American amateur Bryson DeChambeau stole the limelight from golf’s big guns Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy on his European Tour debut, seizing a first-round lead at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship yesterday. The group of Spieth, McIlroy and Rickie Fowler were being monitored from the fourth hole, with Fowler’s time-consuming drop in a waste area on the second hole believed to be largely responsible. The money would hardly inconvenience Spieth, but he wants neither the notoriety or the distraction.
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“It was a bit odd”. “They had just taken us off the clock because the group behind us hadn’t even reached the fairway”.
The Australian says he is still undecided about whether he will take part at Rio 2016, providing he qualifies, and claims he will make a decision “at the last minute”. If I can, I’ll try to wash it away… because it doesn’t affect this round, but if I get another one, I’ll get fined and I don’t think there was necessarily a reason to get that bad time. “It didn’t affect the round, but Rory and Rickie were surprised as well”. McIlroy is one of the game’s quickest players. Sometimes we need to apply some common sense, especially when we are not out of position.
He was even more upset at being warned for slow play as he walked off the eighth green, his 17th hole of the round. “And I said that doesn’t make sense, let’s make them on the same lie angle and same length”.
He said: ‘Pace of play on this tour is measured by whether the group keeps to the starting interval between groups, rather than if they were on the same hole, as it is in America. He was told on the ninth tee, ahead of his final tee shot, that he was receiving a “monitoring” penalty.
The Swindon pro carded six birdies in a four-under-par opening round of 68 at Abu Dhabi Golf Club, which now has him tied sixth on the leaderboard with a handful of players still out on the course.
He could hardly credit being within two of McIlroy.
“That’s the Rory I have seen win majors”.
The “GolfBoard”, a Kickstarter initiative, allow golfers to strap their golf bag to the front, stand on it like a skateboard and speed up to 18kmh around fairways and roughs on a golf course. If he keeps striking it like that, I’m going to have to make up for it somewhere else.
On Thursday, his golf was a different class. DeChambeau, playing on a sponsors’ invite and keen to stress his gratitude, fired seven birdies, one eagle and a bogey.
“I felt in practice last week in Dubai I was swinging well. I could not be happier”.
“It is nice, it is always fun to watch somebody stripe it. You see a solid shot before you hit one”.
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He plans to turn pro after playing in the Masters, and looks likely to cause a stir in the game, if not in this tournament. So it would be foolish of me to think that that’s all my competition was – and I think it would be an injustice to every other player that’s in the field because there’s so much talent on tour. “Jordan almost took me out”.
