The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Long day in desert a pleasure as Warren stays in the hunt
Scotland’s Marc Warren is just quietly enjoying his renaissance and not thinking too much about being just off the lead at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at the halfway stage.
The Scot won the first post-lockdown European Tour event in Austria last July to end a desperate spell that saw him nearly lose his playing rights.
Since then he’s restored his reputation as one of the circuit’s best ball-strikers, and a second round 66 on a marathon day shot him up the leaderboard.
England’s Tyrrell Hatton leads after Rory Mcilroy slipped up yesterday as the field tried to make up the three hours lost on the opening day.
Warren had to play 20 holes but that was just fine by him.
“Maybe it was a good thing,” said the 39-year-old, a four-time Tour winner.
“I definitely played better as the day went on. I struggled off the tee early on, just couldn’t seem to get loosened up and missed quite a few fairways.
“Any time I was trying to apply power to longer shots it felt like I was forcing it. Fortunately my iron play was good so I was still hitting a lot of greens.”
After finishing off his first round at level par, he bogeyed his opening hole but birdies at the third and sixth set him up for the homeward stretch. Birdies followed at the 10th, the short 12th and at the 13th where he drained a 30 footer.
“It was a good tee shot at the 12th but the 13th was a bonus,” he added.
“I was just trying to get it close to the hole and it fell in.”
The final embellishment was an eagle three at the last, for a back half of 31.
“Just hit two really good shots on 18 to about 10-12 foot and rolled the putt in. That was a nice way to finish,” he said.
The pleasure is just playing as well as he knows he can.
During that nightmare two years he was even contemplating another career at several points.
“Really, I’m just enjoying playing well again,” he said.
“Since winning in Austria I feel my form has been pretty consistent. I struggled a little bit with injury and was only threequarters fit for the first UK Swing.
“But after that, I finished the year pretty well with a nice top 10 in Dubai then a solid performance in the DP World Tour Championship. Now I’ve started the new year with a couple of nice rounds here. It was a long couple of years to go through and hopefully I have put that behind me. I am looking forwards and upwards now.”
Mcilroy had carded a career-best 64 in the opening round and birdied two of his first three holes yesterday, but played his next 11 in three over par before play was suspended due to darkness, a legacy of Thursday’s lengthy fog delay.
Playing in the group behind, Hatton took full advantage with his third eagle of the week on the par-five second and four birdies in a row from the seventh, the world No 9 reaching the 14th hole before play was halted.
At 12 under par, Hatton enjoyed a five-shot lead over Mcilroy, Jason Scrivener, Jazz Janewattananond and Romain Langasque, with Tommy Fleetwood, Matt Wallace and Warren among a large group on six under.
“I’m obviously in a great position at the moment,” said Hatton, who won the Arnold Palmer Invitational and BMW PGA Championship last year.
“It was certainly tough out there so I’m really happy to be five under. There was a couple of par putts toward the end of my round, (it was) nice to hole them and keep a bit of momentum going.”
Fleetwood played his last seven holes of his first round in four under par and then added a bogeyfree 67 to keep his hopes of a third victory in Abu Dhabi alive.
Defending champion Lee Westwood bogeyed the 13th and 14th before play was suspended to lie nine shots off the lead on three under, with playing partner and world No 3 Justin Thomas on the projected cut mark of one under.