MIGUEL ANGEL JIMENEZ has his own record as the oldest winner in European Tour history in his sights after he turned back the clock in the suitably named Omega European Masters.
Jimenez, who won the Open de Espana in 2014 at the age of 50 years and 133 days, has played just three European Tour events in 2017 and spends most of his time playing on the seniors circuit.
But the 53-year-old Spaniard rolled back the years with seven birdies and a solitary bogey at Crans-sur-Sierre to card an opening six-under-par 64 and share the lead with England’s Tyrrell Hatton and 2016 runner-up Scott Hend.
“Anything can happen,” Jimenez said when asked about his prospects of winning on Sunday. “I’m playing good and feeling good. When you hit it good nothing is difficult. I played well, especially my irons to the flag were very good. I always enjoying coming here. It’s an amazing place and my 28th time coming here. I only missed one year because it clashed with the Senior British Open [in 2015].”
Hatton has not made a halfway cut since the BMW PGA Championship in May, but holed his second shot to the 12th – his third hole of the day – for an eagle and added five birdies and a single bogey.
“It was a difficult summer so very happy with today’s round and hopefully I can post a few more good numbers this week,” said the 25-year-old, who has slipped from a career-high of 14th in the world rankings to 30th.
“I went through a really good run with the putter but since Austin [the WGC-Dell Match Play in March] I had a little hiccup with the one that worked really well – I punished it – and haven’t found one that works. I had it reshafted but it wasn’t the same, although it did have a few extra battle scars on the bottom of it.”
Scotland’s Duncan Stewart and David Drysdale were part of a six-strong group on five under, with former world No.1 Luke Donald two under and defending champion Alex Noren on level par.
Stewart is 137th on the Race to Dubai and needs some good results to move into the top 100 and keep his card for next season.
“It’s been a long time since I had a bogey-free round and a long time since I got off to a good start in a tournament as well,” the Challenge Tour graduate said.
“I did a lot of work with my coach the last two days, I think I put him through his paces a little bit and thankfully it’s paying off. Being out first and taking advantage of the good greens was good. It’s my first time up here. Somebody said this course might suit my game, it’s about plotting your round and not bombing it so it was nice to come here and see that it suits my eye.”
Lee Westwood carded a one-over-par 71 on his 500th European Tour start, while Ryder Cup captain Thomas Bjorn was forced to withdraw after 15 holes due to an ongoing foot injury.
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