New Zealand's premier golfer David Smail confounded even himself to set a table for three atop the leaderboard after the opening round of the New Zealand Open today.
Barely 24 hours after questioning the readiness of his game, Smail played the percentages beautifully to post a seven-under-par 65 in benign conditions at The Hills on the outskirts of Arrowtown.
He was joined early in the evening by Australian Andrew Dodt, who birdied each of his final four holes, and American tour rookie Robert Gates, who birdied his closing three.
Smail had voiced uncertainty at the state of his game after a six-week break and limited preparation, but those doubts were immediately expelled with an almost flawless exhibition.
He opened his account in the $US600,000 Nationwide Tour event in bogey-free fashion to head the queue alongside Gates and Dodt entering tomorrow's second round, one shot ahead of his American playing partner DJ Brigman and Australian Andrew Bonhomme.
Another eight players were banked up on 67, among them 2008 New Zealand PGA Championship winner Darron Stiles, of the United States, his fellow countrymen Dave Schultz and Daniel Summerhays plus Australians Andrew Buckle, Nick Flanagan, Matthew Griffin, Michael Wright and Ryan Haller.
Sixty-eight was also a popular number, with a group of eight struggling for elbow space at 14th equal, followed by a posse on 69 containing New Zealanders Josh Geary and Phil Tataurangi.
Smail, the 2001 New Zealand Open champion and the best ranked player in the field at 107th in the world, was not fully satisfied despite helping himself to seven birdies on the par-72 6610m layout, his tidiness reflected in the fact he found 12 of 14 fairways and reached 16 greens in regulation.
"I am still not 100 percent happy with how I hit it but I putted superbly all day and even those that missed were on the line I wanted," Smail said.
He began his round at the uphill par-three 10th hole and made immediate inroads with birdies there and again on the 11th.
"The confidence suddenly came back after that," said Smail, a Japan Tour veteran who missed the second round cut in this tournament last year.
He was five-under the card by the turn, after salvaging par on the par-four 18th with a fine up and down from a greenside bunker.
His powers of recovery were again evident on the par-five first after he topped a fairway wood before scrambling a par by ramming in a six-foot down slope putt.
He added two more birdies, at the 235m par-three fourth with a 23-foot putt then hit a wedged second to within four feet of a tight back left pin on the short par-four fifth.
"I am normally a slow starter and it is nice to jump out of the gates a bit earlier," Smail said, noting that it was only a start, leaving unsaid the challenge which awaits him to stay in leaderboard contention in coming days.
Conditions remained calm and settled throughout the day, with nothing more than a breeze fanning the course under cooling, cloudy skies which only cleared late in the afternoon.
This left the stage for the late starters to threaten Smail but no one apart from Gates and Dodt made a sustained run as the increased foot traffic on the putting surfaces helped hold them at bay, even though 82 players in the 156-strong field ended the day in red figures.
Dodt came home in a rush after bogeying the par-five 13th them missing a 10-foot birdie chance at the next.
The 24-year-old Asian Tour player exacted sweet revenge, though, picking up shots at the next four holes after escaping from a sand trap to within six feet at the 15th, striking an eight iron draw to six feet at the next, sinking a 20-fotter on 17 and signing off with a 10-footer at the last after his approach hit the pin.
Among those under par was American Jason Gore, who posted sharply contrasting nines of 40 and 30.
"It was ugly. It was a tale of beauty and the beast but in this case the beast came before beauty," Gore said.
He shelled four shots on his outward nine to be stone cold last after beginning at the 10th, but he then stirred to life with six successive birdies on the inward journey to reignite his hopes.
