Unless the forecast wind and rain spits and lashes around Portrush on Sunday, scattering the leaders like buckshot, Danny Willett will not win the Open. But after what he has gone through since winning the Masters three years ago he won’t mind. Because after tumbling to 462 in the world, the 31-year-old from Sheffield is confident that the best days are around the corner again.
On moving day, no one got their skates on more than Willett. He started the day seven shots behind the leaders after rounds of 74 and 67 had left him on one under par. A blemish-free round of 65 catapulted him to seven under and into the top 10 of the leaderboard.
His round of six birdies could have been even better given he only made par on the two par-fives on the back nine, and then missed an eight-footer at the last for birdie – not that Willett was complaining.
“Today was pretty stellar in the conditions,” he insisted. “We had it relatively windy for most of the day. The ball under good control. Had a lot of chances. It’s never not fun to shoot 65 on a Saturday Open.”
Three years ago Willett was ranked ninth in the world after becoming the second Englishman to win the Masters after Nick Faldo. But then everything – his back, his swing and ultimately his confidence – went south. At one point in 2017, he went 16 strokeplay events without a single top-50 finish. Now, though, he is once again dreaming of sunny uplands.
“I was in a dark place,” said Willett, who won his first tour title since Augusta at Dubai in November and has built on that since, most notably with a 12th-placed finish at the US Open at Pebble Beach last month. “But now everything is going well. I’m moving well. The results aren’t always as you want them to be, but the work I’m putting in is good.
“Things aren’t inevitable as to when you’re going to win again. It might be this week, next week, six months down, we don’t know. But there’s enough good in there to do it again, which is a nice feeling. It gives you that little bit of sunlight at the end of it.”
Afterwards he attributed his better form to hard work and a much calmer attitude on the course – which has come from learning to breathe better. “I’ve done a lot of stuff over the last few years with my breathing,” he said. “The more tense you get, the worse your breathing gets – and the worse you’re going to move. Stress is a big part of that.
“When I was at my worst, that was one of the main factors,” he added. “And now you can keep yourself relaxed and kind of go about things businesslike, but you might as well have fun doing it and go from there.”
“I’m 31, I’ve done what most people wish to do in a career already. If you can’t be relaxed playing early on a Saturday morning. I’m probably more nervous playing with the lads because I need to be in my own.”
The next step, he concedes, is to be more consistent. “The best players in the world seem to play well week in and week out,” he said. “That’s when you know your game is taking a real nice trend when you’re able to compete in different conditions, different grasses, different weather. That’s when you know you can take it with you and things are getting better.”
With Shane Lowry and Tommy Fleetwood burning up the course on Saturday afternoon, Willett is realistic about his chances. However, he hopes the prospect of inclement weather – which has pushed tee times back by two hours – could yet propel him further up the leaderboard and secure a top-10 finish.
“It could be windy and rainy, it could be just windy, it could be just rainy,” he said. “But the weather looks pretty poor from about 9am onward. Then this place will grow some teeth again.
“If it is forecast what it is, this place will be a completely different kettle of fish. I’ll just have to go to bed and wake up and see.
“It’s not irretrievable,” he added with a smile. “But it’s a long way back, isn’t it?”