DOHA, 25 January 2008 — Othman Almulla returned to the scene of one of his major triumphs and found the going rough in the first round yesterday of the $2.5 million Commercial Bank Qatar Masters at Doha Golf Club here.
This was the start of a fourth tournament week for Almulla in a busy stretch that saw him win the Qatar Open amateur tournament three weeks ago and miss winning the Dubai Desert Classic qualifying event by a stroke the following week. He arrived here late Wednesday night after traveling by road from Riyadh where he won second place in the individual race and helped Saudi Arabia to a fifth-place finish in the 28th Pan-Arab Golf Championship at Dirab Golf Club.
“It’s been a long three weeks for me. It’s a tough day out there,” said Kingdom No. 1 Almulla after struggling to an 8-over 80.
The rough start made Almulla’s bid to make the cut in his second European Tour event a daunting task as his first round score left him 13 strokes out of the lead shared by Lee Westwood of England and Anton Haig of South Africa. The cut is likely to be made at one or two over after two rounds.
Last year, Almulla made history when he became the youngest at 20 and the first Arab to qualify for the Dubai Desert Classic.
“This is a learning experience,” said the ambidextrous Almulla who writes with his left hand and plays golf right-handed.
Almulla, who makes no bones about his dream of becoming the first Saudi to play on the professional golf tour, made his start on the back nine and was 2-over at the turn.
Paired with Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Gonnet and Sam Little of England in the group that teed off at 12:20 p.m. Almulla was going great guns, sinking a 9-footer for a birdie on the par-3 third hole.
But Almulla’s troubles began after parring the next hole with a monster drive that carried a wide desert patch followed by a nice pitch from 70 yards and a 20-foot putt that just missed the cup.
He had three double bogeys and a bogey on the front nine to finish with nines of 38-42. In gathering darkness, Almulla took a penalty drop on his third shot on the 639 yards par-5 No. 9 and three-putted from 20 feet for a double bogey.
Almulla double bogeyed the fifth hole when he missed his drive to the right, took three shots to get to the green and made two putts, and never quite recovered.
Almulla said he was putting better and actually had a lot of par saves on the back nine.
His caddie said Almulla, who won the Red Sea and Pan-Arab Open in July in Soma Bay, Egypt, was not hitting bad shots, it’s just that he was unlucky.
That was never truer on the 194-yard par-3 No. 8 guarded by a lake on the front and backside. He found the water and missed his putt from the back of the hole. Double bogey.
Strong winds that buffeted the beautiful tree-lined Peter Harradine designed-course all day long and the extreme cold in the afternoon made life difficult for the late starters in this event co-sanctioned by the European Tour and Asian PGA Tour.
On his lone birdie hole, Almulla was aiming little to the left with his 4-iron tee shot but the ball landed right in front of the hole in what he called a good miss.
