Daly leads in windswept Doha
It has been a long, long time since John Daly took a lead into a weekend, but that was the situation at the Commercialbank Qatar Masters after he did not hit a single shot yesterday.
The former Open champion, now a lowly 543rd in the world and without a victory for eight years, did not make it onto the Doha course on a day when less than three hours’ play was possible because of strong winds.
As he sat it out, Spain’s Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano played seven holes in two over par before the stoppage and with that handed over top spot to the 45-year-old American.
The second leg of the European Tour’s Middle East swing has been cut to 54 holes, with Daly starting his delayed second round five under par and Fernandez-Castano one behind along with Korean KJ Choi and Australian Jason Day.
Choi was another unable to tee off yesterday, but world number 10 Day reeled off six successive pars and has still to drop a stroke in the tournament.
Play was due to resume at 8.45am local time today rather than the 6.30am of the opening two days – something which had Lee Westwood telling his Twitter followers yesterday: “I can’t quite understand. Cutting getting the second round finished tomorrow fine!”
The plan is that everyone will have played 36 holes by tonight, with the third round taking place tomorrow.
World number three Westwood is one over par and only joint 48th after a birdie, bogey and double bogey in the six holes he managed.
It was only in November that Fernandez-Castano won the Singapore Open after it was reduced to 54 holes and another victory now could well put him top of Europe’s Ryder Cup race.
