June 26, 2014. The BMW International Open kicks off today, with a 0700am opening to the first round. Anirban Lahiri is scheduled to start his round at 0840 CET alongside Simon Wakefield and Francois Calmels. Gaganjeet Bhullar is the last group of the day that tees off at 0200pm CET. Shiv Kapur is also a late starter, with Peter Lawrie and Sam Walker keeping him company. That group will tee off at 0120pm.
Lahiri’s group will start their round on the back nine. The Indian is playing the event on an invite from the tournament and will look to take the most out of it during the next four days.
The star studded field will see some marquee names on the course very early in the day. The Molinari brothers, Martin Kaymer – the US Open champion, Sergio Garcia and last week’s Irish Open winner Mikko Ilonen will all be out in action well before 0800am CET.
Shiv Kapur will start his round on the first hole, but like Lahiri, Bhullar and his group will bring up the last group on the day from the tenth hole. The weather is expected to be benign, barely any wind is expected and temperatures will hover in the low twenties.
The course at Gut Larchenhof is a par-72 that measures 7228 yards. There are four par-5 holes – 3rd, 7th, 13th & 15th – so there shall be no shortage of birdie opportunities. The drivers will suffer some damage today – with eleven of the 18 holes stretching well beyond 400 yards.
World No.2 Henrik Stenson, who finished T4 at the US Open and 5th at the Nordea Masters will look to finish June with another good run. “You have to keep a clear mind when you’re out there playing, which I haven’t always been able to achieve,” admitted Stenson. “But I’m better with that now and I’m pretty close to being where I want to be, so I don’t have too much to worry about on the game front now.”
“The course is in the best shape I’ve ever seen it, no doubt about it,” said Garcia. “It’s playing very, very nicely. It’s quite firm, so hopefully if it doesn’t rain, it’s going to be a great tournament. Some of those pins will get tricky when they are near the corners of bunkers and things like that. It just looks really, really nice.”
The defending champion Ernie Els is not in Germany this week, as he is busy playing the Quicken Loans National for the Tiger Woods foundation.
