Jakarta, July 23: Thai star Thaworn Wiratchant, Finland's Pasi Purhonen and Darren Beck of Australia took a share of the clubhouse lead with matching six-under-par 66s at the Indonesia President Invitational on Thursday.
Australia's Adam Blyth is one stroke behind in lone fourth position at the US$400,000 Asian Tour event, followed by Singapore's Quincy Quek, England's Simon Griffiths, South Africa's Jbe Kruger and Korea's Young Nam who all shot 68s at the Damai Indah Golf - Bumi Serpong Damai (BSD) course.
The evergreen Thaworn, Asia's number one in 2005, posted seven birdies against a lone bogey and is looking to extend his recent run of good form which helped him to three consecutive titles in regional tournaments in Thailand, Malaysia and China.
"During the first six months of the year, nothing happened for me on the golf course. I was doing everything the same but nothing was happening. I was trying hard to look for the answer to my poor form. But recently, I won three smaller tournaments and the putts just started to go in and things happened again," said the 10-time Asian Tour winner.
He surged up the leaderboard with three closing birdies, thanks to solid iron play which left him with short birdie putts.
Unheralded Finnish golfer, Purhonen, who is playing in his second Asian Tour tournament of the year, posted six birdies against one bogey to grab the early limelight. It was a welcome return to form for Purhonen, who gave up touring life to work as the Finnish amateur national team coach.
"I made a couple of good putts early on to sort of keep it going and then the game eventually got a little better. I putted well the whole day and I hit a lot of fairways. I was really solid. I hit a lot of good iron shots coming in and hit them close for the birdies. Most of the putts were from inside eight or nine feet," said the 33-year-old.
Beck, last year's Hero Honda India Open runner-up, mixed his scorecard with eight birdies against a double bogey. "It was a good round despite the double bogey on the ninth hole where I hit my drive to the back of the green and missed an easy tap in. Hopefully, I can continue to play well and land my first Asian Tour win over the next few months," said Beck.
Singapore's rising star, Quek who started on the 10th tee, got off to a nervous start when he soared to three over par through seven holes. But he responded with an amazing run of seven birdies on the trot from the 17th hole to end the day two off the early lead.
"Seven birdies in a row, you can't really complain. I got some confidence going and got the ball rolling and everything kind of went it. I put myself in some good positions for birdies," said the 22-year-old, who is making his professional debut on the Asian Tour.