70-foot putt is not enough

Friday, Jan 22, 2010

Gulf News

Abu Dhabi A stunning 70-foot putt should have secured the outright lead on the opening day of the Abu Dhabi Golf Championships for England's Ian Poulter — but compatriot Richard Bland and South Africa's Keith Horne denied him the honour with a late charge.

Instead, the colourful golfer from Hertfordshire had to settle for a share of the lead with Bland and Horne on six-under 66.

Just one stroke behind are nine contenders including Northen Ireland's Rory McIlroy, Spain's Sergio Garcia and Alvaro Quiros, Scotland's Paul Lawrie, Welsh duo Stephen Dodd and Rhys Davies, Argentina's Daniel Vancsik and the Swedish pair of Peter Hanson and Alexander Noren.

Contrary to the low scores predicted thanks to the new grooves and the testing course conditions, the leaderboard wore a quality look after an equally quality-filled field of 126 teed off the fifth edition of the 1.5 million euro (Dh7.7 million) event on the National Course. Defending champion Paul Casey shot a par 72, a round which was matched by debutant Geoff Ogilvy, Swede Robert Karlsson and Spaniard Miguel Angel Jimenez.

Final putt

Poulter was delighted with his final putt, a 70-footer which kept him at the helm.

"Downhill, downgrain, 70-foot putt. I haven't really had a putt outside 20 feet all day. So a 70-footer, downhill, downgrain, hit it way too hard, probably ten foot too hard I guess and it was on line and lucky enough hit the back of the hole and popped up and dropped," he said.

Meanwhile, Keith Horne, fresh from a tied second-place finish last week at the Joburg Open in South Africa, it was an equally bogey-free round along with Bland.

"It's nice to come off a good week and play well again," said Horne, who had to rush through the final holes in fading light. "We were running like anything to try and finish. It was pretty dark on the last green," said Horne who played the 42nd and final group with Bland. Earlier, McIlroy and Garcia kept themselves within striking distance along with a large bunch of players.

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