WINTER BREAK WORKS WONDERS FOR JAMIESON
SCOTT JAMIESON reaped the benefits of avoiding an annual winter overhaul of his game as he claimed a one-shot lead after the opening round of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. The Scot carded nine birdies in a bogey-free 63 to establish a new course record at Yas Links, where Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa surprisingly missed out on a day of low scoring. McIlroy bogeyed his final two holes to shoot 72 and world No 2 Morikawa made a double bogey on the eighth in his 73, leaving the pre-tournament favourites with a mountain to climb with heavy wind forecast for the second round. In contrast, Jamieson produced a flawless round to finish a shot clear of Norway’s Viktor Hovland, with Belgium’s Thomas Pieters on seven under and defending champion Tyrrell Hatton part of a five-strong group another stroke back which included Ryder Cup team-mate Ian Poulter. ‘I just played really solid all day, to be honest,’ said Jamieson, whose sole Tour title to date came in December 2012 in a tournament reduced to 36 holes. ‘It’s eight weeks off from tournament golf out here so you’re always a little bit on edge at the start of the day, but birdie at the first kind of settled any edge there was. ‘This is the first off-season I haven’t actually peeled the skin back and try to figure out how to get better. I felt like the game was in a good place finishing in Dubai and I just had to hope that it turned up again eight weeks later.’ Jamieson finished 108th on the Race to Dubai last year and the Floridabased 38-year-old knows the importance of getting off to a good start in back-to-back Rolex Series events in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. ‘You have to hit the ground running here because it could ultimately dictate how your season goes,’ he added. ‘If you miss the first two cuts of the year then, all of a sudden, you feel like you’re miles behind.’ Poulter had threatened to challenge Jamieson’s lead when he birdied five of the first six holes and reached eight under with four to play, but he double bogeyed the 16th after pulling his approach into the water.