Golf: Geary favourite in top Open field

Jared Pender is looking forward to today's first round of the Carrus Open at Tauranga Golf Club. Photo / John Borren

The eighth Carrus Open tees off this morning at the Tauranga Golf Club with a fine field headed by US-based Josh Geary.

The former Otumoetai and Mount Maunganui club member is the hot favourite and has history on his side. He has played the Charles Tour event twice for two wins in 2006 and 2008.

The 118 players include seven former Charles Tour winners in Geary, Fraser Wilkin, Troy Ropiha, Mark Purser, Doug Holloway, Nick Gillespie and Joshua Carmichael who are all chasing the lion's share of the $40,000 purse.

Former Japan Tour pro Richard Lee is another starter who is best known for shooting a 59 at Tauranga in 2010 to become the only Kiwi to have shot golf's magical number.

Another player to look out for is Jared Pender, who grew up playing on the Tauranga course. The powerful driving 30-year-old has been in a rich vein of form over the past 12 months and has spent the winter fine tuning his game on his home course.

"My form has been good and I have been focusing a lot on practise and playing the course. I am hitting it pretty solid and just need to put it together," Pender said.

"The course is in different condition for the tournament. The greens are never this firm or this quick, which makes it a bit harder especially where they put some of the pins. The rough is real thick and this rain is not going to help that.

"If you lay-up you need to do it in the fairway but I won't be doing too much of that. Aggression is the key to a winning round here and I just hope the chipping is good and the flat stick works. That is the key at Tauranga as anyone can go low because it is so short."

Also in action are 32 women including professionals Jenna Hunter and Meti Phillis.