West Of Ireland ChampionshipThe most strident opponent for golfers who tee it up at the Standard Life-sponsored West of Ireland Amateur Open Golf Championship is often the weather that assails Co Sligo Golf Club. Yesterday it was the officials who had more cause to bemoan the elements.
The Rosses Point links was shrouded in fog when the first threeball of Brendan Kilgallon, West veteran Adrian Wynne and Len Gilligan pitched up to get proceedings under way at 7.0 am.
Poor visibility - it was down to 30 yards at that point - necessitated a delay of close to 90 minutes, and even then some of the early groups started on the fourth tee where the haze was less dense.
It guaranteed a long day but the relatively benign conditions, a brisk breeze was offset by the fact that the greens were accommodating even to long irons, made decent scoring feasible. None mastered the conditions better than 17-year-old Gothenburg native Rikard Karlberg who shot a course record six under par 65.
The Swede amassed seven birdies and just a single bogey, at the eighth where he three-putted, to usurp the previous low mark of 66, a record shared by another Swede Steven Jeppesen, City of Derry's John Harding and former West of Ireland champion Stuart Paul.
Karlberg, playing off a plus three handicap, was a member of the Swedish team beaten in a Youths international at The Island on Tuesday, halving his match with Clancy Bowe over the north Dublin links.
It wasn't his first time to traverse the Rosses Point course as he played in this championship last year, albeit failing to make the cut.
"I didn't play well (then) but I know the course pretty well now and how you should play it. The wind was different last year. It was much easier today and the greens were softer, which was a big plus."
He has already won the Duke of York Championship in the Isle of Man and also the Nordic Championship, played in Sweden.
He set about the course as early as the third hole, hit a six- iron second shot to the par five and getting down in two putts. At the next, he holed a long putt after hitting a four-iron to the middle of the green on the par three. The only aberration on his card came on the eighth.
He recovered in fine style grabbing birdies at the 10th, 11th and 12th, holing from six feet, 20 feet and 12 inches. A five-iron to 15 feet at the 16th took him to five under for the round and then at the last he hit a lob wedge to 12 feet and once again single-putted.
His playing partners Noel Fox (71) and Mark O'Sullivan (72) are perfectly placed to make the matchplay stages tomorrow. Fox wasn't particularly happy with his level par round while Mark O'Sullivan made 16 straights pars, bogeyed the 17th, before managing a regulation figure on the final hole.
Another Swede, Oskar Henningsson, shot a three-under-par 68, one ahead of Irish international Darren Crowe. The Dunmurry golfer enjoyed a blemish-free round with 16 pars and birdies at the third and the 16th holes.
There was a cluster of golfers tied on the 70 mark: Melvyn Flanagan (Co Longford), Stephen Moloney (Castletroy), Eoin O'Sullivan (The Island), Johnny Foster (Ballyclare) and Dwane Twomey (Muskerry).
Boys international Rory McIlroy belied his tender years - he just 14 - to shoot a very creditable two over par 73. The Holywood youngster, who played for the national under-18 side against Wales earlier in the week, has only recently returned from California (January to be precise), where he was working with Nick Faldo. He finished second in the under-15 category of the Faldo Junior series, a week-long event at the Palm Desert Marriott Shadow Ridge resort.
He recalled spending two hours with Faldo as the six-time Major winner gave him a two-hour lesson on reading greens but McIlroy conceded with a smile that the putting sward was his next destination after the scorer's van as he had struggled to master the links greens of Rosses Point.
The day proved acutely disappointing for former champion Barry Reddan, who withdrew before play with a chest infection.
Ballyliffin's Brendan McCarroll, one of the later starters, joined Crowe as the leading Irishman after shooting an eventful two under par 69: a round that included four bogeys, four birdies and an eagle three.
The last eight starters did well to finish their round, dusk having descended on the links as they plotted their way over the closing holes.
