Archer a finger touch away from history

It is not often a player who sweeps into the first round lead in a golf tournament feels a pang of regret, but in Phillip Archer’s case, such emotion was entirely understandable. Granted, the Englishman’s nine under par 60 was a fantastic way to start The Celtic Manor Wales Open, but he did pass up a glorious opportunity to make history by becoming the first player to card a 59 in a European Tour event.

The Manchester United fanatic had, appropriately, peppered the scoreboard with bright red throughout his round and he came to the 426 yard 18^th needing one more birdie to match the feat of Frenchman Adrien Mörk, who became the first player to shoot 59 on the Challenge Tour in last week’s Tikida Hotels Agadir Moroccan Classic.

An adrenalin fuelled drive which split the fairway left a wedge approach from 134 yards which he executed well, leaving him seven feet from the record books. However, the birdie putt was a tricky downhill one and although he struck it on line, too much weight saw it clip the left edge of the cup and stay above ground.

“The last hole was great seeing all the people around the green waiting to see if I could do it,” said Archer who moved one shot clear of Sweden’s Robert Karlsson and three in front of Frenchman François Delamontagne and Colin Montgomerie of Scotland. “I just wanted to give myself a chance at it.

“If I was to be a little hard on myself, perhaps I should have tried to leave an uphill putt instead of a downhill one but I thought I’d read it perfectly – in fact I did read it perfectly – I just hit it a little too hard. It was a little bit bittersweet at the end there but it was a great round.

“I was a little nervous, I would be daft to say I wasn’t. I was shaking a little bit coming down the last but not over the putt because everything was focused on it. You just try and distract the pressure as much as you can.

“I’ve worked a lot with Karl Morris the psychologist trying to deflect stuff like that and I think I managed to do it, I went through my routine and everything, put a good stroke on the putt, but maybe just a little bit too firm.”

There was nothing wrong with Archer’s putting on the 17^th green where he holed a testing ten footer for par to keep his dream alive, or indeed on the other ten greens where he made birdie – including five in a row from the fifth – which more than made up for his only dropped shot of the day at the fourth where misfortune saw his approach shot spin back off the green.

“The big improvement for me this year has been my putting,” he said. “I had a good lesson with a chap called Paul Hurrion who David Howell sees as well and that has helped my putting stats immeasurably. I was outside the top 100 in greens in regulation putting before, but now I am just outside the top ten.”

He might not have achieved a 59 but Archer’s achievement was nonetheless noteworthy. Apart from setting a new record for the Roman Road course at The Celtic Manor Resort, it was also the 13^th time a 60 has been recorded on The European Tour, the last being Ernie Els’ 12 under par effort in the 2004 Heineken Classic at Royal Melbourne Golf Club.

Understandably, Archer’s effort put the majority of the field in the shade but second placed Karlsson deserved praise not least for the fact his eight under par 61 represented his lowest score in his 16 years on The European Tour.

For a while it looked like the Swede might also be in the running for a 59 when he covered his first nine holes – from the tenth to the 18^th – like Archer, in 29. But the 36 year old’s putter cooled on the front nine and he could only harvest three more birdies – at the third, the fifth and the ninth.

“I am very pleased with that,” he said. “I played solid and I holed a couple of putts out there at the right time. But there were also a lot of easy birdies out there and on a day like today it is little surprise that there are so many low scores, it is perfect.

“But even though the conditions are easy, you still have to play the golf so I am happy with that. My game is in pretty good shape just now so I have no complaints.”

Another contented man was Montgomerie whose seven birdie 63 put him alongside Delamontagne in a share of third place and brought him back to the upper echelons of the leaderboard after a recent disappointing run of seven missed cuts in his last ten events.

“It is coming back again,” said the eight time European Tour Order of Merit winner. “It would be easy for me not to play tournaments but perhaps this is the best way, to play my way out of this run. Being at home and thinking about it – that’s not the way I have ever done it.”