Scott Henry is known jokingly by his mates in the golf world as “Animal” due to his shot-making power, and Wentworth couldn’t tame him as he made a stunning debut in the BMW PGA Championship.
The 26-year-old from Clydebank, who won successive Scottish Boys’ titles a decade ago, shot a four-under-par 68 on a windy and cool day on the West Course to lie in third position behind South Africa’s James Kingston (66) and Mirko Ilonen of Finland (67).
Hail fell briefly, the threat of lightning caused a considerable delay and a biting wind had the likes of Rory McIlroy wearing mitts while beany hats were retrieved from the depths of bag pockets where they’d been discarded for the onset of summer, although that seems as far away as ever.
As we all huddled together for warmth, the European Tour’s flagship championship teetered close to farce as it appeared a large number of people waited around trying desperately to find a way to be offended.
After Sergio Garcia’s “fried chicken” remark caused offence on Tuesday, the tour’s executive director George O’Grady then came under fire for referring to the Spaniard’s many “coloured” friends while trying to defend him in a live interview with Sky Sports.
For at least a few hours an actual golf tournament broke out at Wentworth, and the rookie Henry produced his best performance of the brief five months he’s been a European Tour member at the biggest event he’s played in so far, having made just four cuts out of 12 starts and a best performance of a tie for 50th.
“It’s just the first round and a good score to start with,” he said. “I always expect to play well and it’s certainly been nice after the last few weeks to shoot a good score.
“It was pretty much the same as the way I’ve been playing, pretty good from tee to green but it’s been so frustrating on the greens. Today I managed to get the ball rolling and started to hole a few.”
Henry didn’t even get into the event until Monday, just as he was getting on the plane from the last tour stop in Madeira.
“It meant I had the full preparation,” he said. “It’s the first time I’ve even been here, although I saw it on TV a lot and always thought it must be a great place to play.
“I said to my caddie when we were going round for the first time on Tuesday, ‘I’m just loving this course’. It’s almost as if when you’ve got to your ball or go to the tee, you know exactly what you’ve got to do, so that makes it easy, it takes out the options for me!”
Henry’s highlight was the eagle on fourth and an outstanding two-under back nine beaten only by the leader Kingston. The young Scot felt not so much nerves but excitement when he started the biggest event in his fledgling pro career.
“I always feel that’s when I play my best, it gives me that little bit extra focus and gets me going from the start. Recently I’ve been struggling to get switched on right from the beginning of my round, but this is a big occasion.”
He felt the same in the win in the Kazakhstan Open last year on the Challenge Tour that promoted him to the main circuit, and he still recalls the feeling from his Boys Championship wins in 2004 and 2005.
“Those are a long time ago now, but still take a lot of confidence from those days,” he added. “I’ve always been the kind of guy who likes playing well down the stretch in tournaments and I think I proved that last year in Kazakhstan.
“These are the guys I want to be mixing with, and I want to compete and hopefully win as well. There’s nothing that gives you confidence more than winning, at any level.”
Kingston lost his playing privileges last year after 11 successive years on Tour and only got a spot in the field through an invitation, but made the most of it with matching halves of 33.
“It’s been tough to plan because you don’t know if you’ll get bin through an invite or when your category comes up,” said the 47-year-old. “But all it takes is one good week and things can change.”
For Ilonen, it was some reward at Wentworth after years of futility.
“Of all the times the best I played here was when I was 14 or 15,” said Finland’s first Amateur Championship and European Tour winner. It was the European Junior Masters and I still made a mess of 18, but I think you’ll find that Sergio (Garcia) won by something like 15 shots.”