India’s Arjun Atwal was T45 after the first round of the Barracuda Championship, a modified Stableford event where scoring is done on points awarded based on the result of each hole. Nick Watney took a two point lead at the Montreux Golf & Country Club having made nine birdies in a blemish less effort on Thursday. Atwal has seven points, while Watney has 18 to his card.
Stableford scoring is a new format for measuring golf performance based on points issued to the golfers. A double-eagle is worth 8 pts and an eagle is valued at 5 pts. A birdie fetches 2 pts and a par means null score. The golfer is penalized a point for a bogey and 3 points are lost for double bogey or worse.
Atwal scored five birdies, made par at ten holes and three bogeys for an overall score of 7 points for his one under 71. It was plenty of hard work for the Indian whose driving accuracy was 64.29%, but was only making 38.89% of the greens in regulation.
Watney was spectacular – making a string of birdies on either side of his journey to the clubhouse. His effort included two hattricks – 8 through 10 and 13 through 15, besides the second, fourth and 18th holes to gain a two point edge over Geoff Ogilvy and Tim Wilkinson.
“I’m very pleased with the way I played today,” said Watney, from Fresno, California. “This is pretty close to home. So it’s nice to see a lot of friends and family. I’m enjoying myself and hope it continues like this.”
Martin Laird and Chad Campbell were a further three points behind, having scored 13 points. Kevin Chappell, John Huh, John Rollins and Wes Roach were tied in sixth at 12 points each. A dozen men were locked in T10 with 11 points each.
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