MAJOR grief on soft, spiked up greens was predicted by Wayne Riley for those who came after him in the opening round of the £325,000 Portuguese Open at Aroeira yesterday. But within 90 minutes of the Australian's 65, Klas Eriksson of Sweden had swept to the top of the leader board with a stunning, eight under par 63.
That was in mid afternoon and his target was never seriously threatened. In fact 33 of the 156 competitors failed to complete their day's work, due to the start being delayed two hours and 10 minutes because of morning fog. Among those was a lone Irishman, Jimmy Heggarty, who was three over par for 15 holes when rapidly fading light stopped play.
"Sure, the greens are difficult but it's a fairly short course," said 25 year old Eriksson, who is one of the longest hitters on tour. And as every club golfer knows, there is always someone out there who will sink putts, whatever the conditions. Similarly, when a player consistently leaves himself close range birdie putts, some of them are going to drop.
As it happened, Des Smyth and Ronan Rafferty headed the Irish challenge on 68, while David Feherty and Eamonn Darcy were next on 70. "Why all this criticism of the greens?" mused Feherty after sinking an outrageous 70 footer for a birdie at the first. But after the round he said "I gradually began to wonder if a herd of wildebeest had somehow stampeded across the course."
Among the remainder of the Irish, Padraig Harrington and Francis Howley seemed to suffer most in the conditions, given that they struck the ball admirably from tee to green.
Harrington had only one birdie in a 72, while his colleague had O'Donovan had a disappointing round after shooting 82.
For Dubai hero Raymond Burns it was bewildering day, culminating in a wretched, quadruple bogey eight at the 18th. With Christy O'Connor Jnr as one of his playing partners, he failed to card even one birdie. And John McHenry also suffered grievously when four bogeys in a run of five holes midway through his round led to a 77.
Eriksson, who had three victories on the Challenge Tour in 1993, made the rather inauspicious start of going one over par when a six iron missed the green at the 178 yard fourth. From there, however, he birdied nine of the next 11 holes, carding three in a row from the fifth add again from the 10th. And his longest birdie putt was a 12 footer at sixth.
Smyth, still captivated by the game after all these years, was in buoyant mood after a most encouraging round, covering the back nine in 32 four under par. "My short irons did the work," he said in reference to further birdies at the 14th and 15th where he had putts of only two feet. And at the end an adventurous front nine, he closed the round with a birdie four at the long ninth where he pitched to 10 feet.
Rafferty decided that on course of 6,621 yards, he had little need of the driver. So he used it only once, at the long 15th. Otherwise he relied on his trusty three wood off the tee and the fact that he had started early in the day probably accounted for birdie putts of 12 feet, two 15 footers and another from 20 feet.
