03 March 2022: Daniel Gavins carded the lowest round of his DP World Tour career to open up a one-shot lead after day one of the Magical Kenya Open. Shubhankar Sharma produced one of his finest rounds in recent memory, an imposing six under 66, just one shot back from the leader.
The Englishman was over par after five holes at Muthaiga Golf Club but he made six birdies in seven holes from the 16th and added two more for a 64 that left him at seven under.
India’s Shubhankar Sharma and American Johannes Veerman were a shot off the lead, one ahead of Scot Ewen Ferguson and England’s Lee Slattery.
Sharma chipped in at the first for a birdie and made three in a row from the eighth before hitting a beautiful shot to seven feet from the rough at the 14th.
His tee-shot on the 18th as not ideal but he got up and down from a greenside bunker for a sixth birdie of the day and a share of second.
“I am really happy, I played really well, didn’t drop a shot which was bonus. I made some good par putts and to make that birdie on the 18th was especially satisfying.
“For me, I’ve changed a lot with my thinking from two years ago. I was younger and wanted to play everything. I would play seven weeks in a row if I could.
“Now, if I’m playing well I understand that I need to conserve my energy. I don’t feel like I want to stay on the road all the time so a few weeks and going home really helps. I’m refreshed this week, I’ve had a few weeks off and you can see that in the first round, it’s been a good day.
“It offers you a lot of risk and reward holes, a lot of holes where you can take driver on and probably have a wedge in. It temps you in a lot of places but you’ve got to play to your strengths and my strength is my iron play and a lot of the holes where I felt like I could have hit driver, I laid up with two irons and four irons and I think that strategy worked really well. I hope to do that for the next few days.”
Shubhankar Sharma
Gavins’ previous lowest round was a 65, a score he matched in the final round of last season’s ISPS HANDA World Invitational presented by Modest! Golf Management as he won a maiden DP World Tour title.
A sixth-placed finish at the 2021 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship is the 2015 and 2018 Qualifying School graduate’s only other top ten but he achieved his two best Rolex Series finishes on this season’s Desert Swing to sit comfortably inside the top 100 on the early-season DP World Tour Rankings in Partnership with Rolex.
“It was pretty rusty to start with, I hadn’t played for a couple of weeks but I just started holing a few putts,” he said.
“My swing has been a bit off at the start of the year and I’ve been struggling a little bit with finding the feeling but today I felt a few things that were nice and it was positive, really.
“It was a long stretch at the start of the year so it was nice put the clubs away for five days and go to New York. It was pretty cold but it was nice. The weather is always great here and I don’t like spending too much time in the cold, so it’s nice to be out here.”
Veerman made a flying start, hitting a stunning second into the tenth to leave himself a short putt for eagle and he added birdies at the 12th, 17th, 18th, fourth and fifth to take command.
Gavins also took advantage of the tenth by making a birdie but he dropped shots on the 13th and 14th before a hat-trick of gains from the 16th got him moving in the right direction.
He made another three in a row from the second and with Veerman making his only bogey of the day on the eighth, a birdie on the seventh had Gavins in a share of the lead.
The 30-year-old hit the pin with his approach into the ninth and looked to have an uphill task to make his par but he rolled in from around 70 feet for birdie to take the solo lead.
Slattery also birdied the last to go with five other gains and a single bogey, while Ferguson eagled the tenth and added six birdies and three bogeys in a roller coaster round.
South African Dean Burmester and Dutchman Wil Besseling were both bogey-free, while Japan’s Masahiro Kawamura carded six birdies and two bogeys to sit three shots off the lead at four under.
There was then a group of 14 players at three under including defending champion Justin Harding, who birdied four of his last six holes.
