Australian Open director defends decision to

send players out in 60km winds


FROM THE PGA OF AUSTRALIA WEBSITE
Australian Open director Trevor Herden has been forced to defend the state of the greens and the decision to start play in 60km winds as the second day of the tournament began in a blaze of controversy at the NSW Golf Club today.
In a move that angered many in the field, 39 players teed off in the treacherous conditions, only for play to be suspended after just 80 minutes as balls began rolling off the greens.
Several of the greens were already under the spotlight for being too fast, the strong winds only exacerbating the problem at the exposed coastal course.
Play eventually re-started at 2pm local time when the wind dropped but it was too late for the likes of Brett Rumford, who shot a quintuple bogey 8 at the short third when the breeze was at its peak.
Seven other players recorded double bogeys.
But Herden rejected any suggestion play should not have started, claiming the players had taken the decision 'in their stride' despite strong rumours to the contrary.
He said weather forecasters had got it wrong in predicting the southerly would hit in the late afternoon, not early morning.
And he used a stimpmeter reading, which he said indicated the NSW GC greens were not too fast, to douse criticism of the putting surfaces.
"We've done everything to protect those greens. The greens are not fast," he said.
"We've done all we can to protect those three or four greens (that are considered too fast)."
As for the wind, Herden continued: "Based on the forecasts we've done everything right."
Asked if players who had teed off in the morning had been disadvantaged, Herden responded: "Possibly, but it's no different to stopping at Royal Sydney last year for all of Friday afternoon for the rain."
"Were they disadvantaged? It's golf. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose."
"We've been disadvantaged here for three and a half hours and there's a lot of hours in a golf tournament."
"In Europe we stop because of wind, in America we stop because of wind - this is a wind issue."
"I think we're right on track with what we need to do. They (the players) take it all in their stride."
SECOND-ROUND SCORES
Par 144 (2x72)
Note: Round 2 has been suspended due to darkness. Play will resume Saturday at 6:30am Australian time
132 Stuart Appleby 66 66
142 Greg Chalmers 70 72
143 Peter O'Malley 69 74
144 Mathew Goggin 73 71, Richard Green 73 71
145 Scott Laycock 76 69, Gareth Paddison (Nzl) 73 72
147 Paul Gow 78 69, Craig Parry 80 67, Do eun An (Kor) 73 74
148 Jason Norris 79 69, Min-chang Lee (Kor) 75 73, Paul Sheehan 74 74
149 Anthony Brown 77 72, Geoff Ogilvy 73 76, Cameron Percy 74 75, Kim Felton 76 73, Rohan Blizard 78 71
150 Kevin Chun (Nzl) 82 68, Andrew Bonhomme 72 78, Kurt Carlson 80 70, John Senden 76 74, Bryden Mcpherson 77 73, Richard Moir 78 72, Jae Hoon Jung (Kor) 77 73, Steven Conran 78 72, Marcus Fraser 78 72
151 Jason Perry 76 75, Andre Stolz 75 76, Ryan Haller 78 73, Seung Ho Lee (Kor) 79 72
152 Kevin Stadler (USA) 73 79, Soon-sang Hong (Kor) 79 73, Sam Saunders (USA) 74 78
153 Jason Scrivener 77 76, Brett Rumford 75 78, Tristan Lambert 76 77, Steve Marino (USA) 79 74, Nathan Green 75 78, Brad Shilton (Nzl) 76 77, Brad Lamb 80 73
154 Darren Beck 79 75, Marcus Both 74 80, Andrew Martin 79 75, Scott Barr 77 77, David Bransdon 78 76, Steven Bowditch 72 82, Jamie Lovemark (USA) 79 75
155 Sung-kug Park (Kor) 82 73, Lucas Bates (Can) 79 76, Josh Geary (Nzl) 76 79
156 Craig Scott 78 78, Craig Spence 80 76, Michael Moore 76 80
158 Kyong-jun Moon (Kor) 77 81
159 James Carr 83 76, Adam Crawford 76 83
160 Ben Burge 81 79, Steve Jones (USA) 77 83
161 Chao Li (Chn) 79 82
164 Kevin Chen (Chn) 81 83, Adam Wilcox 85 79
165 Meng Zhang (Chn) 82 83, In-woo Lee (Kor) 87 78, Rowan Beste 83 82, Shintaro Iizuka (Jpn) 83 82
166 Zhi jun Ou (Chn) 82 84
167 Xie Zhi (Chn) 88 79
168 Jake Oh 84 84
171 Tae-hyun Jun (Kor) 88 83
172 Jian Chen (Chn) 82 90, Nathan Uebergang 90 82
175 Qin Xu (Chn) 89 86
Disqualfied: Richie Gallichan 89, Rhein Gibson 90
Retired: Andrew Good (Hkg) 92