The Open: Andrew 'Beef' Johnston pleased to overcome shaky start
Thursday 20 July 2017 18:31, UK
Andrew Johnston rose to prominence in last year's Open at Troon and he is looking forward to another good week after making a promising start at Royal Birkdale.
Beef, as the 28-year-old Englishman is known, carded a one-under 69 in the first round after recovering from a shaky opening which saw him bogey the third and fifth holes.
His first birdie arrived in style at the sixth when he chipped in from just off the green and, after dropping another shot at the 11th, he finished strongly as he made the most of the two par fives with a birdie at 15 and an eagle at 17 thanks to holing a 30-foot putt.
"I've been looking forward to this week since Sunday at Troon, since I finished," said Johnston, who came eighth behind Henrik Stenson at the Ayrshire links.
"But going in, I know it's a new year, it's a different golf course, and I didn't really want to read too much into last year coming into this week.
"It's a different tournament. And that's how I've kind of seen it. But it's nice to get off to a good start.
"It [the weather] was a bit grim early on. But I just wanted to go out there and not think about it. Because I think you can go in and say, it's going to be exactly the same as last year, and that's the one thing I didn't want to fall into.
"I wanted to say, it's another tournament, I'm going to prepare well and go and give it the best, and that's the kind of way I've taken to it."
Johnston admitted he struggled a little with his game early on before gaining some momentum with his dramatic birdie at the tough par-four sixth.
"It was tricky," he added. "I just really didn't strike the ball that good early on. If I go to three over instead of going back to one over, it is a big difference. And I knew we had the two par fives coming in.
"I was just sort of 'come on, try and get something going. Try and hit some greens'.
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"I didn't hit many greens in the first sort of 11, 12 holes. I only hit four or five greens. And I knew I was putting well.
"I said 'Come on, you've got to try to hit some fairways, give yourself chances', and luckily I did that."
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