Golf: Australians head pack as wind makes it tricky

By DAVID LEGGAT

A Queenslander who loves the wind and a former junior Australian tennis champion share the lead after the opening day of the New Zealand Open golf championship at The Grange.

On a day when the occasional gusty breeze made life tricky for the field, with just 20 players bettering par, Scott Hend and Paul Sheehan thrived to post five-under rounds of 65 at the TelstraSaturn-sponsored event.

New Zealand have a presence at the top of the leaderboard, through Japan-based David Smail, and Hamilton's Canadian Tour Order of Merit winner Steve Alker, at four and three under respectively, while American David Gossett and South African Ryan Reid add an international flavour to the pacesetters.

Had life turned out differently, Wollongong-born Sheehan might have been swatting tennis balls at the Australian Open this week.

A contemporary of Mark Philippoussis, Sheehan was Australian champion at 13, but turned his talents to golf and yesterday put up his lowest round on the Australasian Tour.

Three birdies on the front nine, including a 25-footer at the par three eighth, laid the platform and he came home with a roar - birdies at 16, 17 and 18.

Sheehan, who played in the national under-23 championships at Bridge Pa, Hastings, last weekend, is no stranger to New Zealand, having several tournaments as an amateur here under his belt.

Hend had his best finish on the tour last weekend at the Victorian Open, tying for fourth, and simply carried that on yesterday, splitting his six birdies evenly between the two halves of his round.

"I tried to be patient," he said. "The course I play on at home is right on the ocean so it's great for me to come and play in the wind."

The Grange is not a course for the booming drivers, so Hend took the wise precaution of leaving his locked in his motel room.

"This is a course where instead of just getting on the tee, pulling out the driver and smashing it down the fairway, you have to be a bit innovative and think a lot more. The driver will stay locked up for the whole week."

Smail, a regular on the Japanese Tour, eagled his third hole, birdied the fifth and survived the odd awkward moment, while Alker began well and stayed steady.

Gossett, the 1999 US amateur champion, showed classy touches in a tidy performance, highlighted by 15 and 35ft birdie putts, as he picked up shots on three of his last four.

Tournament opening days invariably thrust unlikely names into the spotlight.

Try Tasmanian Nathan Gatehouse - who finished the day one off the pace, birdying three of his first four holes, taking an eagle along the way, and touching five-under before dropping a shot just before the end. Or Victorian David Bransdon, who eagled his third hole, turned for home five-under, before getting a slow puncture to finish at two-under.

New Zealand's Michael Campbell and Greg Turner, were one-over and four-over respectively. World No 15 Campbell began with a bogey and never really got a run going.

"My driving was pretty average, my putting was pretty average. But there's another three rounds to go.

"From Tuesday to Thursday the course has really toughened up, the fairways are harder and the greens are very fast. I wasn't confident with my putting, which is unusual because it's usually a strong part of my game."

Campbell was not the only player to comment on the difficulty of the pin placements, which were not helped by awkward crosswinds - "they were more like a Sunday."

Sheehan agreed, wondering that if Thursday's were hard, what would they be like come Decision Day?