• Daly: ‘It’s one of the best rounds I’ve played in wind like that’
• Lee Westwood keeps his hopes alive with a 71
John Daly was denied the overnight lead in the windswept Qatar Masters after Spain’s Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño birdied the last three holes to finish with a six-under-par 66, one shot ahead.
Daly’s last victory was eight years ago, he no longer has a PGA Tour card and the last time he made the headlines was for walking out of the Australian Open in November after hitting a succession of shots into a lake and saying he had run out of balls.
“I’m pretty shocked,” Daly said. “I had five and a half weeks off and really didn’t touch a club much. It’s one of the best rounds I’ve ever played in a wind like that. You feel like you are eating a lot of sand.”
The desert storm was such that many players wore sunglasses to fend off sand blowing into their eyes on what Daly called a “brutal” day.
The defending champion, Thomas Bjorn, slumped to a 79 while Ross Fisher and Henrik Stenson both failed to break 80 but Lee Westwood kept his hopes alive with a 71.
Fernández-Castaño could take over top spot from Rory McIlroy in the race for Ryder Cup places were he to win this weekend and the 31-year-old from Madrid almost defied belief by grabbing nine birdies in all.
“I would have taken level par,” said the man who last year missed the cut with two rounds of 78 and then was out of action for almost six months with a back injury. He told Sky Sports: “We couldn’t see the ball landing on the fairways and I just tried to keep it as low as possible. I think I just got lucky and holed some important putts. Putting is the most difficult thing on a windy day.”
Only nine of the 132 players broke 70, with the Korean KJ Choi and Australia’s Jason Day shooting 68. England’s Richard Finch, Danny Willett, Paul Lawrie, Peter Hanson and the Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts were one further back. Graeme McDowell won his duel with American Hunter Mahan – opponents in the decisive singles match at Celtic Manor two years ago – but 73 and 74 kept them both in the pack.
Ryder Cup captain José Maria Olazábal, who turns 46 on Sunday, reached five under but bogeyed four of the last seven holes, while fellow Spaniard Alvaro Quirós – first, second and second the last three years – dropped three shots in his last two holes for a 72.
Sergio García’s bogey-bogey finish left him on the same score, but World No4 Martin Kaymer hit back from missing the cut in his Abu Dhabi title defence last week with a 71. Fisher did not have a single birdie in his 81, while Stenson’s 82 included a triple bogey eight on the 9th. The Swede was fourth in the world less than three years ago. Now he is 222nd.
The bad news for the field is that the wind is expected to be stronger for the second round.
