Good morning, it's 4am est and it is a beautiful, clear, sunny calm morning in Sandwich at the Open Championship as Lee Westwood has just striped his tee shot at the first right down the middle.
Earlier at 1.30am est Scotland’s Peter Whiteford got the second round of the championship underway,one of 50 competitors within five shots of the leaders.
Thomas Bjorn and the young English amateur Tom Lewis start the day -5, 65 with a single shot advantage over Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez and Americans, Lucas Glover and Webb Simpson at -4. Graeme McDowell is tied in sixth place alongside Darren Clarke, Germany’s Martin Kaymer, England’s Simon Dyson, Sweden’s Fredrik Andersson Hed, Australia’s Kurt Barnes, Korea’s Jung-Gon Hwang and Americans Kyle Stanley, Ricky Barnes, Jeff Overton and Ryan Palmer all at -2, while there are 17 players tied in 18th place at -1, 69.
As for some of the pre tourney favourites, Rory McIlroy started the Championship with a +1,71. He is part of another large group with World No. 1 Luke Donald, No. 2 Lee Westwood, reigning Masters champion Charl Schwartzel and current Amateur champion Bryden Macpherson from Australia.
The wind will pick up later this morning into the afternoon as the tide rolls in, so there is a distinct advantage to these early players, and the weather is expected to get worse for the weekend. The 154 man field will be cut to the top 70 and ties tonight.
Young English amateur, Tom Lewis is a big story at Royal St Georges and I watched his press conference in front of 150 or so journalists and a world wide TV audience and he was very composed and here is an example of his mindset for today..
"I’m just going to treat it as another day. Golf is a four day event. Hopefully, I can carry on doing what I’m doing and, hopefully, it will work by the end of the week."
For a full scoreboard click on European Tour.
I am heading for the gym where we have this on the tv's and will be back for an update around 9.45am..
Bryan Angus also on twitter@mummmbles
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