If you’re ever wondering what sort of difference wearing long pants for a tournament round makes, Doug McGuigan will tell you it’s eight strokes. That’s after he shot an eight-under-par 64 on Saturday in the second round of the Legends Tour’s MCB Tour Championship.
McGuigan started his first round with a bogey on Friday, and picked up just one birdie on his way to a level-par 72 on the Legend Course at Contance Belle Mare Plage in Mauritius. He played in shorts. He started his second round with a birdie, and then picked up four in a row from the fifth. He was wearing long pants.
“I play social rounds in shorts,” he laughed after he carded an eight-under-par 64 in the second round. “For tournaments, it just doesn’t feel right unless I wear long pants. My father always said if I wanted to be a pro, I had to look like a pro.”
He looked like a pro when he bounced back from his only bogey of the round on the ninth hole with a birdie on the 10th. And he picked up three more on the back nine, on the 13th, 16th and 18th as he turned what was looking like a long shot for him to get a decent category and enough starts on next season’s Legends Tour into something a lot more feasible.
“I think I was too wound up before the first round,” said McGuigan. “I hit too many balls on the range for the two days before, I suspect. After this second round, I’m not even going to go and practice. You train for a marathon before the race, not during it. I’m just going to come out and do the same tomorrow, and I’m confident I can do the same sort of thing.
“I putted beautifully today. I did some putting after the first round, and obviously, that helped. I drove the ball better, too, and yesterday, just nothing happened. But I knew I was playing well, and today, things clicked in.”
“This is a bit like Q-School for me,” he added. He is the first affiliate member to make it to the MCB Tour Championship, and he wants to ride that momentum to more frequent starts on a tour that is growing and providing opportunities for more players. “Okay, there’s a lot more money, but I feel that there’s a lot at stake. I need a decent finish here for my card and to get out on to the Legends Tour fulltime.”
He’ll be wearing long pants in the final round.
