Derksen leads as Irish challenge in Perth

Dutch golfer Robert-Jan Derksen fired the best round of his European Tour career, an eight-under-par 64, to take a one-stroke lead after the opening round of the Johnnie Walker Classic today.

Ireland’s Damien McGrane carded six-under 66s to create a three-way tie for fourth with the English pair of Lee Westwood and John Bickerton.

Colin Montgomerie shot a 67 to finish the day tied for seventh with six other players including Ireland’s Peter Lawrie.

World number 11 Anthony Kim was a further shot back on 68, while Colombia’s Camilo Villegas eagled his final hole for a 72 and Greg Norman posted a three-over 75.

Derksen, a shot ahead of Mardan Mamat of Singapore and Tony Carolan of Australia, managed only one birdie on his first seven holes but the Dutchman reeled off four consecutive birdies from the eighth to 11th to move to five-under.

He missed a three-foot birdie putt on the 14th but made up for that by holing a 25-footer at the next at the beginning of a run of three birdies in the final four holes which put him on top of the leaderboard.

Having missed the cut in Malaysia last week, Derksen was pleased with his strong opening round.

“It’s a good start and it’s always nice to have, it’s as simple as that, but there’s a lot of golf to be played,” said the Dutchman, who has not won a tournament on the European Tour since the 2005 Madeira Island Open.

“It’s a very difficult course. There are a lot of easy holes and I made three par-fives in two today, but if you’re slightly off, you can make some big numbers.

“The wind is a factor so it’s still a long way to go.”

Mardan birdied three of his last four holes as he finished just a shot behind Derksen on seven under and later paid credit to his caddie, Drew Dubberlin.

“I called him this week because he has lived here before and knows this course better than I do,” said the 41-year-old Singaporean.

“He knows where to put the ball, the pin positions and how to read the lines. There’s less of a job for me on the golf course and I can just focus on thing the golf ball.

“I’m a little stubborn but I do listen to his advice.”

Westwood put himself into contention with a strong finish to his round.

The world number 12 struggled initially but came back to birdie four of his last seven holes to put himself into contention.

“I started off hitting a couple of poor shots, a couple of pulls and got away with one but I corrected the fault,” said the 35-year-old, who claimed that he was rolling his club a bit too much on the upswing early on.

“That’s what I’ve been good at doing the last couple of years – correcting things pretty quickly and I started hitting good shots after that and I played well for the last 12 holes.”

With regular caddie Jason Hempleman unavailable, Montgomerie is using Thomas Bjorn’s caddie, Matt Harbour, in Perth this week and he was pleased with the result as he fired six birdies in his opening 67.

“My caddie, Matt, was super today. Nice lad and Thomas isn’t here this week so I was able to ’borrow’ Matt,” the Scot enthused.

“My own caddie, Jason, is on paternity leave as his wife just had a baby and it’s a shame this is so far away. If it had been in England, he’d probably have attended but Australia is a long way to come.”