The English duo of Lee S James and Matthew Richardson emerged as the early frontrunners on a day of two courses for the European Challenge Tour, as 168 players set out at Riva dei Tessali and the Metaponto Golf Club for the first round of the Tessali-Metaponto Open di Puglia e Basilicata.
Every player in the field this week will play each course once before the halfway cut, with the final two rounds being played at Tessali.
James and Richardson grabbed the early initiative with a pair of seven under par 65s at Metaponto, with Scotsman Christopher Doak just one behind the leaders at the same course.
Over at Tessali, meanwhile, Germany’s Kariem Baraka, Italy’s Massimo Scarpa, Welshman Kyron Sullivan and the Belgian Jerome Theunis all produced five under par 66s to stay in touch with the leaders, with England’s Stuart Davis just one stroke further back.
But it was James and Richardson who set the early pace, and both men were delighted to be in a share of the lead for very different reasons.
James, the 2002 Challenge Tour Number One, revealed after his round that he had only just returned from an emergency trip to the USA to see his American coach Rob Stoke, who managed to solve the putting problem that was threatening the Englishman’s career.
“I was honestly thinking that if I didn’t see an improvement in my putting after coming back from seeing Rob then I was going to have to consider what I was doing career-wise,” said James.
“I was going to give it a few events and if it hadn’t improved then I was going to have top think about stopping because I had what was close to the yips and it was killing me.
“I didn’t get it over every putt, but it was happening quite regularly when I was taking the putter back I would feel twitching in my hands and it meant I couldn’t hit the putts properly. Even whne I though I was giving it a good roll I was completely missing the hole from 18 inches.
“So I went to see Rob at the Golf Club of Georgia and he has helped find a cure for me. I was over in America for 11 days, and for the last week of that time I knew that we had fixed the problem. I just hope I can keep going from here.”
Richardson, meanwhile, was just delighted to be out competing in the professional arena after spending the first months of his professional career waiting on a chance to showcase the talents that made him an integral part of the 2005 Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup Team.
“It felt great to have a bogey-free round out there,” said Richardson. “That’s the first time I have done that in nine months as a pro – in fact it’s probably the first time that I have played well as a pro.
“Things have been a bit stop-start for me since I turned professional but hopefully this is the stat of a nice run. The problem has been that I have struggled to get into tournaments and when you can’t get regular competition then you can’t improve the way you want to, but I am glad to get going out here and we will see what happens over the next few days."
