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Roaring Bear Nicklaus in hunt in first round of Senior British Open
Updated: Thursday July 26, 2001 5:11 PM
NEWCASTLE, Northern Ireland (AP) -- Jack Nicklaus could barely have asked for a better start than his first-hole eagle Thursday in his first tilt at the Senior British Open. He could have done with a better finish. Nicklaus shot a 1-under-par 70 to trail the leaders, John Bland of South Africa and Denis Durnian of England, by two strokes. They all recorded their scores in the morning before a capricious breeze grew stronger for the later starters on the 6,614-yard (6,043 meters) County Down layout 30 miles (48kms) south of Belfast. Former European Ryder Cup captain Bernard Gallacher carded a 69 in the afternoon for a third-place tie with 1989 and 1993 champion Bob Charles of New Zealand, 1998 champion Brian Huggett of England, John Morgan of England and Nobori Sugai of Japan. Three-time winner Gary Player, 65, was on 72 but 71-year-old Arnold Palmer, the other member of golf's great triumvirate playing here, suffered on the way to an 84, tying for the worst score of the day with four other players. Nicklaus, 61, had three practice rounds to cope with the myriad of blind shots at Royal County Down, a course he said he had always wanted to play.
Then he began in imperious fashion with the eagle-3 at the 502-yard first hole. He hit a drive and a 3-iron to 15 feet and made the putt. Two birdies and two bogeys over the next 15 holes left him at 2-under but a bogey-5 at 17 followed by a par-5 at the narrow 528-yard 18th were not what he wanted. Nicklaus described the last hole as "awkward." "Unless I can hit a driver far enough to play an iron in there, I'm not going for it in two. Today I hit 3-iron, 5-iron, 6-iron," he said. "I suppose 70 on the board is a pretty good score but I think I played better than that. Given the start I had, it should have been better." He said that at 375-yard 17th, where he played a 3-wood off the tee in practice to avoid a pond in the fairway, he elected to go with a 4-wood because of a favorable wind and found a bunker. "There are two bunkers there I hadn't seen before. They don't come into play with a 3-wood," he said. Player, who also eagled the first hole, said he had discovered something in his swing in time to play the back nine well. On the front nine, he said, he was still in the rut he was in at last week's British Open. Palmer said he enjoyed the day and the golf course, but "I didn't enjoy my golf, particularly playing that way in front of the crowd. "That's the thing that bothers me most. It is terrible," he said. "It hurts when you play as poorly as this. That will eventually run me off." Bland, second in the event three times in the last four years, also eagled the first and added birdies at the short seventh, which he almost aced, and the ninth. Durnian, winner of the lucrative Wales Seniors Open early last month in his first full season on the Seniors Tour, had an indifferent front nine of 36, 1-over. But he birdied the 10th, 11th and 16th to reach 2-under then played the last immaculately. His third shot covered the flag and finished 12 feet behind it and he made the birdie putt.
"A birdie at the seventh steadied me down after a shaky start,"
said the Englishman, who still holds the British Open low front
nine record total of 28, set at Royal Birkdale in 1983.
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