In these increasingly scientific sporting times, professional golf at the highest level is more and more a game of conformity. The highly coached and endlessly analysed swings on display at any European Tour event have never been more difficult to distinguish. Yet how and why individuals actually score well remains almost completely unpredictable. Take two of those at the top of the HSBC Abu Dhabi Golf Championship leaderboard at the end of day one, Henrik Stenson and Martin Kaymer.
Henrik Stenson, who leads by two shots on eight under par, arrived in the Middle East after more than a month without any competitive golf, barely touching a club during that time.
“I did work a little on my putting and short game, but I hit only a couple of buckets [of balls] last week before flying home to Sweden,” the Open champion said. “I only flew down here on Tuesday morning. So I didn’t come in expecting too much. I was amazed by how good my game felt today, although I must admit I scored better than I played.”
Such an assessment is unduly modest. Stenson generally struck the ball beautifully, making eight birdies and no bogeys in an immaculate 64 to take the early lead on a course where he holds the record score, a 62 in 2006.
Most of those dips below par were the result of strong approach play from the 40-year-old Gothenburg-native — though a 30-yard chip found the bottom of the cup on the 490-yard 14th. “A bonus birdie” was his apt description.
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Indeed, only once was Stenson overshadowed in a morning spent in the company of Masters champion Danny Willett and US Open winner Dustin Johnson. Even the in-form major winner could not match the tee-shot struck by a pale-legged and red-faced amateur in the “Beat the Pro” competition off the 15th tee. It pitched no more than two inches from the cup.
Back in the real world, Willett and Johnson were out of sorts. Willett could do no better than 74 in a round scarred almost irretrievably when his drive off the 14th tee — his fifth hole of the day — veered sharply left into a rather large bush and led to a triple-bogey seven.
Thereafter, things improved only slightly, with the Yorkshireman constantly fighting a nagging tendency for his shots to finish some way left of his intended targets.
“I was amazed by how good my game felt todayHenrik Stenson
In the end, two over par was about what he deserved for a scrappy performance that was a long way from last April’s Augusta heroics.
As for Johnson, his biggest problems came on the greens. Despite launching a series of mind-bogglingly long drives, the laconic South Carolinian was unable to take advantage of his length when it came to golf’s dark art: putting.
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Armed with a new putter that his watching agent dubbed “the soon to be old putter”, Johnson missed time after time from promising positions and was forced to settle for a mediocre level-par 72, a score matched by the tournament’s other expensive import, defending champion Rickie Fowler.
In happier vein and in almost complete contrast to Stenson’s carefree tournament build-up, Kaymer’s more orthodox and certainly more thorough preparation for an event that he has won three times consisted of skipping his traditional skiing holiday in favour of some intense practice in far-off Arizona.
Like Stenson, he made eight birdies, his six-under-par round marred only by a couple of dropped shots.
“The last two years I went skiing,” said the former US Open and PGA champion. “But back on the course that little bit extra you need in order to win was missing both times. Therefore I went back to America to hit balls.”
A cosmopolitan trio — Englishman Oliver Fisher, Scot Marc Warren and Kiradech Aphibarnrat, of Thailand — later joined Kaymer on 66. But no one else got closer to Stenson’s 64.