corred version

GORDON Brand Jr cast off his British Open golf championship blues with

a dazzling first-round 65 in the Dutch Open at Zandvoort yesterday.

The Scot, who missed the halfway cut at Royal Troon, took a one-shot

lead over Ireland's Eamonn Darcy as both launched a late campaign to

hang on to the Ryder Cup places they gained two years ago.

Brand snapped up six birdies and Darcy five on the Kennemer links

where Seve Ballesteros achieved his first tournament success in 1976.

Ballesteros opened with a 67, along with fellow Spaniard Jose Maria

Olazabal.

Brand's best putt was a 40-footer at the short eighth, but he twice

holed from 10 feet and was home in 31.

An inward 30 had Darcy smiling, especially when he closed with a

45-foot birdie putt.

Ballesteros looked in better shape after a lean period in which he

missed the halfway cut in Monte Carlo and finished sixty-seventh in the

Open, his worst performance in the event.

After four birdies, three from putts of 15 feet, Ballesteros said: ''I

feel that my game is coming back. There has been nothing particularly

wrong, but everyone knows I have not been playing well for some time.''

Sandy Lyle's form has also been poor and he again flattered to

deceive.

An outward 33 put him among the leaders, but he then ran into trouble

at the short par-four sixteenth. He had to take a penalty drop after

putting his 2-iron tee shot into a bush. He eventually needed 38 shots

to come home, carding a 71. Leading scores (British unless stated):

65 -- Gordon Brand Jr.

66 -- Eamonn Darcy (Ireland).

67 -- Jose-Maria Olazabal (Spain), Severiano Ballesteros (Spain),

Colin Montgomerie, Lyndsay Stephen (Australia), Paul Carman.

68 -- Mark Roe, Alberto Binaghi (Italy), Carl Mason, Miguel Martin

(Spain), Philip Walton (Ireland), Magnus Jonsson (Sweden).

69 -- Derrick Cooper, Santiago Luna (Spain), Philip Harrison, Marc

Pendaries (France), Carl Magnus Stromberg (Sweden), Sam Torrance, Johan

Rystrom (Sweden), David Williams, Peter Baker, Craig Parry (Australia),

Michael King, Wayne Riley (Australia), Jesper Parnevik (Sweden).

70 -- John McHenry (Ireland), Peter Fowler (Australia), David Jones,

Mikael Krantz (Sweden), John Woof, Roger Chapman, B Gee (Netherlands),

John O'Leary (Ireland), Magnus Persson (Sweden), Bryan Norton (US), Tony

Charnley, Paolo Quirici (Switzerland), Glenn Ralph, Mats Lanner

(Sweden), Mike Miller, Marc Farry (France), Barry Lane, Bob Smith (US).

71 -- Bob Shearer (Australia), Kyi Hla Han (Burma), Steven Bottomley,

A Saddington, Richard Boxall, Eduardo Romero (Argentina), Des Smyth

(Ireland), Frank Nobilo (New Zealand), Christy O'Connor Jr (Ireland),

Paul Way, Sandy Lyle, Charles Bolling (US), Stephen Bennett, Andrew

Chandler.

72 -- W Swart (Netherlands), Mike Colandro (US), Andrew Sherborne,

Jimmy Heggarty, Manuel Moreno (Spain), Neil Hansen, Ross Drummond, Ross

McFarlane, Ronan Rafferty, Anders Sorensen (Denmark), Denis Durnian,

David Feherty, Juan Quiros (Spain), Leif Hederstrom (Sweden), Rick

Hartmann (US), Keith Waters.