SARUT Vongchaisit of Thailand shot a four-under par 68 to seize the lead at the start of the $500,000 Philippine Golf Championship presented by the Philippine Sports Commission on Thursday at Wack Wack's fabled East Course.
Vongchaisit, who is shooting for his first Asian Tour title after coming out of the Asian Developmental Tour, started with three birdies on 11, 13 and 18 and barely held on when strong winds bedevilled the field in the Asian Tour's season opener.
“I’m feeling good. Just put on play all round and put in any bad shots (behind). Definitely tough out there, the wind, especially on the back nine (my back nine so it’s the front nine),” said the 26-year old native of Bangkok.
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“Study the course a little bit. I know this course is going to be tight so a lot rescue off the tee… so I practice a lot on those, and mid irons. Took golf (off) for two weeks after the season, definitely missed golf during that break."
“Goal this year (is to) win out here on Asian Tour and hopefully get a spot for LIV,” Vongchaisit added.
Tied for second to fourth spots are American Charles Porter and South Korea’s Jeunghun Wang and Wooyoung Cho, all a stroke behind at 69, while Chinese Taipei’s Hung Chien Yao and Wang Wei-Hsuan, Kevin Yuan and Travis Smyth of Australia, and American Marcus Plunkett share sixth to ninth places at 70.
Keanu Jahns and Fidel Concepcion are the best-placed local bidders, tied for 10th to 21st spots with their 70 in the $500,000 event organized by the National Golf Association of the Philippines and backed by the MVP Sports Foundation and Bingo Plus.
“It was very tough. You have to play very conservatively,” said Concepcion. “I think I might have hit like one or two drivers all day. I was pretty much laying up just in the fattest part of the fairway the whole day. I think the key here is you want to hit most of the fairways so you have full control of the ball.”
“And yeah, the greens, obviously they're always tricky. I think that's the biggest, that's sort of the biggest protection of the golf course, the biggest defense. So hitting greens isn't really that advantageous.”
“Sometimes it's a bit easier to sort of pitch from the short side of the park rather than have a 30-40 footer,” he added.
'Also with 70 are Ekpharit Wu, Sarit Suwannarut, Poosit Supupramai, Tanapat Pichaikool and Rattanon Wannasrichan of Thailand, Ervin Chang of Malaysia, Shaurya Bhattacharya of India, Shunyat Hak of Hong Kong, Ahmad Baig of Pakistan and Chen Guxin of China.
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