Stadler hits sizzling 64

Press, 16 July 1983, Page 64

Stadler hits sizzling 64

NZPA-Reuter Southport

The tubby American golfer, Craig Stadler, has the field chasing him in the British Open championship after his sizzling seven-under-par first round of 64 yesterday.

After his fellow Americans, Tom Watson and Bill Rogers, the last two British Open champions, had hinted at what was possible with fine rounds of 67, the 30-year-old Californian went three strokes better and shattered the Royal Birkdale open course record in the process. A magical putter which he needed only 25 times in his round helped him shatter the previous Birkdale best of 66. This had been recorded by an American, Johnny Miller, as he won at Southport in 1976 and by two Britons, Mark James the same year and Peter Oosterhuis five years earlier. Stadler had a good chance of beating the open record on any course with two holes to go yesterday, but the 6968-yard course held him off and the record of 63, set by an American, Mark Hayes, at Turnberry in 1977 and matched by Isao Aoki, of Japan, at Muirfield in 1980, remained intact. It was a day of low scoring at Royal Birkdale with only a slight breeze from the Irish Sea to ruffle the heatwave. There was a hole-in-one from a 30-year-old Australian, Rodger Davis, whose five-iron on the 184-yard twelfth bounced twice and then dropped into the cup;

and an albatross two on a par-five hole by Rogers, the 1981 champion, who holed his second shot from 228 yards away on the 526-yard seventeenth. There were 30 sub-par rounds and another 13 of level-par 71 as the players set out on what could be four days of good scoring in weather conditions that are not predicted to change. A West German, Bernhard Langer, who led the European money-winning list in 1981, is level with Watson and Rogers in second place. He had two superb putts of 16 and 13 metres. Two Australians, Mike Ferguson and Vaughan Somers, a hot American prospect, Hal Sutton, and two Britons, Nick Faldo and Sam Torrance, are level in fifth place after rounds of 68.

Leading scorers (British unless stated).— 64 - C. Stadler (U.S.) (course record). 67 - T. Watson (U.S.), B. Langer (W. Germany), Bill Rogers (U.S.). 68 - H. Sutton (U.S.), Mike Ferguson (Aust.), N. Faldo, S. Torrance, V. Somers (Aust.). 69 - H. Green (U.S.), P. Parkin, H. Irwin (U.S.), G. Marsh (Aust.), D. Dunk, L. Trevino (U.S.), E. Darcy.

70 — Antonio Garrido (Spain), Manuel Calero (Spain), Mark James, Larry Nelson (U.S.), S. Hobday (S. Africa), M. Kuramoto (Japan), B. Waites, A. Bean (U.S.), I. Collins, R. Gilder (U.S.), J. Miller, M. Johnson, V. Fernandez (Argen), R. Davis (Aust.).