HAMISH BIDWELL The tournament is Taylormade in name and the conditions proved tailor-made in nature for the top players at the Hastings Golf Club Pro-Am yesterday. Scoring was hot on day one of the $25,000 Taylormade-Adidas Pro-Am, with defending champion Kevin Chun and the much-improved Mark Brown both shooting 66, tohold a one-shot lead over Waikato's Mathew Holten heading into today's second and final round. "The course is playing long," said Hastings Golf Club general manager Ken Dungey. "Because it's been so dry in Hawke's Bay, we've irrigated the course quite a lot over the last month or so. Throw in the fact that we've had quite a lot of rain in the last couple of days and even the pros have commented that the course is playing long. "The ball is tending to stop where it lands, so we played a 15cm clean and place rule, because the ground was fairly sticky. If anything, though, the conditions have helped the scoring. "These guys are incredibly long off the tee and the ball is just stopping on the fairways and, from there, it's like darts. They're all firing wedges and short irons into the greens and the conditions have made the course very receptive to low scoring." Chun was one of only two players to go through yesterday's round without a bogey, with his six-under 66 including birdies on two, three, 15 and 17, plus an eagle on the par five tenth. The only blemish for Brown, just back from playing in China, was a bogey on the thirteenth, to go with his seven birdies. Holten was the other player to go bogey-free and he's a shot ahead of former Hawke's Bay amateur Guy Penrose and Grant Moorhead. Penrose was five-under through 10 holes, but bogeyed 13 and 15, before making another birdie on 17. Moorhead, second in the New Zealand Order of Merit behind Hawke's Bay's Doug Holloway who is playing in Australia, had six birdies and two bogeys. One of the nice stories of the day was the performance of the United States-based Matthew Lane. New Zealand Open champion in 1998, Lane has had a horror run since, but began the tournament with a solid 69. Other notables include Richard Lee and Brad Shilton, who shot 70, while the age-less Simon Owen, former Black Cap Alex Tait and Marcus Wheelhouse all had 72.
