The Chinese Ashun Wu (-5) is the provisional leader of the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters, once the morning round of the first day’s play has finished. The wind, as expected, has blown almost from the start at the Doha Golf Club and has increased as the hours have passed, so Wu’s 67 is even more valuable. In fact, the number of players who have beaten the course this windy Qatari morning is significantly lower than those who have not. Immaculate greens, but also very firm, do not help to make many birdies, precisely.
In this regard, the performance of the Spanish players in this morning round must be considered positive. Up to three members of the Armada, Manu Elvira (-2), Nacho Elvira (-2) and Jorge Campillo (-2) have placed themselves up there, in a second line, with cards of 70 strokes. There is a slight bitter taste, it is true, as all of them have aimed higher throughout their respective rounds (Campillo and Manu, in fact, closed their rounds with a bogey on hole 9) but the balance can only be positive. In addition, Pablo Larrazábal (-1) and Rafa Cabrera Bello (-1) also finished in red numbers, a circumstance that, as has been said, must be properly valued on this course, with this wind and with some hard greens against which you have to hit very good shots to really leave it close. Ángel Hidalgo (+2), for his part, closed his round with consecutive bogeys on holes 17 and 18.
It is worth noting Nacho Elvira‘s passage through the hole 16 in the final stretch of his round, the famous short par 4 with the big rock in front of the green, undoubtedly one of the hot spots of this course. The Cantabrian hit from the tee and went to the left, without being able to find the ball later. He hit again from the tee the third shot, once the penalty was noted, and this time he left it on the green, to then sink a putt of about six meters and get out of there with a crazy par and finally deliver a bogey-free card. Watch out, because only two have been seen in the morning round of play: Nacho’s and the leader’s, Ashun Wu.
