New Zealand’s Stephen Scahill and Welshman Kyron Sullivan share the lead after a glorious day’s golf at the dual ranking Madeira Island Open Caixa Geral de Depositos saw both players card outstanding first round scores of eight under par 64, while Scotland’s Andrew Coltart scored only the second albatross of The 2005 European Tour season and Markus Brier of Austria produced a hole in one at the beautiful Santo da Serra venue.
Scahill and Sullivan did not drop a single shot between them as they took a one shot lead from the English duo of Richard McEvoy and Matthew Morris, with a further five players tied on six under.
The 35 year old Scahill, who holds Santo da Serra’s course record of 11 under 61, which he posted en route to finishing second at this event in 1998, began his round on the back nine and made a perfect start to the tournament by holing his sand wedge approach to the par four tenth hole for an eagle two. He followed that up with three consecutive birdies to storm up the leaderboard in pursuit of Morris, who had set the clubhouse lead of seven under par earlier in the day.
A further birdie at the 18th saw the New Zealander turn in six under par 30 and put a serious threat on Morris’s lead, and indeed his own course record, with nine holes to play.
Sullivan, meanwhile, was a few groups ahead of Scahill and had already played the back nine in two under before he exploded into action on the front side with a superb birdie-birdie-eagle run over the first three holes. That set the Welshman up to post his own nine hole score of 30, which he added to his back nine total of 34 to knock Morris off the lead.
McEvoy then joined Morris in the clubhouse on seven under, before European Tour regular Scahill completed the front nine in 34 to create a tie atop the leaderboard with Challenge Tour Member Sullivan.
It was an amazing day in the mountains of Madeira, with over half of the field (85 out of 156 players) completing their opening rounds under par.
Coltart’s albatross and Brier’s hole in one were both contender’s for the shot of the day, the Scotsman’s wonder strike coming on the par five 11th hole, where he struck a perfect six iron all of 226 yards and into the cup for the first albatross of his professional career.
It was not long until Brier produced his own magnificent six iron at the par three fourth hole, the Austrian drawing his ball onto the perfect line before it pitched five feet from the cup and rolled straight in.
But the overall credit for the first round was due to the leaders, who were both delighted to have made such excellent starts to this, the first dual ranking event of the season between The European Tour and the Challenge Tour.
Scahill said: “I had to stop myself from thinking about the course record after going to the turn in 30 and just get my mind back on today’s round. I made a great start. I hit a driver down the tenth and then holed a sand wedge from around 85 metres and then chipped to a foot for birdie on the 11th. I had four iron and a pitching wedge to three feet at the next and then went driver-pitching wedge to ten feet on the 13th. On 18, I went driver-pitching wedge to ten feet. I was very happy with my performance in Portugal last week and I am ecstatic about todays.”
Sullivan, who finished 19th on the Challenge Tour Rankings last season and then missed out on his chance to win a place on Tour at the Qualifying School Finals due to a broken arm, was just as pleased as Scahill.
“I think, as a Challenge Tour player, you have to prepare for and treat the dual ranking events as Majors. And it worked out today – I got going, sank some nice putts and all of a sudden you’ve got a 64! I just stayed very patient all day because I started on the back nine and missed a four foot putt for birdie on the 11th but I just told myself to keep smiling and enjoy it and it was a lovely day.
“With this event having a prize fund of €600,000 it is the biggest tournament of the year on the Challenge Tour and if you do well here you can really get yourself up the Rankings, which is important for me because I missed the bigger events in South America at the start of the Challenge Tour season this year because I broke my arm the week before Tour School.
“But these things happen and there’s no point being bitter – you just have to get on with it and hopefully we can have the same tomorrow.”
