Robert

Dinwiddie

The 39-year-old, who’s yet to win in 189 European (DP World) Tour events, hasn’t played much competitive golf of late, making just one start so far this year, a T38 on the Challenge Tour three weeks ago. Over the past three years, he’s played in just seven events, none on a top-tier circuit, and in his last semi-full campaign, missed 16 (of 23) cuts on various tours in 2018, posting a couple of top 25s on the Challenge Tour. The Englishman, who snagged the second of four spots at the 36-hole Final Qualifying event at Fairmont St Andrews on June 28th, is making his third Open appearance after missed cuts in 2017 and 2015, and overall, is contesting his fifth major with a best of T36 at the 2008 U.S. Open in his major debut. Today, he outflanked one bogey with six birdies, and as rounds that count toward his PGA TOUR tally go, handed in his first sub-par lap in 13 rounds after being a cumulative 49-over-par in his previous 12. Of the 78 players in the later session, the Tennessee State product recorded the best score, and did so out of the second-to-last group on Day 1 (4:05 pm start).

The 39-year-old Dinwiddie carded rounds of 71-70 to finish at 3-under 141, and he’ll be joined in the field at St. Andrews by Ireland’s David Carey, who won medalist honors with rounds of 68-69 (7 under), Netherlands’ Lars Van Meijel (67-75) and England’s Alex Wrigley (73-69). Van Meijel and Wrigley advanced via a 3-for-1 playoff that included Englishman Aaron Rai (72-70), who fell out after a bogey in sudden death. “It’s absolutely a dream come true, it really is,” said the 32-year-old Wrigley. “It was an up-and-down day and I hit a nice chip shot on my 16th hole that managed to go in for eagle and then I was really nervous coming in and nervous in the playoff. To hole a couple of nice 3- to 4-footers on the last couple of holes is really sweet. It won’t sink in for a while (reaching The 150th Open), but it’ll sink in when I’m there.” A total of 16 players earned their spots for the final major of the year through qualifying on Tuesday at four locations including Hollinwell Golf Club, Prince’s Golf Club and St. Annes Old Links.

That forward move of 15 spots puts the Englishman in T6 going into the weekend, five shots behind leaders Danny Willett, YE Yang and Scott Hend. After a bogey at 4, Dinwiddie hit a sticky patch with back-to-back bogeys at 5 and 6. But he recovered with bounceback birdie at 7, added another at 11 and ended his day with two more at 17 and 18. As in his opening 70, the 34-year-old hit 13 greens in regulation but he’s limited the damage so far with 7-for-10 scrambling stats. Apart from Masters champion Willett, he’s the only home English player inside the top 10 right now.

At 103rd on the Race to Dubai the Englishman could make solid strides towards retaining his European Tour card for only the third time. He started the season badly, missing four consecutive weekends, but has since gone 10-for-13 including six weeks inside the top 30 - and for what it’s worth the best two results (top tens in Austria and Germany) came as geograpically close to Prague as the Tour has so far traveled. Perhaps of greater note is that Dinwiddie has a fine record in the Czech Republic. Not only is he 4-for-5, but he led the second tier Czech Challenge Open after 18 holes in 2012 (finishing T26), finished T2 in the same event 12 months later, and was T4 on this course 12 months ago.

Dinwiddie failed to retain his playing rights last season, and has had only the Australian PGA Championship as an opportunity this term (he missed the cut). Yet he will have been keen to return to the West Australian track after last year posting rounds of 70-71-69-70 to earn T15, one of his four top 20 finishes in the season. Those stats hint at a man who has thus far struggled to keep his card, doing so only twice in six attempts. His first (and indeed last) color on the card was blue at the 1st (it returned at the 16th). In between he lashed seven birdies. The first was at the 3rd and the rest came in pairs: at 6 and 7, 9 and 10, then finally 14 and 15. He should retain a position in the round one top ten and it will be the first time he has done so since last March’s Thailand Classic.

The Englishman ruptured a disk in his back and missed the whole second half of the 2014 season. He was also 0-9 in this year’s campaign before finally making the weekend and finishing T70 in last week’s Nordea Masters. If that was a low-key turning point, today’s round was a huge leap forward and got off to the best possible start with an eagle-3 at Diamond Country Club’s opening hole. Dinwiddie added birdies at 7, 9, 11 and 15 and dropped his only shot of the day at 8. “It’s the longest I’ve ever had away from golf so I didn’t realise how long it might take me to get my game back. But I feel I am getting closer and this round showed that a bit,” said the 32-year-old, who found 9 (of 14) fairways and hit 14 greens in regulation.

Dinwiddie continues to come on strong during the second half of the season after missing the cut in his opening nine events. His good play continued at the KLM Open last week where he shot a 62 on Sunday to post T23. That means he’s finished T28 or better in each of his last five starts, that run including T10 at the European Masters and solo fourth in the Czech Masters. The Englishman hasn’t played in this event since a missed cut in 2010 but in his only other appearance he took T8 at Royal Park in 2009.

The Englishman missed all three cuts on the ‘Desert Swing’ but posted T23 in the Tshwane Open and improved again with a T15 in the Perth International in Australia two weeks ago. He’s on target to better that after an impressive lap of Black Mountain featuring five birdies and 13 pars. Dinwiddie set the tone with an opening birdie at 10 and picked off three more in five holes when circling red at 17, 1 and 3. He added another at the par-5 6th to end the day just three shots behind leader Peter Uihlein. In an impressive display of ball striking, he piped 12 (of 14) fairways and missed just one green in regulation.

Dinwiddie failed to even break 72 during his combined six rounds at Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Dubai but was on the mark here. He made just a single bogey while all three of his birdies came on par 3s (16, 5 and 8). The Englishman hasn’t cashed in any of his last six starts in South Africa, a run that includes a missed cut in this event 12 months ago despite a 69 in round two.