Peter Cowen Diary: Cameron Smith the man to beat as The Open heads to a great weekend

There seems a lot of noise around how long rounds are taking this week to play 18 holes over the Old Course at St Andrews for the 150th Open.

In my opinion it is far too long. The group of Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa took 18 minutes short of 6 hours to complete their first rounds.

The players will argue a number of factors: there are double greens where players have to wait for the other nine to approach the green and/or hole out, many of the Par 4’s are playing as very long Par 3’s and then some of the players have got in trouble and delays result.

The average time on Tour in a threeball is usually a little over four and a half hours.

Slow play is not entertaining for anyone, whether live for spectators on the golf course or for the TV viewers. I personally do not believe the golfing bodies have properly addressed this matter over the years.

In my opinion it deserves another look at, as we all try and attract a new audience for watching as well as playing the game.

Onto the action on the golf course, Cameron Smith, No 6 in the OWGR looks perhaps the man to beat with a second round 64, and the lowest 36-hole cut at St Andrews in The Open in the history of golf at 131, 12 under par.

I personally still like the look of Rory. He seems in cruise control and has a few holes still to play as I post my diary. It would be great to have the golfing angels on Rory’s side come Sunday afternoon.

Matt Fitzpatrick played himself into the tournament with an excellent 66. With a spell of rain and hardly a breeze, the golf course, for many was there for the taking.

Ian Poulter and Thomas Pieters made the cut and a note of congratulations to Dubai-based Adrian Meronk from Poland on shooting a second round 68 to make the weekend.

It was an idyllic setting at St Andrews on Friday, especially this afternoon. There are not a lot of days all year like this and it may well remain the same for the weekend.

The cut is likely to come at level par (it could go even to -1, but I would not think so), and if so, we will say goodbye to so many good players including: former Champion Golfers of the Year, Henrik Stenson, Louis Oosthuizen and my tip for the week Padraig Harrington, Zach Johnson, Paul Lawrie, David Duval, Mark Calcavecchia, 2021 winner Collin Morikawa, and the biggest of them all, Tiger Woods.

This is surely the twilight of Tiger’s career and with all that inevitable expectation, perhaps the fans are now realising he is getting older and cannot contend as he previously has. As a result, it as an acknowledgement by a generation that they are perhaps getting old as well, which is never easy to absorb as we all have to look at ourselves in the mirror now and then to review where we are in our lives.

He never gave up, nor would we expect him to, and from what I saw, he kept his head high and never let anyone down. The question must now be, what next for Tiger? We should always celebrate when Tiger is around us.

Speak to you all after Saturday’s ‘Moving Day.’ It is an important day to every player who makes the cut.

- Peter Cowen is a world-renowned golf coach with academies in the UAE and England.