South African Ruan Jordaan played brilliantly on a windy day to emerge as the first round leader with a one-under-par 74 in the Qatar Open Amateur Championship on Thursday.
At the Doha Golf Club, Jordaan overcame the tough windy conditions to finish on top among the 108 golfers taking part in the event. Qatar national team member Ali al-Shahrani was in second place heading into the second day while Mike Elliott, based in Qatar for the last ten years and a coach at Qatar Golf Academy, is in the third spot.
Elliott said the conditions were very tough but was happy with his scores.
“It was very windy out there, tough to play, happy with my score, I was playing after a long time, so what I achieved was good,” Elliott said.
“Looking forward to the second day,” the American said.
The three-day championship is being played on individual stroke play format and the field will be reduced to just 60 players at end of today’s play.
The winner of the championship will qualify for the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters golf championship, a European Tour event which will be held from March 11 to 14 at the Education City Golf Club.
The others players who will be determined to move to the top today include, Tom Sweigart, Pratyush Jain, Iain Stewart, David Moreland, Jordan Massey, Kohei Noguchi, Sam Wall, Kittisak Sang-Orn, Simon Nsubuga, Christian Prambs JR, Saleh Ali Musbah al-Kaabi, Abdulrahman al-Shahrani, Chris Corcelles, Jack McGuire, Anwar Ali, Saad Kazi and Arnav Jain.

Leading Round I scores
73: Ruan Jordaan
74: Ali al-Shahrani
75: Mike Elliott, Tom Sweigart
77: Pratyush Jain, Iain Stewart
78: David Moreland
79: Jordan Massey, Kohei Noguchi, Sam Wall