Jamie Lovemark. Graeme McDowell is out at 1.15pm with Matt Kuchar and Andy Johnston.
Meanwhile, 2014 champion Rory McIlroy is scheduled to go out at the immensely civilised time of 9.34am, alongside Hideki Matsuyama and Bubba Watson.
The Down native will be hoping to avoid ‘The Coffin’ bunker alongside the infamous Postage Stamp eighth hole, where he had a spot of bother on Tuesday.
https://youtu.be/ddmiK6oqMKA
The sympathetic applause when he finally gets the ball out of the trap at the sixth attempt is not something he is used to hearing. At least Monty won’t need to worry about sympathetic applause… how many punters will be out early enough to catch the Scot?
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