Morning delight for Barr, Karlberg

Locally-based Australian Scott Barr and Sweden’s Rikard Karlberg fired sizzling seven-under-par 64s to lie two strokes off the lead after the completion of round one at the Barclays Singapore Open on Friday morning.

The duo trail Spaniard Ignacio Garrido, who shot a sparkling 62 at the Sentosa Golf Club, Tanjong course for a one-stroke lead over Chris Wood of England and Korean Kim Bi-o. Garrido also completed his round on Friday while Wood and Kim managed to finish on Thursday.

Karlberg and Barr, who both played on the Tanjong course, share fourth place with Australian Scott Hend, who finished third last year, and Japanese Shigeki Maruyama at the US$6 million event co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour and European Tour.

Play was suspended on Thursday due to darkness after play was stopped for four hours because of a lightning storm in the morning.

Karlberg, who won the SAIL Open on the Asian Tour in April, returned to the 16th green this morning to complete his opening round and was delighted with his performance.

"I have worked a lot on my driver and putting lately because my shots into the greens have been really good. I needed a balance to my game and practised really hard before coming into this tournament. I made everything a little bit shorter in my routine and it worked out really good for me," said Karlberg.

After his strong start, Karlberg is looking forward to playing the more challenging Serapong course on Friday.

"The course is a bit challenging but if you can find the fairways and are hot on the greens, you have a good chance of scoring. The key there is to hit the fairways and that will give you a good chance of scoring," he added.

Barr, who has three top-10s on the Asian Tour this season, was eight-under through 17 holes but dropped a shot on the last hole to finish on 64.

"I played well but it was only the last hole which let me down or I would have been right up there," said Singapore-based Barr, who is searching for his first Asian Tour title.

Barr returned to the seventh hole this morning and is wary that fatigue might hamper his chances of securing a good result.

"I was thinking about that last night and decided to take a lot of rest. Hopefully it will keep me energized for the rest of my round today," he added.

The Barclays Singapore Open is being played on two courses – the Serapong and Tanjong on the first two rounds while the final two rounds will be played on the Serapong course.