The Irish Golf Club Gazette: 05/01/14

5/01/2014

McIlroy Hopes to End Quail Duck

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Rory McIlroy carded a three under par round at the Wells Fargo Championship on Thursday to share sixth place and remain three strokes behind the leader, Angel Cabrera, at Quail Hollow.

The two-time major winner, who turns 25 on Sunday, is working off memories past on a course where he struck his first US win in 2010 with only aspirations for the top spot in the world rankings.

In 2014 he seeking to break his close to year duck on the US Tour and return to the world top ten.

With Angel Cabrera in the clubhouse McIlroy would have hoped to put pressure on the Argentine but came unstuck after the turn with back-to-back bogeys on the 3rd and 4th. However, he bounced straight back to pick up shots at the next two holes to finish within three shots of the lead and claim, as things stand, a share of fourth place.

Darren Clarke signed for a round of 76 that sees his poor streak continue since taking up his PGA Tour card.

“It’s not nice to drop out,” McIlroy admitted. “Over three years in the top 10, you sort of get comfortable there. Hopefully, I can get myself back up into the sort of territory I have been at the last few years.”

“I missed 15 putts inside 8 feet the week of the Masters,” McIlroy continued. “I’ve worked on a few things since the Masters, and that’s the part of the game that I’m trying to improve a little bit more.”

Padraig Harrington was level through seven holes in the afternoon group, trading a birdie and a bogey.

Lawrie Sees Some Light

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Peter Lawrie dropped just one shot on the opening day of The Championship in Singapore to sign for a round of 68 and finish four under par.

Having retained his playing rights in the last eligible event in Perth at the end of the season Lawrie has focused on his fitness conditioning, and altered his swing as a result of working with new coach, Jamie Gough.

Despite the changes the poor form of last season continued into this season with 11 consecutive cuts missed.

This week in Singapore is the first time the Dubliner has hit a sub-70 round since the Alfred Dunhill last September.

Overall it was a low scoring day, wtih heavy rain and lightning threatening to delay the start of play and led to preferred lies being employed, Thailand’s Panuphol Pittayarat holds the lead following a nine-under total of 63. With preferred lies in play, the world number 451’s bogey-free round would not count as a new course record but that was of little concern to the 21-year-old after a sparkling performance featuring only 22 putts.

“I was very happy with how I played. I didn’t see it coming,” Panuphol said afterwards. Panuphol missed the cut in each of his three events on the Asian Tour this year but his birdie-blitz was enough to earn a one-shot lead over Scotland’s Scott Jamieson, American David Lipsky and South Korea’s Kim Byung-jun.

The event was due to be hosted in the homeland of Kim, the joint worst ranked player in the field at 1,529 in the world, but the European and Asian Tour announced the switch of venues to Singapore last month after “staging issues”.

Singaporean Quincy Quek, playing the course the wrong way around, finished with two birdies to join the group at eight-under as a number of Asian Tour players made a strong start to the event lacking Europe’s elite.

Another Thai, Arnond Vongvanij, briefly threatened golf’s golden number of 59 before settling for a 65. Arnond opened his round with four birdies as he reached the turn in 30.

He added further birdies to reach eight-under after 11 holes only for a double-bogey five at his penultimate hole dumped him down into a share of seventh under fading light.

Defending champion Brett Rumford was well down the field after carding a two-under 70, a score matched by last week’s China Open winner Alexander Levy.

Damien McGrane and Gareth Maybin finished one under with rounds of 71.

Simon Thornton ended level par after a round of 72.