Richard Bland starts well at the Madeira Islands Open
Richard Bland surged into contention for the top spot, right from the beginning of the Madeira Islands Open, after he signed his scorecard with seven birdies against one bogey, on Thursday, May 16, 2013.
The Madeira Islands Open is being staged at the Clube de Golf do Santo da Serra, offering a prize fund of €600,000 to the participants.
Bland, whose only professional victory came on the Challenge Tour in 2001, started his campaign on the back nine of the course and birdied the 11th and the 17th hole, to reach the turn in two under.
He then picked up some pace on the front nine, by recording birdies on four of the first six holes, before ending the round with another birdie putt on the ninth hole. At the end of the day, he was trailing the leader Lloyd Saltman by just one stroke.
Talking to the European Tour’s official website, he stated that the playing conditions were really difficult and it was not an easy task to create birdie chances.
According to him, his brilliant short game was the main reason behind his success in the opening round.
“It wasn’t easy out there, it was pretty tricky," he said. "I putted great though, made some good birdie putts and made three or four nice par saves and you have to do that when it’s tricky so I'm very happy.”
“I think the most important putt was the par save at 18 (his ninth). I thought I had hit a good shot into the green but the wind left it alone and it went over the green. I chipped to about 12 feet and holed it for par,” he added.
Saltman, in the meantime, recorded nine birdies against a lone bogey, to finish the round with an eight-under par score.
Ricardo Santos, who won his maiden European Tour title here last year, made a poor start to his title defence on day one.
Last year, he fired a nine-under par 63 in the final round of the tournament to claim the title. This year, his start was completely opposite to what he did last year, as he bogeyed five holes, while carding just one birdie, to share to the 118th
position on the leaderboard.
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