Tom Gillis Survives Wrong Side of Draw at Senior Open

The American golfer faced some less-than-ideal weather teeing off at Royal Porthcawl Thursday morning, but he still managed to come out of Day 1 under par.

A true links golf experience is playing in at least three of the four seasons in a single 18 holes.

If you were one of the early tee times on Thursday morning at Royal Porthcawl, off the Welsh coast on the Bristol Channel, you got at least two significant seasons in six holes—with a squall coming off the channel, creating havoc for the early Senior Open participants.

American Tom Gillis was one of those lucky individuals. Playing in game four at 7:30 a.m., Gillis (and his group that included Euan McIntosh of Scotland and Jason Norris of Australia) got the full effect of a passing storm that for six holes made playing and scoring unpredictable.

“We ran into it on the first fairway, we could see it coming across the channel there and I'm like, man, we're gonna get thrashed, and we did,” Gillis said. “First four holes are really tough anyways.”

The Michigan native made a triple bogey, a bogey and three birdies in the first six holes before the weather subsided. From there on out it was just normal links conditions, wind and occasionally, a little spit from the sky.

“You just, you never know, when you got 10 hours of tee times, you could get on the wrong side of it, that's part of coming over here,” Gillis said. “But when you feel like you're on the wrong side of it, you still gotta hang in there trying to be the best that you can.”

Finishing at one under par with a birdie at the last, Gillis’s 70 on the par-71 layout was the only under-par score in the first 39 players that finished. (Paul Broadhurst of England finished with a 70 in game 14.)

The one under stood up all day, and while Spain's Miguel Ángel Jiménez shot a tremendous five-under 66, the work Gillis did stayed in the top five after Day 1.

“I would think just in the conditions that we played it at our time slot, I think it's a good score,” Gillis said after his round. “I think anything under par is good, it's a tough track.”