James Hepworth leads the way on the opening day of the latest event on the PGA EuroPro Tour at Galgorm Castle carding first round of nine-under with an eagle on the third to give him a one-shot lead over Ireland’s Barrie Trainor.
James Webber (Three Rivers Golf Club) is two shots off the lead on seven-under, while Jonathan Caldwell, is one of a number of players on six-under. He dropped a shot at the fifth but birdies on holes three, four, eight, nine, ten, 16 and 17 saw him stay in contention for the £10,000 top prize.
Caldwell, a member of the Walker Cup team in 2007 alongside Rory McIlroy, normally plays on the Challenge Tour, where he is currently 61st on their Order of Merit. This is the first EuroPro tour event Caldwell (Clandeyboye) has taken part in this season and he is well placed in the event, which concludes on Friday.
FORE Ireland’s Michael Collins is also in the top ten, while Mark Campbell of Team Ireland, Dale Marmion and Ian Keenan all went round in five-under, despite all claiming bogeys on the opening hole.
Mark Staunton the other member of FORE Ireland playing at the Ballymena venue signed for a two over par 74
Michael Collins said:
“Today was a round that was coming for a while. As I have said before, if I was able to eliminate the dropped shots, I was making enough birdies to shoot a decent number. 7 birdies today against no bogeys was welcome and as always could have been better.”
“With the greens as firm as they were, I decided to hit most of my approaches with a fade and it worked very well with the ball pulling up nice and quickly after the first bounce. I didn’t hole any long putts but gave myself an awful lot of chances.”
“There were probably 6 more good putts for birdie from inside 15 feet that went very close and a long one on 8 that defied gravity. On reflection, it is the lowest round I have had in tournament play which is another nice personal best to keep improving.”
However, this course, though yielding birdies, still needs to be respected. I’m looking forward to the morning and hopefully I can get things going early on as scoring is going to be low.”
