Ireland’s Paul McGinley muscled his way between a pair of Scots in Paul Lawrie and Gary Orr to claim a share of the first round lead in the Celtic Manor Resort Wales Open over the Wentwood Hills course at Celtic Manor Resort.
McGinley, Lawrie and Orr all shot five under par rounds of 67 to lead by one stroke from a group of four players on 68 including Jamie Donaldson, winner of Sunday’s BMW Russian Open on the European Challenge Tour.
A strong finish of four birdies in the last six holes propelled McGinley into a share of the lead and added weight to his bid to earn one of the ten automatic places in the European Ryder Cup side.
McGinley currently holds tenth and last spot and a high finish this week would not go amiss. He said: “All I can do is play my own game and let everyone else look after theirs. I am in tenth position but I know I can’t defend the position. I have got to accelerate from here over the next four weeks.”
The Dubliner believes that, in every Ryder Cup qualification process, there are one or two “springers” who emerge from nowhere to grab a place in the team. Lawrie, without a victory since his success in the 1999 Open Championship at Carnoustie, is decidedly hopeful that it may be him in 2001.
A rookie two years ago, the Scot played with distinction at Brookline, hitting the opening shot in the Matches and earning three and a half points. His 67 was achieved despite a putting round which he described graphically as “horrendous” but Lawrie believes he is ready to challenge for a place in the side.
“I hope I will be one of those coming out of the pack. There is no reason why not” he contended. “I am playing tee to green as good as I can play. If I can putt better I could win two of the next four tournaments the way I’m playing. No problem at all. I just need to hole two or three putts more each day.
“I am very determined. I want to play against the Americans and we’ll see what happens.”
Orr, playing in the company of local heroes Ian Woosnam and Phillip Price, upstaged the galleries’ favourites with his round of 67 against Price’s 70 and a 73 by past Masters Champion Woosnam.
“Playing with the local boys I had to be on my best behaviour” joked Orr after his six-birdie round. “I was pleased with the way I hit my irons. I’ve been playing poorly – the worst for two or three years – so I took last week off and went to see my coach, David Whelan and spent a couple of days with him.
“We did a bit of work on the computer and compared my swing with swings from last year and two years ago. There were things in the set up I was doing differently. I changed things a bit and I spotted the difference straight away. Hopefully I will start to play better now.”
Donaldson, the 25 year old Welshman from Macclesfield, maintained his excellent form of last week in Moscow when he started with a double bogey six but managed to card an excellent round of 68 to move alongside Roger Wessels of South Africa, England’s Roger Winchester and Scot Graham Rankin.
Playing on a sponsor’s invitation, Donaldson drew inspiration from being in his homeland. For a time he was leading on his own and enthused: “It’s great to be in this position and it would be nice to go all the way. It’s good for Welsh golf and for Wales. This is only my second European Tour event. I qualified for the South African Open at the start of the year but missed the cut.”
