Overnight leader Jones watched Spieth’s eagle shot from the 16th tee and responded by birdying his final two holes to card a three-under-par 68, moving to 10-under for the tournament and finishing three strokes clear of his American rival.
Advertisement
Tighe defied his lowly ranking at world No. 1022 to upstage defending champion Jordan Spieth in seizing the first-round lead.
Jones followed up his first-round 67 with a 68 on Friday to be on track to win his national championship for the first time.
The 35-year-old Australian has still not won in 2015 and had declared himself “fired up” to break the drought at the Australian Golf Club this week.
Any golf fan browsing through the 156-strong Australian Open field at the Australian Golf Club wouldn’t have glanced at Lincoln Tighe, Chun-An Yu, or Todd Sinnott.
This time around, he is a more rounded player. “I’m going to go down there and try and take care of business”. “I’ve always loved this place, probably because it suits me down to the ground”, he said.
Spieth had commenced his round bogeying three of his opening four holes to fall eight shots adrift of Jones but then ignited his drive to the top with birdies at five and six. “I just didn’t know what to hit, I was apparently two clubs off…”
“I just have to put it together”. But you’ve got to get there to see how you react. I know I can strike the ball a lot better, but it is what it is.
Writing in the December issue of “Golf World” magazine, Poulter pays tribute to the accomplishments of the new “Big Three” and says: “But it’s not all doom and gloom for the rest of us”.
Spieth acknowledged as much but said ominously that he was peaking for the final round and would draw confidence from his course-record 63 he shot previous year to run away with the Stonehaven Cup.
Australian Matt Jones is the player Spieth must catch.
“I struck it good and I was just hoping it was going to get up”.
Scott, who fought back doggedly from two double-bogeys yesterday to shoot a respectable even-par 71, blamed a draining season for his troubles.
The Belgian Bomber shot the best score of the day – a five-under 66 – and is now four shots off the pace as he looks for a first triumph since the 2012 Volvo World Match Play Championship.
Advertisement
Adam Scott admitted to being mentally spent after his Australian Open push stalled with a rare birdie-free round today.
