Kyriacou keeps Open hopes alive with Road Hole heroics

[Pelican Press 0]

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Kyriacou keeps Open hopes alive with Road ***** heroics

Steph Kyriacou rose bleary-eyed at 4.30am at the break of a Friday when she learned to “grow up” at the home of golf.

The 23-year-old rising star from Sydney admitted she had actually been a bit intimidated by St Andrews’ revered reputation when she tackled the Old Course on the opening morning of the British Women’s Open on Thursday.

A bit star-struck amid the first-day gales, Kyriacou found herself at five over par after just five holes of her St Andrews baptism and ended up never quite recovering as she limped to a four-over 76.

On Friday, though, she found it was time to hit back – and she even tamed the feared Road ***** with a monster putt to get her tournament – not to mention Australia’s fading hopes – back on track.

Kyriacou felt she rekindled the spirit of playing on her home Sydney course at St Michael’s in Little Bay as she tamed the Old Course with a four-under par 68 to drag her back to level par halfway through the tournament, eight adrift of leader Nelly Korda.

“I love links golf. My golf course at home is right on the water, so I play in the wind a lot, so it’s kind of a little taste of home,” smiled Kyriacou, even if the temperature on a chilly Fife morning wasn’t in the same ballpark.

“I think I’m wearing like six layers, but I was taking the last jacket on and off. Yeah, just layers. Layers and layers … but it’s fine. We didn’t really have much wind in the morning, but now it’s really blowing.

“Yesterday, at the start of the round, I just kind of got in my own way, in my own head. I was almost intimidated by the conditions and the course.

“But then once I kind of got over that and grew up a little bit, it made it a lot easier.”

It didn’t start too promisingly, though. “Honestly, that 4.30 alarm is tough,” she admitted, as she had to tee off from the 10th ***** at 7am.

Yet she looked wide awake with five birdies in her first nine holes. None was more spectacular than the 50ft putt she sank at the Road ***** 17th, as she reached the turn with three straight birdies.

“That’s a ******* hard *****, the 17th. So to birdie that was pretty cool.

“Obviously, it’s a ****** tee shot, so iconic. Not many people get to play this course or hit that shot, especially in an Open Championship.

“And I’ll take that putt – it was something silly, like 50 foot. I was just trying to two-putt, but it went in.”

At level par, Kyriacou, who came perilously close to winning her first major when runner-up at the Evian Championship last month, is still not out of contention.

“It sucked a little bit that I didn’t win there, but it’s fine. It’s given me more opportunities. It got me into this event,” she said reflecting on the French major.

The only other *********** to make the weekend action was former Youth Olympic champ Grace Kim, who scraped in on the cut line of four over with her 71.

Yet major winners Hannah Green (seven over), Minjee Lee (nine over) and Karrie Webb (15 over) all missed out, as did Hira Naveed (12 over) and Gabi Ruffels (13 over).

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