You find all sorts of characters hanging out around the foot of the Open leaderboard. There’s Denwit Boriboonsub, a 20-year-old Thai who qualified by shooting 28 around the back nine of the Malaysian Open. Altin van der Merwe, a South African amateur who has just quit his day job as a waiter to concentrate on golf. Wyndham Clark, whose one and only top-30 finish in a major was the US Open he won last year. And the 58-year-old Todd Hamilton, who secured his single major right here at Royal Troon 20 years ago, and is still bowling up every summer to make the most of the exemption he earned doing it.
Oh, and there’s also some fellow by the name of Eldrick Woods, or “Tiger” to those who know him. Woods followed the 79 he made in the first round by scoring 77 in the second, which gave him a 36-hole total of 156. That put him 14 shots over par, well outside the projected cut line. It was the worst week he has ever had at an Open, and, but for the final putt from three-feet on the 18th, it would have been the worst 36-hole score he has ever recorded at a major championship. As it was, it equalled the 80-76 he shot at the US Open at Chambers Bay in 2015.
