OWN CORRESPONDENT, St Andrews | Friday 9.15am.
DEFENDING champions South Africa battled back to beat outsiders China 2-1 in the Alfred Dunhill Cup on Thursday after trailing in all three matches for 11 holes.
All eight seeded teams won on the opening day, six of them by 2-and-1 margins.
Ernie Els, David Frost and Retief Goosen, bidding to win the cup for a third successive time, were given an unexpectedly rough ride. Els trailed Chinese number one Zhang Lian-wei after a bogey at the 11th before Zhang bogeyed the last three holes to hand the world number seven victory: ”I hung in there, but I’m still worried about my confidence.
”You can’t take any game lightly any more, but I did not expect China to play so well,” Els said.
Frost shot a three-under-par back nine of 33 to defeat Cheng Jun 69-72 but Goosen had his unbroken run of the past two years ended, losing 72-73 to Wu Xiang-bing.
Spain’s Ryder Cup trio of Jose Maria Olazabal, Sergio Garcia and Miguel Angel Jimenez, seeded second, scrambled to a 2-1 win over France after a playoff.
Top seeds the US beat New Zealand 2-1 and fourth seeds Scotland, without an ailing Colin Montgomerie, beat Paraguay 2-1. Montgomerie withdrew yesterday morning with toothache. Sam Torrance replaced him to beat Raul Fretes 75-77.
British Open champion Paul Lawrie beat Angel Franco 71-73 to secure success over a team which beat the Scots in 1993 in one of the event’s most notable upsets.
American Mark Meara gave a solid display to beat Greg Turner 73-74 when his opponent missed a 10-footer to tie at the last. The US Masters and British Open champion last year had double-bogeyed the Road Hole 17th. — Reuters