Adam Scott, The Long Putter And 36-Holes To Go

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The dreaded, seemingly non-conforming long putter and the act of bracing it against the torso is 36-holes away from capturing the third leg of its dreamed of Grand Governing Body Headache...errr Slam.

But for John Huggan, that's reason enough to root for someone other than Adam Scott.

Still, it is all but impossible to blame Scott for going down the long-putter alley, no matter how dark it might be. Before making the switch from short to long, the 31-year old Australian was approaching basket-case status on the greens. Now, he is a man transformed, someone who scoffs at even the slickest downhill left-to-right four-footer.

"My putting has improved out of sight," he admitted after his opening round of 64 here at Royal Lytham. "Two years ago I was 180th on the tour and now I'm pretty good. Better than average, I would say. So that's a big difference. A shot or two on average makes a big difference to my scorecard."

The ESPN highlights from round 2 and Scott's post round interview:

"They're deep with steep walls, much like a miniature swimming pool."

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Doug Ferguson on the water bunkers at Lytham, where the saturated earth is sending ground water into many of the 205 pits, leading to some strange dilemmas.

No one said it was unfair. No one said the bunkers should have been declared out of play, as was the case for one bunker in the U.S Women's Open at Newport Country Club in 2006. After all, bunkers are supposed to be hazards.

These certainly were.

''A lot of bunkers out there are pretty much out of play,'' Branden Grace of South Africa said. ''That was the main goal for myself today, to stay out of them.''

More On Surprising Karlsson's WD

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Derek Lawrenson reveals just a bit more about Robert Karlsson's Wd earlier in the week and it seems it was more than just an issue with pre-shot routine.

How touching it was, then, to see Sergio Garcia consoling Robert Karlsson on the second fairway in practice, moments after an attack of the yips forced the Swede to withdraw. Garcia has conquered mental swing issues of his own in the past and spent 10 minutes with his arm round Karlsson's shoulder.

Stricker: "I bet if we really go back and look at each pin, there was half of them are up on a little knob."

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Steve Stricker spoke candidly about Friday's setup at Royal Lytham and was not particularly enthused about what he saw as an extreme ratcheting up of the hole locations. Speaking after the round of the many holes cut on knobs:

No, I mean, but there was a lot of them like that.  There were.  I mean No. 15, you know, it's almost 500 yards and it's sitting basically up on a little deal like this.  If you go past it, it rolls away, and short of it you're putting up the hill.  But a lot of them are like that today, right on a little knob.

Asked by Alex Miceli if the R&A could claim the course setup was pre-planned early in the week and was merely his imagination, Stricker was emphatic.

No, because, you know what, it was so different from yesterday.  I mean yesterday was pretty fair, benign, you know, you could be aggressive to some of the pins.  It looked like even if you short‑sided some of your shots yesterday, you could get it up‑and‑down.  Today it was not the case at all.  I mean, I'm telling you, every pin was on a little knob.  Maybe they thought they were going to have casual water.  But ‑‑ no, I'm kidding.  I'm really kidding.  There's casual in the bunkers, but I don't think they'll have casual on the greens.  But there was that much of a difference.  It wasn't like one or two or three through the course of a round.  I bet if we really go back and look at each pin, there was half of them are up on a little knob.

2012 Open Championship Round 2 Comment Thread

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Soggy Lytham amazingly appears to still be maintaining some firmness in the fairways, but look for the putting surfaces to hold and if forecasts are to believed, winds never exceeding 5 m.p.h.

Hopefully this does not mean a repeat of round one, as Gene Wojciechowski put it:

The Open Championship is supposed to be a four-day weather wedgie, the rainsuit capital of golf. You're supposed to leave here with windburn and with mud caked to your cleats. You're supposed to see whitecaps on the nearby Irish Sea.

Instead, we got Palm Springs. The only thing missing was an umbrella drink.

The R&A did release an update on changes to the par-3 yardages, but no other course updates are available at this time. I'll post the Friday course setup details when they hit my inbox.

1st hole - 192 yards
5th hole - 227 yards
9th hole - 153 yards
12th hole 196 yards

Loopers Lashing Out: "The R&A are sipping their gin and tonics in the clubhouse and we’re having to pay full price to get our wives in."

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Charles Sale talks to caddies who are in a rage over having to use Strokesaver yardage guides and the R&A's ticket policy.

Mick Donaghy, caddie for Jamie Donaldson who was two under par after the first round, said: ‘The way we’re treated here is nothing short of a disgrace. The R&A are sipping their gin and tonics in the clubhouse and we’re having to pay full price to get our wives in. The other golf organisations give us proper respect, but that’s never been the case at The Open.’

Dave Clark, who carries Vijay Singh’s clubs, said: ‘There’s still a stigma around caddies. We’re regarded as the lowest of the low. Surely we shouldn’t have to rely on the players to help us out with passes all the time.’

R&A chief executive Peter Dawson countered: ‘Our pass policy is generous and caddies have a fantastic time here.’

Always smoothing things over, Peter is!

First Round Leaders, Lytham And Other Stats

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Lytham has not been kind to early speed horses, according to Golf World's Brett Avery.

2. Only five first-round Open leaders have won since 1975: Tom Watson (1980 at Muirfield), Seve Ballesteros (1988 at Lytham), Greg Norman (1993 at Royal St. George's), John Daly (1995 at St. Andrews) and Tiger Woods (2005 at St. Andrews). In the first 11 Opens at Lytham, only three first-round leaders have proven victorious: Peter Thomson in '58, Gary Player in '74 and Ballesteros in '88. Perhaps even more dispiriting for Scott, only two first-round leaders have won on the PGA Tour this season (George McNeill at the Puerto Rico Open, Zach Johnson at the Crown Plaza Invitational at Colonial).

Defender Darren: "I was thinking how the bleep did I manage to win this last year."

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Mick Cleary on defending champ Darren Clarke's 76.

“Yeah, coming up the last, I was thinking how the bleep did I manage to win this last year,” said Clarke, his wry reflections masking the contempt within. “I don’t think you could really publish my thoughts right now. I’m basically disgusted with myself.”