The feel-good story from the first round of the British Open wasn’t scripted by Adam Scott, but by a much less heralded Australian golfer.
Melbourne battler Ashley Hall enjoyed the ride of his life and posted the best back nine to boot to thrill his entourage of family and friends who made the long trek to Lytham to support the 28-year-old on his major debut.
Playing in the last group of the day and finishing in mist and near-darkness and before empty grandstands as staff began packing up the scoreboards, the world No.610 rebounded from a six-over-par 40 on the outward nine with five brilliant birdies and no blemishes coming home.
Rather than throw in the towel after stacking up three bogeys and two ghastly doubles to turn a dozen shots adrift of leader Scott, Hall turned to his father Geoff, who was carrying the rookie’s bag, with a resolute plan.
“I said to him: ‘Okay, let’s try and shoot maybe the best back nine of the day’,” Hall said.
“And he said: ‘Don’t get too greedy’.
“I said: ‘Let’s be greedy, I’ve got to get back into the tournament’.”
And greedy Hall got, feasting on birdies on the 11th, 13th, 14th, 16th and 17th holes and shading the lip for another on the last that, had it dropped, would have taken him back to level par.
His brilliant fightback came as no surprise to Hall himself.
“I knew I’d been playing well all week. I’d been playing well at home,” said Hall, who gained his ticket to Lytham through regional qualifying at Kingston Heath in January.
“I’m fortunate enough – maybe unfortunate enough – that I’ve had months to prepare for this.
“I haven’t been playing any other tournaments and I just knew that it would come around eventually.”
Undeterred by his dire start, Hall put his troubles on the front nine down to “just tiny minute things”.
He took an unplayable lie on the second hole after landing up the face of a fairway bunker and then had to drop it back into the pot.
He plugged in another bunker on the sixth for his second double and had to cop a second unplayable on eight after finding the rough with nowhere to go because of an overhanging tree.
“So I thought nothing much else could go wrong,” said Hall, who spent the past few months preparing for his Open assault on carefully chosen links layouts in Tasmania and at the Flinders course on the Victorian coast where Peter Thomson used to hone his game.
“I figure he won this five times, so there must be something in that.”
Making Hall’s unforgettable afternoon out even more memorable was also having his mother Carol, wife Tara and 10-month-old Cooper at Lytham.
Because he didn’t tee off til just before 4pm, he passed the day looking after his handful of a son.
“Cooper’s a good time waster,” Hall said.
“Tara went and actually got her hair done, so I was babysitting until almost lunchtime.”