Luis Masaveu (-4) and Josele Ballester (-3) have made a flying start in the quest for the Open Championship in a scorching and almost suffocating opening day at the Singapore Open, a tournament on the Asian Tour played at the Sentosa Golf Club that awards two spots for the Open Championship. The leaders are the Thai Ekpharit Wu (-7) and the Korean Jeongwoo Ham (-7). Right now, those two would be the beneficiaries of the Open spots.
Masaveu sits in sixth after the opening 18 holes. He carded three birdies, an eagle and a lone bogey and produced sensational tee-to-green golf. He only missed three fairways and three greens. The Madrid native thus builds on his good week at LIV Golf last week in Mexico, when he recorded his best ever result on the Saudi circuit.
Ballester keeps racking them up. The Castellón native has been a regular in the top positions of the tournaments he has played in recent months. Nothing surprising. Today he posted four birdies and a bogey. His round was somewhat more erratic than Masaveu’s, with fewer fairways and fewer greens, but he showed huge composure in recovery (4 of 5). He occupies 13th place.
Further back, although both have the whole tournament ahead to do very good things, are Pablo Ereño (PAR) and Carlos Pigem (+2). The provisional cut has been set precisely at PAR.
Among the players up there are Kieran Vincent (-5), John Catlin (-4), Caleb Surratt (-3) and Peter Uihlein (-3).
The Singapore Open hands out two invitations to the Open Championship to the top-finishing players who are already exempt for the fourth Major of the year. The only players competing this week who already have guaranteed their place at Royal Birkdale are Lucas Herbert, Travis Smyth and Kazuki Higa.
