David Law emerged from the intermittent downpours all smiles to head the tartan charge with a 67 on the opening day of the BMW PGA Championship at Tour HQ.
Law, 31, superbly picked-up from where he left off a year ago when the Aberdonian shot a Wentworth career-best closing round of 66 to share 14th place. The effort was easily his best in three appearances at Tour HQ.
Law trails just three shots behind Norwegian sensation Viktor Hovland, who finished birdie, birdie and then holed a 26-footer at the last for an eagle ‘3’ to tie the England pair of Andy Sullivan and Tommy Fleetwood, shooting eight-under 64s.
Tournament favourite Rory McIlroy signed for a 68 while the best of the LIV Golf stars is the duo of Arabram Ancer and former Scottish Open champ Bernd Wiesberger also with 68s.
Law capped this year’s opening round briliantly holing his second shot for an eagle ‘2’ at the 418-yard, par four 6th hole, and with the Scot seeing a 144-yard, 9-iron second shot take one bounce and disappear into the cup.
He said: “We had our umbrellas up at the time, and you can’t really see the bottom of the flag but I thought I heard my old man screamig ‘Yes!’ (laughing), so I thought it must have a chance.
“Overall, very happy with my score despite the weather being on and off all day, and with it again raining as we finished.
“It was a case of waterproofs on and off, umbrellas up and then down, and it was pretty slow going the first 12 holes, and with the rain making the course play a bit longer but then the greens were soft, and providing a lot of chances so to come away with five under in those conditions made me happy.”
Law arrived in leafy Surrey contesting a 21st event of the season with three top-10s to his season credit and making pay cheques in all but five events. And at 41st on the Race to Dubai money-list, he’s already 51 spots ahead of his prior best season of 92nd in 2019.
Five Scots – Grant Forrest, Marc Warren, Scott Jamieson, Connor Syme and David Drysdale, who eagled his fourth hole – posted three-under 69s.
Top-ranked Scot Bob MacIntyre was on the last when news broke with the passing of Queen Elizabeth and taking bogey in a 71
OTHER SCOTS –
71 – Richie Ramsay, Ewen Ferguson
72 – Greig Hutcheon
73 – Stephen Gallacher
