The England duo of Zane Scotland and Craig Hinton sounded an early warning to their rivals shooting matching five-under 67s to hit the front in the opening round of the MENA Golf Tour’s Ras Al Khaimah Classic at Tower Links Golf Club in the UAE Monday.
His iron game in top form, Scotland rattled in eight birdies, including four on his first five holes, and three bogeys in unusually windy conditions early in the morning while Hinton birdied four of the final five holes to move atop the crowded leaderboard
Miles Tunnicliff, also of England, occupied solo third a further shot adrift as an eight-man group, which included leading UAE amateur Rayhan Thomas, moved into a tie for fourth on three-under on a day when 25 players broke par.
Showing tremendous mental strength, young Thomas rebounded from a stumbling start with three birdies to make the turn at one-under and picked three more shots on the back nine that contained just one bogey.
England’s Zane Scotland shares the lead on day one of the MENA Golf Tour’s Ras Al Khaimah Classic .
“I really played well and made very few mistakes after a disappointing start,” said the 16-year- old Dubai-based prodigy, who overshot the green with a wedge and three putted for a double bogey on the first.
“If I can keep the momentum rolling all the way through, it will be great, but I don’t want get ahead of time and will take things as they come,” said Thomas, who leads the amateur division by one shot over Brazil’s Tiago Lobo with Saudi Arabia’s Othman Almulla lying third on level-par.
Scotland rode on a fluent start to string together a solid round. “I made some good putts early in the round and that kind of set the tone for the day,” said the Englishman, who is a 10-time winner on the MENA Golf Tour.
“Overall, it was a pretty solid round, especially my approaches were very close and that helped me keep going,” said Scotland, who was the first to tee off on Welsh ace Stephen Dodd, the Scottish duo of Paul Doherty and Daniel Kay,
England’s Jake Shepherd, Jesper Alm of Sweden, India’s Manish Goel and Carlos Balmaseda of Spain completed the group for a share of fourth on three-under par.Three birdies in a row from the first highlighted the round of Dodd, a three-time winner on the European Tour, who also topped the MENA Golf Tour Order of Tunnicliff, a two-time winner on the European Tour, picked up four shots in six shots after making opening with a bogey to close out a fabulous front nine of 33.
He bogeyed the 11th, but finished strongly with birdies on the 15th and 17th to stay in contention for his maiden on the MENA Golf Tour.
“I played pretty solid golf. Drove the ball well and hit some very good iron shots close to the pin, especially on the front nine. I struggled a little bit on 11, 12 and 13, but managed to finish strongly with two late birdies. I made six birdies, all from within five of six feet which was great,” added the 47-year- old Englishman.
Elsewhere, Andrew Marshall returned a two-under 70 to take a share of 11th while birthday boy Clarke Lutton of Scotland settled for a three-over 75.
