Golf: Flawless start surprise for Smail

New Zealand's premier golfer David Smail confounded even himself to sit equal atop the leaderboard after the opening round of the New Zealand Open yesterday.

Barely 24 hours after questioning the readiness of his game, Smail played the percentages beautifully to post a seven-under 65 in benign conditions at The Hills on the outskirts of Arrowtown.

He was joined early in the evening by Australian Andrew Dodt, who birdied each of his final four holes, and American tour rookie Robert Gates, who birdied his closing three.

Smail had voiced uncertainty at the state of his game after a six-week break and limited preparation, but those doubts were immediately expelled with an almost flawless exhibition.

He opened his account in the US$600,000 ($846,200) Nationwide Tour event in bogey-free fashion to head the queue with Gates and Dodt entering today's second round, one shot ahead of his American playing partner, DJ Brigman, and Australian Andrew Bonhomme.

Another eight players were banked up on 67, among them 2008 New Zealand PGA Championship winner Darron Stiles, of the United States, his fellow countrymen Dave Schultz and Daniel Summerhays plus Australians Andrew Buckle, Nick Flanagan, Matthew Griffin, Michael Wright and Ryan Haller.

Sixty-eight was also a popular number, with a group of eight struggling for elbow space at 14th equal, followed by a posse on 69 containing New Zealanders Josh Geary and Phil Tataurangi.

Smail, the 2001 New Zealand Open champion and the best ranked player in the field at 107th in the world, was not fully satisfied despite helping himself to seven birdies on the par-72 6610m layout, his tidiness reflected in the fact that he found 12 of 14 fairways and reached 16 greens in regulation.

"I am still not 100 per cent happy with how I hit it but I putted superbly all day and even those that missed were on the line I wanted," Smail said.

"I am normally a slow starter and it is nice to jump out of the gates a bit earlier," he added, noting that it was only a start, leaving unsaid that the challenge is to stay in leaderboard contention in coming days.

Conditions remained calm and settled throughout the day, with nothing more than a breeze fanning the course under cooling, cloudy skies which cleared late in the afternoon.

Among those under par was American Jason Gore, who posted sharply contrasting nines of 40 and 30.

"It was ugly. It was a tale of beauty and the beast but in this case the beast came before beauty," Gore said.

He shelled four shots on his outward nine to be last after beginning at the 10th, but he then stirred to life with six successive birdies on the inward journey.

- NZPA