Robert Rock was already heading to Carnoustie next week to work at The Open in a coaching capacity.
He might now have to take his clubs.
Rock, ranked No. 244, set the record for the lowest 36-hole total since the Scottish Open was launched by the European Tour in 1972, adding a seven-under 63 in the second round on Friday to his 64 on Day 1. So far, he has made 13 birdies and not dropped a shot.
Photo: AP
Not only did it give the English golfer a two-shot lead on 13-under 127 at Gullane, it also gave him a great chance of earning one of the final qualification spots for The Open just up the east coast of Scotland.
“It’s everything for me,” Rock said.
On a day when players shot low scores because of a lack of wind, the course record was broken twice — by Connor Syme of Scotland (62) and then Hideto Tanihara of Japan (61). The layout has only been played once before, at the Scottish Open in 2015.
Tyrrell Hatton (64) and unheralded Swede Jens Dantorp (65) were the closest challengers to Rock. Eddie Pepperell (63) and Rickie Fowler (66), the winner at Gullane three years ago, were a shot further back.
One of golf’s more nattily dressed players, Rock is most famous for overcoming Tiger Woods in a last-group, final-round shootout at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship in 2012. That remains the second and most recent professional win for a player who never wears a golf hat and seemingly never has a hair out of place.
Nowadays, the 41-year-old Rock — a former club pro — has started coaching again. Among his part-time pupils are Ryder Cup captain Thomas Bjorn and up-and-coming English player Matt Wallace, whose two wins this year have secured a place at The Open for the first time.
“My job is to be there with him [Wallace] and help him prepare. I was looking forward to that anyway,” Rock said, before adding with a smile: “But I’d love to play there, of course.”
To do that, he has to be one of the leading three players to finish in the top 10 and ties who are not otherwise exempt for Carnoustie. And that’s far from guaranteed with Gullane as defenseless as it has been this week.
Hatton, likely to be in Europe’s Ryder Cup team against the US in Paris in September, opened with a 65 and has only made one bogey this week.
Dantorp, who is playing in his second full year on the tour and has only one top-10 finish, went down No. 18 needing a birdie to tie the lead. He made a bogey, his first of the week.
Tanihara was nine-under-par for his round after 15 holes and required two more birdies to become the first player in European Tour history to shoot a 59. He could only par his way home, but that still meant Syme’s 62 from the morning was the course record for about eight hours.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
Taiwanese badminton superstar Lee Yang broke down in tears after publicly retiring from the sport on Sunday. The two-time Olympic gold medalist held a retirement ceremony at the Taipei Arena after the final matches of the Taipei Open. Accompanied by friends, family and former badminton partners, Lee burst into tears while watching a video celebrating key moments in his professional sporting career that also featured messages from international players such as Malaysia’s Teo Ee Yi, Hong Kong’s Tang Chun-man, and Indonesia’s Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan. “I hope that in the future when the world thinks about me, they will
Former Formosa Dreamers player Ilkan Karaman was killed in a traffic accident in Datca, Turkey, Turkish media reported yesterday. He was 34. The former Turkish national team player was reportedly hit by a car, the driver of which was allegedly drunk, while he was standing on a sidewalk, Turkish newspaper Sozcu reported. Karaman and his friends were on their way to the beach town of Dalaman to go scuba diving when they stopped at a gas station to buy gasoline, it reported. Karaman was hit by the car while waiting on a sidewalk as his friends were buying gasoline, it
ANKLE PROBLEM: Taiwan’s Ye Hong-wei and Lee Chia-hsin had a disappointing end to their tournament after an injury forced them out of their mixed doubles semi-final Taiwanese badminton ace Tai Tzu-ying on Friday was knocked out in the women’s singles quarter-finals at her last Taipei Open. The world No. 3 lost 21-18, 16-21, 22-24 to Putri Kusuma Wardani of Indonesia in a match that stretched 68 minutes at the Taipei Arena. Despite her higher ranking, Tai said she was not too sad about the loss, given her struggle with a lingering knee injury. “Wins and losses are just part of the game. Actually, I think I’m going to lose every single match considering my condition now,” said the five-time champion of the Super 300 event, who has announced plans
RSS