Golf: Pettersson plays way to six-cess

Sweden’s Carl Pettersson extended his lead to six shots before high winds again badly disrupted the Algarve Open de Portugal at Vale do Lobo.

Pettersson had a four-shot cushion after the conclusion of the first round, which was carried over into this morning following a two-hour delay yesterday due to the wind causing balls to move on the exposed greens near the Atlantic ocean.

The 24-year-old then continued to look as if he was playing a different course to everyone else with three birdies in the space of four holes at the start of his second round, before play was suspended for a second time today and eventually abandoned.

Several players had not even been able to complete the first hole of their second round, and with the weather forecast poor for the weekend, a 54-hole tournament or extension into Monday could be on the cards.

Pettersson was eight under par after six holes with Scotland’s Alastair Forsyth and England’s Gary Evans his nearest challengers.

Spain’s Miguel Angel Martin was safely in the clubhouse on one under par having completed his round, with English trio David Gilford, Brian Davis and Van Phillips also one under on the course.

The halfway cut could not be made and left defending champion Phillip Price among those players waiting to see if they would make the final two, or one, rounds.

Price, whose victory 12 months ago was his second on the European Tour and second in the event, was one of 66 players unable to finish their opening round on Thursday.

The Welshman had just two holes to play and completed them in level par to card a two over par 74, a creditable effort having battled through the worst of the conditions on Thursday afternoon.

That was eight shots off Pettersson’s lead at the time, but only two shots outside the top 10 as only nine players in the 156-strong field broke par in the first round.

And after starting with a birdie on the 10th, his opening hole of the second round, the 35-year-old from Pontypridd was firmly in contention to retain the title that was pivotal in his qualification for the European Ryder Cup team in September.

But Price then proceeded to drop six shots in six holes on the testing course to slump to eight over par.

That was two shots outside the current cut prediction, but anything was possible if the high scoring continued, the scoreboard telling many tales of woe with a sea of blue numbers.

Sweden’s Klas Eriksson will be having nightmares about the par four 14th hole after taking 23 shots to play it over the first two days.

Eriksson ran up a highly unlucky 13 on the hole on Thursday on his way to a 19 over par 91 - a score only surpassed by Portugal’s Daniel Silva, the 1992 Jersey Open winner, who took 92 - and then took 10 on the 405-yard par four this morning.

With a quadruple bogey seven on the par three 16th to follow, Eriksson was 31 over par for the tournament at one stage before commendably firing a hat-trick of birdies to card a second round 82 and 29 over total of 173.

Silva improved by 12 shots in his second round of 80 to finish just one better than Eriksson.