Archer back to attempt sub-60 mark

A seven-foot putt – that is all it needed for England’s Phillip Archer to create European Tour history this time last year.

But because he missed it and scored ’only’ a 60, the chance to become the first player to break that magic figure is there once more for everyone competing in the Wales Open at Celtic Manor this week.

They had better do it now, though. Next year, the tournament switches from the par-69 Roman Road course to the far tougher 7,493-yard layout created for the 2010 Ryder Cup.

“I came really close, yet in the papers the next day it was as if I had done something wrong,” recalls Archer, back now to try again.

“I couldn’t get my head round that – I broke the course record by two, played great and had a seven-footer for a 59.”

The Warrington golfer became the 12th player to shoot 60 on the circuit (Darren Clarke remains the only one to do it twice) and the feat did not go unnoticed even in the United States, where David Duval, Chip Beck, Al Geiberger, Phil Mickelson and Annika Sorenstam have all handed in cards of 59.

“When I qualified for the US Open, a lot of people in the crowd called me ’Mr 60’,” said Archer, who could not do better than 67 in the next three rounds and finished fifth.

Swede Robert Karlsson took the title. He opened with a 61 and, by adding a 63 and then a 65, set new Tour records for the opening 36 and 54 holes.

The tall Swede survived a final-round wobble to win by three strokes from Paul Broadhurst with a 16-under aggregate and went on to earn a Ryder Cup debut.

Colin Montgomerie will be hoping to improve on his fourth-place finish, but this time the field also includes – for the first time – double US Open champion Retief Goosen, determined to bounce back from missing the halfway cut in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth last Friday.

Also playing is Denmark’s Anders Hansen, conqueror of Justin Rose in a play-off for the European Tour’s flagship event on Sunday.

It was Hansen’s second victory in the tournament in six years, yet he has not won any of his other 235.

The Wales Open was the first European Tour event to be staged in the country for a decade when Dane Steen Tinning won the inaugural event in 2000.

Prize money has more than doubled in the seven years that Paul McGinley, Paul Lawrie, Ian Poulter, Simon Khan, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Karlsson have added their names to the trophy.

One player who will not be in action in his homeland is last year’s European Ryder Cup captain Ian Woosnam, who is still suffering from the viral infection which ruled him out of Wentworth.

“Obviously, I am very disappointed to miss out on playing in my national open as there is nothing better than playing in front of your own spectators,” he said.

“But health issues take precedence.”