Let's start with the good news first — Tommy Robinson finally has a birdie under his belt at a U.S. Senior Open.
In fact, he has three. After not making a birdie during his first experience at a Senior Open two years ago at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, the superintendent at Ravinia Green CC in Deerfield, Ill., will take home a trio of memorable scores from the 2010 event at Sahalee CC. He made a long, downhill put on the first hole for birdie, nearly aced the par-3 fifth hole before settling for an 18-inch tap-in putt and then conquered the lengthy par-4 18th hole in just three shots.
Unfortunately for Robinson, though, those highlights weren't enough to overcome the big numbers that kept haunting the 34-year GCSAA member during his second round. After shooting an 83 in the first round, Robinson finished with an 89 on Friday — a total of 32-over-par for the tournament — and missed the cut by a wide margin.
That Robinson and his playing partners were even able to finish the second round was mildly remarkable. Shortly after the start of play on Friday morning, a think fog moved in and engulfed Sahalee, eventually forced a suspension in play of more than two hours. That moved Robinson's afternoon tee time back to 4:10 p.m. local time, and with five-hour rounds commonplace, it seemed unlikely they would get the full 18 holes in before darkness won out. In fact, when I was forced to leave Robinson's group after their tee shots on 14, it was already almost 8 o'clock and it appeared they would only get in another one or two holes. Instead, they were able to finish off the round.
Ultimately, that's probably a good thing. Nobody wants to come back early on a Saturday morning to finish up just a few holes when they know making the cut is out of their reach. And that would have been the case for Robinson, thanks largely to a host of big numbers — a quadruple bogey, three triple bogeys and a pair of double bogeys — that he'd probably just as soon forget.
Because of my need to hit the road before Robinson officially finished his round, we didn't have a chance to talk on the record Friday. So we'll give his experience at Sahalee some time to settle in before chatting early next week for a post that you can find here on the blog.
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