Stranger to course takes two-stroke Aust. Open lead

Press, 27 November 1987, Page 36

Stranger to course takes two-stroke Aust. Open lead

From

RUSSELL GRAY,

in Melbourne Ignorance was bliss as far as an unlikely lad, Terry Price, was concerned yesterday as he shot a five-under par 67 on the opening day of the National Panasonic Australian Open golf championships. Price leads the tournament going into today’s second round by two shots from a bunch of six golfers that includes New Zealand’s Greg Turner, who made a welcome return to form. Also on 69 are Rodger Davis, the Scot, Sandy Lyle, the Irishman, Ronan Rafferty, and the West Australians, Wayne Smith and Bradley King.

It was a marvellous round from Price, aged 26, who pre-qualified for the tournament at Long Island on Monday, and only got his first look at the Royal Melbourne course in Wednesday’s practice round. Six birdies rolled seemingly effortlessly off the red-headed player’s putter, with the only blemish in the round coming at the par-four thirteenth where Price hit a bad drive and dropped a shot. Dunedin’s Turner came back to form with a vengeance. Two days before the tournament began Turner had said he was not enjoying his golf and was

playing poorly, All that changed yesterday when even a mid-round hiccup of back-to-back bogeys could not knock him off his stride. Tusner, aged 24, said that he enjoyed himself more than he had done for some time, though he warned there were still three rounds to play. Beginning from the eleventh tee, Turner picked up birdies at the fourteenth and sixteenth holes but lost them when he bogeyed the eighteenth and first holes, both with bad second shots. Turner’s prospects of a recovery not look bright when he played a poor tee shot at the

second and then put his second shot into a bunker on the par-five hole. It was then that he produced his best shot of the round however, blasting out of the bunker to within centimetres of the pin for a birdie. He picked up further shots at the fourth and ninth holes but made a complete hash of a birdie chance at the final hole when he pulled his putt.

Another New Zealander, Frank Nobilo, is two strokes further back from Turner but still one under the card on 71. The other Kiwi in the field, Simon Owen, was three over on 75.