Friday arrived with heavy overnight rains and the course in very wet conditions. The course at Constance Lemuria on Praslin island having undergone extensive changes in 2016 to be tournament ready come December 2018. After a number of delays the 32-man field was set off from two tees, the first and sixth, to play only 12 holes of the course. The final six being in very hilly terrain and Tournament Director Simon Higginbottom confirmed the decision was made for both the safety of the players and the condition of the course in terms of playability.
The three South African’s in the field James Kingston, Chris Williams and David Frost all shot one under for the ‘round’. “We didn’t think we were going to get any golf in today but with the back six holes totally unplayable 12 was the best we could do. It was still good to get some golf in for the day and looking at the weather was actually a bonus to get the tournament underway”, said Frost after his round.
After 12 holes the man atop the leaderboard was American Tom Lehman. He got off to a scintillating start with four birdies in the first six holes. Unfortunately, he did drop a shot on the last (12thhole) to finish at three under par. “It’s a good thing that we could play, nobody wanted to sit around all day and do nothing”, said Lehman after his round. “The team did a great job to let us know what was going on with the rain and that no golf would be played until 2:30. The conditions were really quite conducive to good golf after all the rain and even though it was playing a little longer most of the holes were downwind”, the leader concluded.
Tomorrow sees a 9 a.m. start off the first tee, hopefully, the tropical climate allows for a full round at the beautiful Constance Lemuria course in Seychelles.
The first shot of the MCB Tour Championship in Seychelles hit by Jarmo Sandelin from Sweden.