RICHIE RAMSAY SHARING SECOND PLACE IN BALLANTINE'S CH/SHIP

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Seoul, April 26: France’s Victor Dubuisson stayed steady under gusty conditions to snatch the opening clubhouse lead with a four-under-par 68 after play was suspended due to darkness at the Ballantine’s Championship on Thursday.
A total of six players will resume their first round at 7.30am on Friday morning.
Korea’s Jung Ji-ho led the Asian charge after he signed for a 70 to take a share of second place alongside Aberdeen's Richie Ramsay (pictured right), England’s Mark Foster and Paul Casey and Wales’ Jamie Donaldson at the Blackstone Golf Club.
India’s Anirban Lahiri, Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee  and world number 12 Adam Scott are among the 11 players bunched in equal seventh on 71.
Strong winds had greeted the elite field all-day at the €2,205,000 Ballantine’s Championship which is sanctioned by the Asian Tour, European Tour and Korea PGA.
But Dubuisson showed that he could still ace it amidst such testing weather conditions.
“I’m very pleased with how I’ve played today. My putting was really, really good today and I think it's the only way to achieve good scoring in these conditions,” said Dubuisson, who is still searching for his maiden Tour win.
The Frenchman opened with a bogey at the par-four 10th, but responded quickly with three birdies on holes 12, 14 and 15. He dropped another shot on the 16th hole but reached the turn strongly with further birdies on holes 17 and 18.
He marked his card with another birdie on the first hole but suffered a double-bogey six on the fourth hole.
“The wind just turned right to left and it went into the water. So I was not really upset after this double bogey because I didn't hit a bad shot,” said the 22-year-old. 76 Scott Jamieson (Sco), Marc Warren (Sco) (T74)

Dubuisson, pictured left, then answered back with two more birdies on the fifth and sixth holes to take a two-shot advantage going into the second round.

“I did my best to get back my concentration, and I made two birdies, good putts on five and six, and that was the good turn today,” said Dubuisson.

Meanwhile Jung gave the crowd plenty to cheer about when he ensured a South Korean presence atop the leaderboard.

“The winds were very strong today and the greens were playing fast. There were no big misses for me. It would have been better had I not three-putted for my lone bogey on the fourth hole,” said Jung.
Lahiri continued his good form and is confident that he can reproduce his winning ways away from home.
Two of Lahiri’s wins on the Asian Tour have come from home and the 24-year-old knows that he can achieve similar success aboard.
“I’ve always played well outside India and I’ve shown that last week, even though I got off to a bad start. I’ve been in contention aboard before and I think it’s only going to be a matter of time before I win outside of home too,” said Lahiri who finished in fifth place in Indonesia last week.
Thongchai also defied the windy conditions with a performance worthy of his reputation as the three-time Asian Tour Order of Merit winner.
“It was tough out there but I showed character by coming back strongly especially after three successive bogeys starting from the ninth hole,” said Thongchai.
“To me, I’m able to play in all-weather conditions. I’ve won before under such conditions and I know that I can do well,” added the 13-time Asian Tour winner.
Richie Ramsay achieved his two-under-par 70 despite running up a double bogey 7 at the long seventh on his way to an outward half of 35 (one under par).
He birdied the long first, the short third and the short seventh.
The Aberdonian bogeyed the 10th but finished with a two-under-par run, birdieing the 11th and 17th for 35 home.

LEADING FIRST ROUND SCORES
Par 72. Yardage 7,281yd Blackstone GC
68 Victor DUBUISSON (FRA).
70 Richie RAMSAY (SCO), Jamie DONALDSON (WAL), Mark FOSTER (ENG), JUNG Ji-ho (SKOR), Paul CASEY (ENG).
71 George COETZEE (RSA), LEE Tae-kyu (KOR), Adam SCOTT (AUS), Paul MCGINLEY (IRL), Anirban LAHIRI (IND), Oliver FISHER (ENG), Ross FISHER (ENG), Thongchai JAIDEE (THA), Marcus FRASER (AUS), Felipe AGUILAR (CHI), Peter WHITEFORD (SCO).
72 Jeev Milkha SINGH (IND), Graeme STORM (ENG), Andrea PAVAN (ITA), Gareth MAYBIN (NIR), KAO Shang-hung (TPE), KIM Do-hoon (SKOR), Miguel Angel JIMENEZ (ESP), Oscar FLOREN (SWE), Prom MEESAWAT (THA), Bernd WIESBERGER (AUT), Romain WATTEL (FRA).
73 K T KIM (KOR), CHOI Ho-sung (SKOR), Thaworn WIRATCHANT (THA), Todd HAMILTON (USA), Richard JOHNSON (SWE), Digvijay SINGH (IND), Brett RUMFORD (AUS), Damien MCGRANE (IRL), AN Byeong-hun (SKOR), David HOWELL (ENG), David OH (KOR), Anthony WALL (ENG).

Selected scores

75 Ian POULTER (ENG)

77 David Drysdale (Sco), Ross Bain (Sco) (T95)
80 George Murray (Sco) (T137).

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