Singaporean hopeful Lam Chih Bing was walking tall at the British Open after a flying start on Thursday.
The Asian Tour stalwart produced a battling two-over-par 72 at a brutal Royal Birkdale to end the first round in tied 15th place, emerging as the best placed Asian alongside Korean star K.J. Choi.
Lam could have gone lower if his putter was not as cold as the temperatures which dipped to 13 degrees Celsius but he was delighted with his solid start which left him only three shots off the lead.
“I’m very pleased. I think we got lucky with the draw as it wasn’t as tough as it was in the morning with the rain but it was still challenging out there. I hit the ball very well and I could have shot a much lower number but I missed a few putts. But overall, I’m really happy,” said Lam, who is competing in his second straight Open.
“I blocked out everything today. I hope to carry on with my good form and while I wished I had made a few more putts, two over par in these conditions is pretty good.”
Lam, who teed off just before 4pm and completed his round in near darkness at 9.30pm, bogeyed his opening hole with a three putt but a five iron to five feet at the next settled the butterflies in his tummy.
He dropped another bogey on the demanding 499-yard par four sixth hole and for a while, Lam featured on the leaderboard on a day which produce only three sub-par rounds.
“I just told myself to be patient. I knew it would be tough. I hit two good shots into the first hole but three putted. I was a bit nervy on the putts but the birdie on the second hole steadied the ship,” he said.
His back nine was an adventure. Lam shot three more birdies against four bogeys and was disappointed to leave a 10-foot birdie chance on the 18th hole hanging desperately by the cup.
“I knew there were a bunch of birdie holes coming in. There were still tough holes on 10, 11 and 16 which I bogeyed but I drove the ball really good which was the key to the round,” said Lam.
He had feared for the worst when he got up in the morning and saw rain lashing down at Royal Birkdale which claimed big-name victims like Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh.
However, he knows that he must remain on an even keel in his hopes to have a strong showing this week. “I’m going to be realistic. Anything is possible but I will take it one shot at a time. Conditions are just so unpredictable and you can never know what will happen,” said Lam.
Filipino Angelo Que birdied his last two holes to ensure that his British Open debut remained on track as he signed for a 76 to lie only one shot off the halfway cut mark in tied 74th place. Malaysia’s Danny Chia, playing in his second Open, also carded a 76.
“It was pretty good to birdie three of last four holes. I didn’t get enough breaks at the start and made four straight bogeys but all in all, I’m hitting it good,” said Que, this season’s winner of the Philippine Open.
Que was surprised that he did not feel any nerves standing over his opening tee shot, especially with the tough conditions. “I just told myself to play with the conditions that we had. There was no point in complaining,” he said.
“Surprisingly, I wasn’t nervous. I don’t know why. I guess I was mentally prepared for today as I’ve been here since last Wednesday and I was really prepared to play this event.”
Chia salvaged his round with his lone birdie of the round at the 17th hole in a card that included five birdies and one double bogey. Like Que, Chia knows that he is within striking reach of making the weekend rounds, and thus becoming the first Malaysian to play in all four rounds at the British Open.
“I was wondering if I was going to be birdie-less today. It was really good to birdie 17 as I found the pot bunker off my drive. I had 200 meters to the pin with my third shot and thought that a par would be good but I flushed a six iron to six feet for the birdie,” said Chia, who played in the Open in 2005.
“This is a great test of golf and conditions were so different from St Andrews when I played my first Open. I guess this is what links golf is about and it’s a chance for me to test myself and get into the weekend rounds,” said the former Taiwan Open champion.
Asian Tour member Yoshinobu Tsukada of Japan shot a 75 while Australians Adam Blyth and Scott Strange carded 81 and 84 respectively.
