Scott Hend tried his best to grab the attention at the BMW PGA Championship. For starters, his luminous green troosers looked like he’d just emerged from a toxic spillage. And for seconds, he zipped round Wentworth’s West Course in a sprightly seven-under 65 to set the early pace before being joined at the top by Joost Luiten and YE Yang. It was eye-catching stuff from the affable Australian but it was never going to be enough to hog the headlines. Not when you had a Masters champion lurking ominously behind.
On his first round in this green and pleasant land since he snuggled into that rather pleasant green jacket at Augusta, Englishman Danny Willett got the local parishioners hooting and hollering with a bogey-free 66 that was the ideal homecoming as he tucked himself in among the frontrunners.
Hend’s shimmering opening salvo earlier in the day attracted a fairly modest media turn out for his post round blether. Not so much one man and his dog, more three men and their Dictaphones. Willett’s witterings, on the other hand, had the massed ranks gathering. It’s a fickle old game and Hend is well aware of that. Not so long ago, he finished third last in the WGC Cadillac Championship at Doral with a 22-over aggregate. A week later he won on the European Tour in Thailand. “One day you’re up, the next you’re down,” reflected the 42-year-old. “How do you move from shooting 22-over one week and winning the next? I don’t know. But golf just mirrors life.”
For Willett, life is pretty good. He’s a new major champion, a new dad and a new star for English golf. The 28-year-old’s neatly assembled card, which included three birdies on each half and a trio of twos, was further evidence that the Yorkshireman is getting back into the swing following the inevitable after effects of that memorable Masters conquest. “I’ve just been working hard to get that feeling back,” said Willett, whose round yesterday was 11 shots better than his closing 77 in last weekend’s Irish Open when playing in the final group. “Just because you’ve won a major it doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels.”
Given the level of support he received yesterday, you half expected Willett to be carried around the West Course on a sedan chair. The former Walker Cup player is hoping that vocal backing can carry him all the way to victory in the European Tour’s flagship event. “You saw last week in Ireland how the home crowds helped Rory (McIlroy) get over the finishing line in Ireland and hopefully they can do the same here,” added Willett, who finished fifth on his debut at Wentworth in 2010 but hasn’t troubled the upper echelons since then.
Co-leader Yang’s last tour victory came in 2010 but the 44-year-old Korean propelled himself into contention with a purposeful round that started on a fairly hum-drum note with a bogey on the first hole. Yang, who famously beat Tiger Woods to the US PGA Championship in 2009, responded in fine style and reeled off four birdies in five holes from the fourth before making gains at four of his last seven.
One man who certainly knows how to get a wee dimpled ball round these parts is Luke Donald. The Ryder Cup player won the BMW PGA crown in 2011 and 2012 and he made a profitable return to this happy hunting ground with a four-under 68 to sit within striking distance.
His bold, raking approach from 233 yards to the last with a cracking 2-iron was rewarded with a birdie. “It'll maybe play down the opinion that I’m a short hitter,” said Donald with a wry smile. “No one remembers the guys who lays up do they?”
Donald is well versed in the various nooks, crannies, humps and hollows of the rigorous West Course. “Somehow, I’ve figured out this course a little bit better than others,” added the 38-year-old of a track that seems to be loved and loathed in equal measure by some of the game’s big names.
Russell Knox, Scotland’s leading campaigner on the global stage, certainly got stung on his first appearance at Wentworth as he signed for a 75. “I underestimated the severity of the greens and now I’m in a mighty big hole,” said Knox, who also opened with a 75 in Ireland last week and went on to finish in a share of second.
If he doesn’t dig himself out of said hole and misses the cut, what about some sightseeing in London on a spare weekend? “I’m not good in crowds and traffic so the thought of going there makes me want to be sick,” said Knox.
He has an added incentive to shoot a low one now then.
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