‘Beware the injured golfer’ may be a commonly used phrase but Joakim Bäckström gave further credence to its authenticity when a stunning course record 62 gave him the first round lead in the Telecom Italia Open.
Five years ago the 29 year old Swede was struggling to even walk as a result of a problem with compression of discs in his back, an issue which has plagued him since he grew over a foot in height in one year when he was 15.
Therefore, it was understandable he was delighted to stand tall at Castello di Tolscinasco Golf and Country Club on the outskirts of Milan and stride into the lead by a shot from Austrian Markus Brier and two clear of Japan’s Taichi Teshima.
A rigorous training regime undertaken four times a week helps Bäckström maintain the core stability in the muscle around the discs which enables him to play golf at the highest level and he showed he could do that with aplomb with the lowest tournament round of his career, a ten under par effort which beat the existing course record of nine under par 63 held jointly by Richard Finch and Søren Kjeldsen.
“Pretty much everything was good today,” said Bäckström who opened his European Tour account when he won the Aa St Omer Open in 2005. “My irons and putting were very good and my driving was okay, I had no real big misses and that helped give me chances.”
The tall Swede certainly needed no second invitation to take advantage of the opportunities he presented himself with, notching two eagle threes in his excellent effort to stand alongside six birdies.
He got off to the perfect start with an eagle three at the first, a 526 yard hole he conquered with a perfect drive and six iron second to ten feet, but the highlight of his round came in the seven holes from the ninth to the 15th, a stretch he covered in seven under par thanks to five birdies and his second eagle three of the day, this time holing from ten feet on the 554 yard hole after his three iron second had found the putting surface.
Indeed, it could have been even better but yet another putt for birdie at the 17th from six feet, this time stayed above ground and a par four at the tricky 423 yard 18th saw him sign for 62.
Second placed Brier was equally delighted with his 63 during which he continued to show the confidence gained from his second European Tour victory last month in the Volvo China Open in Shanghai.
“I don’t get nervous now if you get one birdie after another and I am not afraid of low scores,” he said. “Even when I make a mistake I don’t bother as much as I did before and I step up to the next shot like normal. Today was a good example of that. I had a good start and got through the tough holes, the six, seven and eight and then I really kicked on from there and didn’t make any mistakes.”
Highlight of Brier’s outward half was an eagle three at the ninth where he holed from 20 feet but he saved the best for last with a blistering finish which included birdies at six of the last seven holes to be home in 30.
The Austrian’s grand finale robbed Teshima of the chance of outright second place but the 38 year old Japanese player was still thrilled with his scintillating 64 which featured a dropped shot at the 12th but nine birdies elsewhere including four in his last five holes from the fifth.
The multiple winner on the Japan Golf Tour admitted he was pleased to get back to a normal day’s golf with one round completed in one day after the stop-start nature of last week’s weather affected Open de España in Madrid.
“Last week was a very long week but I have been able to rest a bit this week, especially yesterday when I didn’t play at all on the pro-am day,” he said. “I just stayed indoors and now I feel refreshed today.”
England’s James Heath, Andrew McLardy of South Africa and Alvaro Quiros – winner of this season’s Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa – share fourth place after respective opening 65s and Heath revealed that his day’s work fell into the ‘round to remember’ category for his 2007 season has been a bit of a feast or a famine. His last seven tournaments, for example, have featured two top ten finishes but also five missed cuts.
“When I’m playing well I play well but when I’m not I seem to play really badly,” said the 24 year old Londoner. “I am trying to work on my consistency and I have to ride the good times and work hard on getting the bad times out of my system.”
Like Bäckström, the former English amateur champion eagled the first, the only difference being it was his tenth hole of the day having started at the tenth. Unlike Bäckström he did drop a shot, at the ninth where his approach found sand, but he more than made up for the error with six birdies elsewhere.
The young Englishman also took time out to praise the resilience of the Castello di Toscinasco course which took an almighty pounding of rain most of Wednesday but which showed so little signs of it on Thursday morning that preferred lies were not even in operation.
“I don’t think I have ever played a bad Italian golf course and this is right up there with the best,” he said. “The greens are so good and they are not really that slopey which means you have lots of right edge and left edge putts which, if you hit them properly, they’re going to go in.
“It is also holding up fantastically well as well. They didn’t play preferred lies and they didn’t need to. We were surprised about that when they told us on the first tee but the course has held up really well and the greens are just as fast as they were in practice.”
