They came to worship at the court of the boy king. In their thousands they lined the 1st fairway – two, three, four deep and more, with not a space from tee to green and back the other side, half a mile of humanity all wanting to catch glimpses of the boy in green. Every step of the way he was applauded, just for being him. It was an astonishing sight. A giggling gaggle of young girls collecting the rubbish tried to attract his attention and were admonished by a marshall: "Please don't forget he is working." Embarrassed, they sidled away.
The level of expectation on Rory McIlroy since his US Open win has risen almost to unreasonable levels. Every drive must find not just the fairway but the correct side; every approach shot find the green; and every putt snake unerringly into the hole. Nothing less will do. But on Friday the fire burned no fiercer than it had on the first day when he ground his way to one over par, solid enough in the conditions but scarcely inspirational in conception.
This time it took six holes for the spark to burst into any sort of flame. The first two holes had been played solidly enough to set up birdie chances, each from around eight feet, but they were spurned, the ball sliding by. His tee shot on the short 3rd, an attempt to run the ball up the slope in front of the green to a pin cut on the front portion of the green, dribbled back down. "He nobbled that," said one harsh critic by the tee. His putted approach rushed by 18ft, and he holed the tricky downhill return with some nonchalance to maintain his equilibrium.
He was splitting fairways, booming the ball past the towering, treacherous Himalayas bunker on the right of the 4th – a nightmare for club members but in play for the professionals only if the wind blows mightily in their faces. His approach fell short again, although this time he putted deadweight up the slope to get his par.
Now came another chance. The 5th measures 419 yards but, with an insistent wind dead behind, is drivable. A shade more draw and McIlroy would have covered the pin, but from just left of the green, he contrived only a weak chip and his birdie putt from four feet, lipped out.
It was the 6th, played out in the magnificent amphitheatre of the massive dunes known as the Maidens, that the genesis of a challenge began. His tee shot finished eight feet from the hole and although by the time he was able to hit his putt, his two partners had already played 10 shots between them, he duly knocked it in for his first birdie.
Like the Lord, though, St George's giveth and it taketh away. The par-five 7th, downwind again, brought a second birdie, but on the 8th, a poor choice of shot into the wind saw the ball drift way to the right from where a poor chip and two putts took him back down again. Another bogey at the 10th saw him back where he started the day, and successive birdies at 13th and 14th were followed by a dropped shot at the next. He had still not made the leaderboard.
For the first part of the day, St George's put on its finery and transformed itself from brutal to benign. The wind that had massacred the first round had dropped and the sun shone from a pale blue sky. All over the course the colours emerged, replacing the austerity blacks and greys of the windproofs and waterproofs. On the main grandstand, the flags hung sluggishly. Come and get me, the course seemed to be saying, knowing that with the weekend, according to the forecasters, comes Armageddon.
For a while, until the first stirrings of the breeze began to ripple the hayfields, it was sublime and yet no one had been prepared to take it by the scruff until Darren Clarke, two under overnight, gave it a run. Two birdies and an eagle on the front nine, offset against a double-bogey six at the difficult 4th, got things moving in the right direction, and although a shot went at the 10th, he rolled in putts on the 12th and 13th of eight and 12 feet respectively, and suddenly, Clarke's name was on its own at the top of the leaderboard.
Shots went at the 14th where, faced with one of the most difficult shots in golf – a downwind chip, from the tightest of lies, over a bunker, to a tight pin, to an out-of-bounds backdrop hard by the other side of the green – he overcooked it and failed to get up and down, and the short 16th.
Golfers like to take a positive memory with them, though, and at the last, a seven iron, cut into the green, set up one final birdie for a second successive 68 to ensure he will start in the final group.
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