Tabuena limps home with a 73, trails Fraser by 10

RIO DE JANEIRO—Miguel Tabuena threw away a solid start to the round with five bogeys on the last nine holes and limped home with a wind-blown two-over-par 73 to trail leader Marcus Fraser of Australia by 10 shots at the start of the Olympics golf competition Thursday.

Blustery winds and errant shots off the tee combined to ruin Tabuena’s rhythm over the par-71 7,128-yard links-type Olympic Golf Course that has shoulders of deep, soft sands for rough all the way.

At the end of the trying day, the first Filipino golf Olympian lay near the bottom of the 60-man field, tied for 42nd with two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson of the United States and six others.

Fraser, the Australian and US PGA Tour veteran, turned in a flawless eight-under-par 63 and stood three shots clear of reigning US Open champion Henrik Stenson of Sweden and Canada’s Graham DeLaet.

Great Britain’s Justin Rose holed his tee shot on the par-3 No. 4 for the Olympics’ first ace ever and lay another stroke back with a 67, tied with Belgium’s Thomas Pieters, France’s Gregory Bourov, Germany’s Alex Cejka and Spain’s Bello Rafa Cabrera.

Tabuena birdied the third and fifth holes from less than 12 feet to stay in touch with Fraser and the other leaders after nine holes.

But consecutive missed-green bogeys from No. 10 and then another on No. 13 pulled him back.

A long 50-foot birdie from the fringe on the par-3 No. 14 stopped the bleeding before the 21-year-old Asian Tour campaigner misjudged a short pitch that rolled off the green’s left downslope on No. 16 for yet another bogey.

He closed out the round with his fifth dropped shot off an errant drive into the sandy rough and a misjudged third shot from 120 yards that screamed past the sleek green by 30 yards.

“The conditions were really tough today, very windy,” said Tabuena, the reigning Philippine Open champion who played in the US Open in June. “I just couldn’t close many putts as I wanted to.

“If you start to miss your tee shots, which is very crucial here, it can cost you. It cost me two important holes.”

The current Asian Tour No. 4 can look forward to an early tee-off in Friday’s second round of the 72-hole tournament that has ditched the halfway cut. He will be in the same threesome with Finland’s Roope Kakko and Japan’s Yuta Ikeda. Kakko carded a 72 and Ikeda shot a 74 Thursday.

Tabuena expects the conditions to be more benign when he tees it up at 7:52 a.m. (6:52 p.m. in Manila.)

“The bogeys on Nos. 10 and 16 were a waste,” said Luigi Tabuena, Miguel’s father who followed his son’s play. “They were possible birdies but Miguel attacked the pins and got punished.”
Tabuena’s only birdie coming in came on the 14th, where he elicited a roar from the gallery after holing a downhill-sidehill putt from 50 feet to get back to even par.