Having written his name into the record books with his ace, Rose put himself in the thick of the gold medal hunt by carding a four-under 67 in hard gusting conditions to finish four strokes behind first-round leader Marcus Fraser of Australia.
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Fraser, ranked 90th, birdied five of the first six holes and four more on the back nine after feeling nervy at the start.
That’s a better excuse than that of the world’s four best players who also made themselves unavailable, mostly citing fears over the Zika virus. I just had to look kind of straight, a bit of left-to-right, coming back at the end, and you just kind of go with that feeling and hit it.
One shot further adrift are Rose, Belgian Thomas Pieters, German Alex Cejka, Frenchman Gregory Bourdy and Spain’s Rafa Cabrera Bello. He won a year ago at Del Paso in California.
Heaven knows what the mighty swimmer and keen golfer Michael Phelps must be thinking when he takes a break from winning his latest gold medal to contemplate the lamentable efforts of Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler and Matt Kuchar, with the latter best placed all the way down in a tie for 18th.
A brand new course debuts Thursday for a four day 72 hole affair, The tournament of 60 players will be followed next week by a womens’ tournament of 60 players and 72 holes as well.
Rose felt he hadn’t reached his full potential over the first 36 holes and commented: “They certainly don’t give anything out today, so all you can do is put yourself in position”.
Sought-after starlet Gabriel Barbosa struck twice as Brazil’s footballers finally got their Olympic campaign rolling with a 4-0 demolition of Denmark on Wednesday, while their arch-rivals Argentina crashed out.
“I’m glad they decided not to come because I’m here”, Fraser said.
Fraser, 38, had no birdie putt of 10 feet or more. Stenson had an interesting finish Friday with three birdies and two bogeys over his last five holes. “It was good I did”.
Marcus Fraser has continued to keep Australia’s gold medal hopes alive after round two of the Men’s Individual Stroke Play in Rio. “I’m excited about the weekend and just going to enjoy it”. “I’m really glad to be here”. But at the same time, I’ve really got to respect the decision that those guys made not to be here.
“I might have made one bad swing in the day and if you did that every day of the week you’d be shooting lots of good number, so I do have to stay patient”. The sport does not need the Olympics.
After an awesome first round, Frasier was solid again on Friday, but he did miss a few chances to post an even lower number than his 69.
“It’s a little too early”. He will need a miracle to boost himself into medal contention, as he now sits twelve shots out of third place, and fourteen out of the gold medal slot.
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It’s been 112 years since golf has been part of the Olympic games.
