By Bob Harig in Portrush, Northern Ireland
The sun rises early – very early – in this part of the world during the summer, and thus Justin Hastings could awaken to the light coming through his window and go about the business of getting ready for an early tee time at The Open Championship.
His start suggested he wanted to go back to bed.
The Cayman Islands golfer who is playing in his third major championship this year got off to a rough start at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, making bogeys on his first three holes to immediately put his round in peril.
The fact that he steadied himself after that to shoot 3-over-par 74 in sometimes blustery, rainy conditions was at least a strong positive to take away from his play.
“I was quite calm, actually,” said Hastings, who was in the third group out at 6:57am local time. “It was cold in the morning, and it’s not like the wind laid down the earlier it was. I felt like I hit a lot of quality shots out of the gate and I was just getting awful bounces.
“The first seven holes, I hit three what I would classify as good drives into pot bunkers where I was splashing sand wedge out, so you’re losing shots there. I lipped out hard on 3 and 4, three-putted (No.) 5 from the front edge of the green, so it felt like I was just pulling together the worst-case scenario, but it was nice to battle back the back nine.”
After a first-nine of 40, Hastings shot 1 under-par 34 with eight pars and a birdie over the closing nine holes.
“That’s where you rely on the mental game,” he said. “I was pretty upset when I hit my third or fourth driver in a bunker on 8, but I just had to keep telling myself that I was hitting quality shots, and if I kept doing that for another 12 holes that I couldn’t get unlucky for the whole golf tournament.
“It kind of levelled out a little bit and I started to – the scores started to show.”
Hastings, 21, earned a spot in the field by winning the Latin America Amateur Championship in Buenos Aires in January.
That victory meant starts in the Masters, where he missed the cut; the US Open, where he tied for 55th and was low amateur; and The Open at Royal Portrush, where he played the British Boys tournament in 2018 and a few other links courses at that time.
But aside from that experience when he was 15, Hastings had little time on links layouts, which is why he arrived early and began practising at Royal Portrush on Saturday.
After the tough start on Thursday, the former San Diego State golfer settled down. He ended up making five bogeys and had birdies at the sixth and 12th holes.
“I think, with the bunkers being so well placed, there’s just a lot of times where you have to sack up and hit a really good golf shot,” he said. “Unfortunately, I guess all the shots that I hit were on the edge of being really good, but just on the wrong side.
“I think our strategy was good. Like I said, we did a lot of things well. It’s just that tight margin. I’m sure everybody out there is dealing with it. Yeah, I’m excited for tomorrow.”
Hastings has work to do in order to make the 36-hole cut, which will be for the top 70 players and ties to advance to the weekend. As of early afternoon local time on Thursday, Hastings was in a tie for 79th in the 156-player field with more than 50 players yet to even tee off.
“He got off to a bit of a rough start, but kind of the same thing, just hung in there,” said Cam Smith, the 2022 Open champion at St Andrews who is playing the first two rounds with Hastings. “He hit the ball really good and scrambled well. So I don’t really see too many things that he’s going to struggle with. Yeah, hopefully, he just keeps grinding out there and has a good weekend.”
Their Friday tee time is a bit more reasonable, 11:58am, although there is virtually no predicting the weather, which can be wildly unpredictable.
“Keep doing what we’re doing,” Hastings said. “I really feel like for the same price, that round could have been four shots better. I’m just going to bank on that being the case, and if we go out and maybe get a couple of the good breaks that we’re hopefully due, we can have a good one tomorrow.”
