JAMES BYRNE MAKES SOLID START TO ASIAN FINAL Q SCHOOL

Banchory's James Byrne, pictured, made a flying start to the Asian Tour Final Qualifying School at Cha Am, Thailand today. Needing to finish in the leading 40 and ties at the end of 72 holes, last year's Walker Cup hero and now a rookie pro shot a four-under-par 68 at the Imperial Lakeview course to be joint 11th in the huge field of 239 players.

Fellow Scot Simon Dunn had a 71 at the same course to be in joint 67th position.

The Springfield Royal Country Club course, also a par-72 and designed by Jack Nicklaus, is the other course being used for the first two rounds. The final 36 holes will be played at Springfield Royal.

for the first two rounds while the final two rounds will be played at Springfield Royal.

Leading the first-round field is Yosuke Tsukada of Japan with a superb 63 at Imperial Lakeview, including only 25 putts and highlighted by 10 birdies against one bogey to take a one shot lead over Englishman Guy Woodman.

Leading first round scores

Par 72

63 Yosuke Tsukada (Jap).

64 Guy Woodman (Eng).

65 Javi Colomo (Spa).

66 Dodge Kemmer (US), Sushi Ishigaki (Jap).

Selected scores

68 Stephen Lewton (Eng), James Byrne (Sco), Simon Griffiths (Eng), Niall Turner (Ire) (T11).

70 Dale Marmion (Eng), Chris Rodgers (Eng) (T41)

71 Simon Dunn (Sco), Yasin Ali (Eng)

72 Niall Kearney (Ire), James Sheffield (Eng) (T88)

75 Steven Brown (Eng) (T168).

76 Grant Jackson (Eng) (T188).

77 Nick Redfern (Eng) (T209)

79 Ross Canavan (Eng) (T224).

81 Peter Richardson (Eng) (T237).

TO VIEW ALL THE SCORES ON THE ASIAN TOUR WEBSITE

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