My 1st British Open at Turnberry, Scotland - The 2nd Rd.

For those who wondered why I wasn't at today's Goofy game. It's b'cos I am here at Turnberry, Scotland for the 138th British Open!

Yesterday was the 2nd day and to summarise the experience, well there was lots clouds, lots of rain, lots of wind, lots of people, lots of beers walking along with people, lots more people when the Tiger appeared, lots of rushing from hole to the next hole to get a decent spot to see the man, then rushing again to the next one hoping to get a seat on the stands to have a good view. Actually watching the golfers putting from eye level is not as good as from the stands except you get to be up close to the golfer. Tiger was just 5 feet away from me at the 10th hole! He was nevertheless engrossed in making his recovery shots and also trying not to look impatient with the Japanese chap (Ryo Ishikawa who was also all over the place except the fairway).

My daughters Le-Anne & Ju-Linne and I watched Tiger at the 8th, 10th, 11th and 16th holes, 16th being the difficult hole with the 'burn' (in Scotland that's a small stream) infront of the very small green) which explained the rushings. We got seats on the 16th stand watching Vijay Singh par his 16th hole before Tiger came up 2 flights later with a beautiful 2nd shot to about 20' fom the pin and eventually complete the 16th with a birdie put.

The atmosphere was just like when we were back in our old school fun fair with lots of people, lots of stalls to go check out, buy the drinks (a can of coke is 1.90 pounds and the angus beef burger is 5.50 pounds), queueing for the ice-cream cone. Earlier we sat at the 12th hole stand (just beside the momument on the small knoll dedicated to the servicemen who served and train in the region around Turnberry during the World Wars. We sat at the 12th stand to watch more golfers come thru as well as Kenichi Kuboya complete a short but very tricky put for par.

The wind (the additional element at Scottish link golf courses) made all the professional golfers look human! What made them still stand out from the rest of us humans is their short game, so consistent, seemingly simple and yet beautifully executed. We watched Justin Leonard play his 10th hole, such character and a gentleman. We watched an Aussie called Timothy Wood at the 16th trying to do what commonly happens on Saturdays at NSRCC, ie, claim here claim there. He tried to get to redrop his 1st drop after his 2nd shot had entered the burn (the first drop left his ball near the yellow hazard line but the referee had declared it in play. As he was making such a fuss, the referee allowed him to redrop after he got his playing partners to agree to let him. Such a baby!!! He got a 6 for this hole and later missed the cut. We also stood near Charlie Hoffman as he placed his 2nd shot with a wedge to about 20 feet from the pin at the boring 12th hole and then throwing his iron to the ground followed with a kick aimed at the club as it bounced back up!! He too missed the cut. So did Tiger, missed the cut I mean. Ha Ha!

We will be leaving in an hour's time for the 3rd day Turnberry and this time we will try to watch Tom Watson and Steve Marino's tee off at 3pm. Maybe today we will try go around help the golfers look for their missing balls, that way you may get a chance to see me on TV!! Ye!! The forecast for today is yet again lots of wind, lots of clouds and some rain. Not much sun at the moment here. Lots of lost ball situations at this rate. I believe the weather at Changi NSRCC must be good today, at least much better than here and you can trust me on this! Bye for now.