British Open report

Laird’s day gets worse with penalty

GULLANE, Scotland - Martin Laird was at home in Scotland, closing in on the lead at the British Open when it all went wrong.

His mess at Muirfield began with a 2-iron that strayed into nasty, yellow rough right of the fairway on the third hole. After a couple of hacks - and a couple of penalty shots - he staggered off with a quintuple-bogey 9.

And that wasn’t even the worst of his forgettable Saturday. Walking up the 16th fairway, he was informed an additional shot was being added to his score for failing to alert all the right people when he moved his ball in the rough on the 10th hole to identify it.

“To say that deflated me, I think would be an understatement,” Laird said.

He ended his long day with an 81 - 12 shots out of the lead.

“Every time I hit a shot that could go one way, it went the other,” Laird said.

Even after chopping his way to a 9 on the third hole, Laird was only 3 over for the tournament. He bounced back with a beautiful 5-iron into the toughest hole, and then made birdie. What gnawed at him was the 10th hole.

In deep rough, Laird marked his ball with a tee and told the marshal who found it that he was going to make sure that it was his.

One problem. The rules require him to tell playing partner Dustin Johnson or one of the walking officials.

“If I had said, ‘Dustin, just went down to find my ball.’ Or, ‘Rules Official, I’m going to identify my ball.’ Even if I said it loud enough for one of them to hear, it would have been fine,” Laird said. “It’s the fact that none of them heard it, even though I said it. So it’s one of those lovely rules of golf.”

School in session

Jordan Spieth, 19, created a stir last weekend by becoming the youngest PGA Tour winner in 82 years.

But he’s smart enough to know there’s plenty left to learn.

Speith hobbled to a 5-over 76 Saturday, hurt by bad bounces and worse decisions.

“I wasn’t patient and that was the issue,” he said.

“Bad bounces are going to happen out here, but I could have shot three shots lower, without even playing any different.”

Too slow?

When Hideki Matsuyama and Johnson Wagner got to the 15th hole Saturday at Muirfield, they were informed that they were not keeping up with the pace of play, that each of their shots would be timed, and if they twice violated the policy, they would receive a one shot penalty.

Matsuyama, a 21-year-old from Japan, took 1 minute 12 seconds over his first putt on the 15th green - and was warned. Then, at the par-5 17th, he hit an errant tee shot. When he took, by the official’s accounting, 2:12 to hit that shot, he was penalized one shot - a penalty that made his par at 17 a bogey, turned his even par 71 into a 1-over 72, and left him 3-over for the British Open and out of the top 10 instead of in it.

“I’m a fast player,” said Wagner, Matsuyama’s American playing partner. “I don’t like slow play, either.

But given his position in the tournament, and given the shot he faced on 17 - laying it up out of the fescue over gorse and pot bunkers - I don’t think he took too long. … I think it’s tragic, and I think the R&A should use better judgment in penalizing it.”

Matsuyama told Japanese reporters that he did not understand that he was in danger of being penalized.

There was a Japanese official walking with the group, and David Rickman, who oversees rules for the Rules and Amateur Status (R&A) governing body, said the message was relayed to Matsuyama in Japanese.

“If there was something lost in translation, clearly that is regrettable,” Rickman said.

Really long drive

Charl Schwartzel’s 5-over 76 Saturday dropped him to 6 over for the tournament, but he hit a drive on the 15th hole of the that shows just how hard and fast the fairways have been this week at Muirfield.

Taking advantage of the firm fairways, Schwartzel hammered a driver off the tee and the ball rolled 450 yards to find the green on a hole that measured 448. The ball ended up 6 feet from the pin, closer to the hole than any of the golfers that were playing the 15th green at the time. Schwartzel missed his eagle opportunity, settling for birdie.

What crowds?

Despite flawless weather, the crowds at Muirfield are noticeably smaller than the last time the British Open came here in 2002.

The R&A reported attendance figures for the first three days of the tournament, as well as the practice. The turnout was slightly higher for practice - a total of 31,320 turned out, but the higher-priced tournament tickets haven’t been as much as 11 years ago.

The opening-round crowd Thursday was 23,393, a significant drop from 30,620 in 2002. The trend was much the same the last two days. At Muirfield’s previous Open, the crowds were 34,479 for the second round, 33,212 for the third.