Dubai: Sergio Garcia is braced for bad weather as he looks to defend his lead of seven under par 65 heading into the second round of the Omega Dubai Desert Classic on Friday.
The 37-year-old Spaniard carded four outward birdies and two more either side of an eagle on his return in Thursday’s first round, before ending with a bogey, to sit one stroke clear of Chile’s Felipe Aguilar and South Africa’s George Coetzee.
It was Garcia’s best score in 25 rounds at this event, where he’s missed the cut twice and never previously finished inside the top 10 in seven attempts, with his best performance being an 11th place finish in 2009.
“I think there were a lot of positives out there,” said Garcia of his first round of 2017. “I played quite nicely and made some really nice putts, so overall I was very happy with it. I felt I was committed to every shot I hit.”
However, with the weather closing in, he’s now worried about maintaining his position in the leaderboard.
“Tomorrow is supposed to be really, really tough. They are even speaking about not knowing if we will be able to play, as hard as it might blow.
“Hopefully, that doesn’t happen, so we can have a nice normal tournament, but you get this kind of weather every once in a while here and unfortunately it is catching us.
“The wind was definitely blowing harder as we went on, and it was definitely playing tougher, we’ll see. It’s supposed to blow hard. That’s the forecast but you never know out here,” added Garcia, whose last win on the Europe Tour was in Qatar in 2014.
Aguilar got a clean three birdies on either nine for a six under 66 to share tied for second with Coetzee a stroke behind Garcia.
“I feel good, every time you beat the course it’s nice,” said the Chilean. “The course is playing really good, the greens are perfect, I’m quite happy with the round I played today, not too many mistakes.”
It follows on from a tied for 41st place finish for Aguilar in Qatar last weekend where he shot six under despite a third round 75.
“I played well last week except for Saturday. I’ve been playing OK. I just need to put together four rounds in a row.”
Coetzee, who started with a bogey before three outward birdies and four more on his return, was also upbeat with his round especially as he comes into this event off the back of a missed cut in Qatar last week.
“I haven’t had the best start to the year, so it’s obviously nice to get a nice round in early on,” said the South African.
“I hit some good shots, waited for my birdies and didn’t try to force them, I played my game and luckily they came.
“With this wind it will play trickier but the surfaces are pretty good so there’s no reason not to make birdies.”
