It was a day of fluctuating fortunes for Scotland’s male and female golfers down under as the LPGA Tour and the European Tour both swung in action in Australia.
At the Royal Adelaide club, Aberdeenshire’s former policewoman, Michele Thomson, put her pre-tournament nerves behind her and enjoyed a super debut on the LPGA circuit as she finished among the leading pack after round one of the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open.
Thomson, the former Curtis Cup player who had a prolonged spell away from professional golf before regaining her Ladies European Tour card at the end of 2016, posted a neatly assembled five-under 68 and was heading into today’s second round in a share of sixth, three shots behind the early frontrunner, Katherine Kirk.
An early birdie on the third helped Thomson settle in and the 28-year-old, who won the Scottish Ladies Amateur Championship in 2008, upped the ante with a trio of birdies at seven, eight and nine as she made the most of the calm morning conditions. Thomson reeled off further gains at the 15th and 17th with her only bogey of the day sandwiched in between at 16.
“It was perfect actually and it was just good to get a score on the board,” Thomson said. “I was nervous the night before trying to sleep but once I’d hit that first tee shot I felt good. I just thought anything under par would be good but I never expected five-under so I’m ecstatic.”
Thomson’s Aberdeenshire colleague, Gemma Dryburgh, marked her debut on the LPGA Tour with a steady level-par 73 but Catriona Matthew, who won the Australian Open back in 1996, endured a testing day and her three-over 76 included a brace of damaging double-bogeys at the 12th and 18th.
In Perth, meanwhile, Grantown’s Duncan Stewart opened with a level-par 72 in the first round of the European Tour’s World Super 6 Perth, the new event combining both strokeplay and matchplay elements. England’s Mark Foster and local favourite Brett Rumford were leading the way on six-under 66s but topping the leaderboard is not the be-all and end-all this week. The top 24 players after 54 holes at Lake Karrinyup will contest a six-hole matchplay format on Sunday to determine the champion.
Foster, who lost his card after a disappointing 2016 campaign but got it back at qualifying school, had seven birdies against a single bogey.
"It's a brand new event for everyone so you break your mentalities," he said. “If you're not at your best and you travel this far, sometimes you're just quiet if you make the cut, but that's not good here. I think that's maybe why you'll see better scoring, because everybody has got to aim for that highest spot (the top 24 after the 54-hole cut) and the higher people aim, results tend to get better."
Rumford, a five-time European Tour winner who like Foster lost his card last season, made four birdies in an outward 33 and added further gains at the first and fourth before completing his scoring from eight feet on the seventh.
Scott Henry’s hopes of kick-starting his season in Australia failed to materialise as the Clydebank man sagged to a six-over 78. The former Challenge Tour winner, who lost his main tour card in 2013 but earned it back at the qualifying school last year, had missed all four cuts of the new campaign, a run not helped by a series of crippling opening rounds. Henry’s last three opening cards have been 78, 79 and 79 and they have left him reeling on the back foot.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here