Weather is the winner but Dyson shows his maturity

Over the weekend at Royal St George’s, the Yorkshireman earned a creditable top-10 finish amid the driving rain and cutting coastal winds with a performance of measured control.

In the first round at Birkdale in 2008 he shot an 11-over par 82. On Saturday it was a two-over 72 at Sandwich, when many about him were losing their heads. And yesterday, a level-par 70 against the battering wind and flashstorms cemented a fine effort.

The difference between the two spells of his career?

Trust in his swing and a relaxed attitude.

“It was brutal from the first tee to the 14th tee. It was as bad as I’ve ever played in, it reminded me of Birkdale,” reflected the 33-year-old from Malton on Saturday.

“But I managed to cope with it a lot better than I did back then. I played great.”

Links golf in horrific weather – the likes of which was seen on Saturday at Sandwich, at Birkdale and on the third day at Muirfield nine years ago – is a difficult beast to tame.

Holes play long against the elements while downwind shots can get away from you. Changing wind direction makes correct club selection imperative.

Stewart Cink, the 2009 Open champion, tweeted that he hit a driver just 208 yards on one hole on Saturday.

It is a war of attrition. Yet, playing well, Dyson revelled in it.

“It’s as much fun as I’ve had in that type of weather. Obviously it helps if you’re striking it well and playing well,” he said of Saturday’s round.

“If you’re not quite striking it how you want to be it’s not a pleasant place to be.

“I played lovely on the front nine at Birkdale and then just had that one hole where I made a nine on the 10th and it’s a struggle as it is without chucking in a five-over on a par four.

“It was that one hole and all of a sudden you’ve got that monster par-five 11th at Birkdale and I made a six there and suddenly from one over you’re now seven over and it’s an uphill struggle from there in any conditions, let alone howling gales.

“But I got off to a much better start Saturday, parred the first three, three-putted four – which was a shame – then lipped out at the next and played pretty steadily from there.

“If you lose your head in that situation then you start dropping shots for fun – it’s as simple as that.

“So I’m very pleased with how I approached the conditions over the weekend, mentally.

“Walking down the second hole (on Saturday) me and my caddie just looked at each other when the rain was coming in sideways.

“He just said ‘come on let’s just have a bit of fun today and see what happens’. And I managed to do pretty well and shoot two over.

“When you’re out there you’re just thinking about trying to keep your head, it’s so easy to lose your focus and to start thinking about just getting in and finishing on that 18th.

“I said to my caddie at the start of the week every time we’ve got a club I’m going to take a club extra and just swing through and I did that really well Saturday and Sunday.

“I struck the ball really well, managed my game well and that’s exactly what you had to do out there.

“(On Sunday) I played just how I had done the first three days.

“I missed a couple of putts but they are very hard to read. You’d have one putt where you’d get a gust of wind and it was gone, then you’d hit the next putt the same and wouldn’t get the gust of wind you thought you were going to get and it misses on the other side.

“But I’m very pleased with level par in that.”

The highlight yesterday in the Yorkshireman’s closing 70 was an eagle on the par-five seventh which was played against a crosswind of 40mph.

It also kept him in the hunt at that stage after two dropped shots in his first six holes.

“I didn’t hit a very good drive and the wind was pumping at the time,” said Dyson.

“I couldn’t get the ball airborne off the tee. Second shot I just went with five wood and tried to run one through and just got a heavy bounce, it took a bounce left, skipped past the bunkers and went to eight feet and I managed to roll the putt in, which was a big bonus.

“First six holes I didn’t miss a shot but I bogeyed the two par-threes trying to judge the wind.

“So I felt I deserved level par after seven and got the bonus of a birdie on eight.

“I let it slip a little bit after that. A bad shot on nine left me in a drop zone and I couldn’t have dropped it in a worse lie if I tried. I tried to lob it out and thinned it.”

Dyson dropped another shot on 10 but showed his growing maturity by not bogeying again, and picking up a birdie on the par-five 14th.

It was a strong performance, one that points to better things to come for Dyson when the mood grabs him.

One man who has had his time but still keeps coming back to show his love for links golf is five-times champion Tom Watson.

Grinning from ear to ear as he walked to each green with the rain and wind nearly whipping him off his feet, Watson revelled, where so many looked uncomfortable, in the biting weekend conditions. The maestro, who had successive rounds of 72, said: “The challenge of dealing with conditions like this is fun.

“The wind is the huge challenge any time you play any golf course but particularly a links golf course, because of the bounce.

“Conditions are bothersome, but you just try to do the best you can to keep your grips dry and your wits about you and go about your business to try to make pars out there.

“That’s the beauty of this game, and it’s also the unknown factor.

“You have to study it and get good at it.”

How the wind and rain made life so tough...

So what affect did Saturday’s attrocious weather have on scoring?

The statistics show the gulf between scoring conditions in the sunshine of Friday and the wind and rain of Saturday was startling.

A total of 359 birdies were made at Royal St George’s on Friday by the 156 competitors.

Only 113 were managed by the 71 who took to the course 24 hours later.

The average score on Friday was 72.974 strokes while the weather on Saturday increased the average to 74.690.

The 495-yard par four, comfortably the toughest of all the holes at Sandwich yielded no birdies at all on Saturday.

Even with the tee forward 20 yards, not one of the 71 players vying for the Claret Jug got anything out of the hole.

Making par was a great success, and only 18 players managed it.

Forty-three made bogey, eight a double-bogey.

Hole 14 was similarly treacherous.

Rory McIlroy sent his tee shot out of bounds down the right of the 547-yard par five on Saturday and ran up a double bogey, so ending any hopes the US Open champion had of making a weekend charge.

Gregory Havret, runner-up at the US Open 13 months ago, carded a 10 on the 14th, a hole that played to a scoring average of 5.225.

The second hardest hole was the par-four eighth, coming on the back of the easiest hole, the par-five seventh, which played downwind.

Bubba Watson hit a drive of 400 yards on the seventh on Friday and made birdie.

Saturday it was only a par, followed by a bogey on the dogleg right 453-yard eighth, a score matched by 30 other players.

The seventh was the only hole on the course on Saturday that played below its par.

It had done so as well on Friday, along with the par fours at the fifth, 12th and 13th each of which gave golfers respite from the elements and the severity of the rest of the holes by offering a birdie chance.

The success of Darren Clarke this week owed much to his iron play. He was the most consistent player in hitting greens in regulation.