Lindell’s weekend in Scotland came to nothing – he failed to secure a place in The Open
On Sunday, Oliver Lindell carded his worst round of the Genesis Scottish Open, a 72 (+2). His overall score of -4 puts him in joint 37th place in this highly competitive tournament, which is not enough to secure him a place at next week’s Open. Sami Välimäki will therefore be the only Finnish player remaining in the tournament. As things stand, a place in The Open requires precisely what Lindell had predicted beforehand – a top-10 finish.
“A good start, and I played steadily throughout the front nine right up to the final green, where I needed three putts. On the 10th, my tee shot went off the fairway and my approach shot from the rough didn’t bounce anywhere, coming up short. On the 12th hole, I took a small risk by trying to hit a big draw shot from the semi-rough with a mini-driver, but it ended up way off target with a big hook. I then had to putt three times from the top of the green,” Lindell recalled.
The difficult spell midway through the round continued on the next hole, when the worst possible thing happened on the links course right from the tee. Luck was not on his side either, as the player from Porvoo was forced to play a pitch shot backwards out of the fairway bunker.
“My 13th tee shot went straight into the back of the fairway bunker. Here, if the ball hits the bunker at speed, it never ends well. I had to play a recovery shot back out. I also found myself in a bunker on the next hole, but managed to make a birdie with an up-and-down. On the final hole, I had to watch out for the bunkers on the left, as I’d been swinging really well and my shots were so straight that the left-hand bunkers were coming into play. My tee shot then spun to the right into the rough.”
Lindell’s strong ball-striking gave him every chance of a top-10 finish, but his struggles with the putter dashed his hopes this week. He was ranked 12th in the tee-to-green statistics and third in greens in regulation after three rounds. His putting statistics, however, showed a significantly negative figure.
The Finnish player had to battle his way through the tournament whilst suffering from a fever, although his symptoms had eased by Sunday. He now faces a longer break from competition, having failed to qualify for The Open.
“There were some tricky pins today in places, which were hard to get close to. The big problem, though, was that my putting was poor all week. It was a really tiring weekend; I’m definitely going to need a break now. We’ll get back to it in Denmark next month.”
South Korea’s Tom Kim has pulled two strokes clear at the top of the leaderboard with two holes remaining. It has been 1,001 days since his last victory.