European Challenge Tour

MURRAY URQUHART HAS A ROLLER

-COASTER RIDE IN GERMANY

Northern Open champion Murray Urquhart is lying joint 93rd in a field of 155 at the end of the first round of this week's European Challenge Tour event, the Vodafone Challenge at G&CC An der Elfrather Muhle, Dusseldorf.
Urquhart, pictured right, had a roller-coaster round of three-over-par 75 with halves of 40 and 35.
He had a nightmare run of a double bogey 6 at the third, a double bogey 6 at the seventh and, to cap it all, a triple bogey 7 at the eighth. He was grateful for a 2 at the short sixth to get him out in 40.

Then the Inverness man went from the ridiculous to the sublime with an eagle 3 at the ninth, a birdie at the 10th and another birdie at the 12th, with a bogey sandwiched between at the 11th.
Urquhart settled to par the last six holes.
German amateur Max Kieffer and Italian Lorenzo Gagli lead the field on five-under-par 67.
Rookie pro Elliot Saltman (Craigielaw) is in joint 19th position with a 70 - one shot better than former Scottish amateur champion George Murray from Anstruther and David Patrick (Mortonhall).
Another former Scottish amateur champion, Andrew McArthur (Windyhill) had a 73 while Ed Thomson (Largs) had a 75.
SCOREBOARD
Par 72 6,859yd
67 Lorenzo Gagli (Ita), Maximilian Kieffer (Am) (Ger).
68 Anthony Tarchetti (Eng), Thomas Nielsen (Den), Simon Lilly (Eng), Wilhelm Schauman (Swe).
69 Zane Scotland (Eng), Pablo Del Grosso (Arg), John Mellor (Eng), Gareth Wright (Wal), Sebastian L Saavedra (Arg), Adam Gee (Eng), Magnus A Carlsson (Swe), Gabriel Canizares (Spa), Niels Kraaij (Net), Anders Schmidt Hansen (Den), Rodolfo Gonzalez (Arg), Jamie Little (Eng).
70 Elliot Saltman (Sco), Kariem Baraka (Ger), Juan Abbate (Arg), Liam Bond (Wal), Matthew Tottey (Wal), Jacques Chevalier (Fra), Michael Hoey (NIr), Joost Luiten (Net), Ian Keenan (Eng), Jason Kelly (Nor), Matt Ford (Eng), Julio Zapata (Arg), James H Williams (Wal), Jerome Theunis (Bel), Alexander Knappe (Am) (Ger).
71 Chris Hanson (Eng), Mikko Korhonen (Fin), Gary Clark (Eng), Mickael Dieu (Fra), Paolo Terreni (Ita), Tuomas Tuovinen (Fin), Martin Wiegele (Aut), Robin Swane (Net), Kieran Staunton (Eng), Antti Ahokas (Fin), David Patrick (Sco), Andrea Maestroni (Ita), Carlos Balmaseda (Spa), Hugo Santos (Por), James Kamte (SAf), George Murray (Sco), Gareth Paddison (NZ).
72 Fabrizio Zanotti (Par), Jan-Are Larsen (Nor), Tim Dykes (Wal), Manuel Kempe (Ger), James Morrison (Eng), Robert Dinwiddie (Eng), Ben Willman (Eng), Raphaël De Sousa (Swi), Jeppe Huldahl (Den), Tino Schuster (Ger), Kasper Linnet Jorgensen (Den), Alex McGuinness (Ken), Leif Westerberg (Swe), Ricardo Santos (Por).
Other Scots scores:
73 Andrew McArthur.
75 Murray Urquhart.
76 Edward Thomson.