Rain has the final say on the first day of Joburg Open

Rain had the final say on the opening day of the Joburg Open at the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club on Thursday.

Before the day’s proceedings were stopped at 2.35pm as a result of persistent rain that added water levels on a course that had already taken more than 140 millimetres over the past two days‚ Paul Peterson of the US got round the West course in nine-under-par 62.

Play will resume on Friday at 6.45am.

In what was an impressive performance‚ he didn’t drop a single shot and he had a two-shot lead over the England duo of Aaron Rai and Paul Waring who carded their seven-under 65s on the par-72 East course.

There were three players home in six-under after Romain Langasque of France and South African Jbe’ Kruger carded theirs on the West course while Sweden’s Sebastian Soderberg was on East.

“It was fun out there today‚” said Peterson.

“Birdieing half of the holes is never bad‚ and bogey-free to match‚ so I felt really good out there. I got into a nice rhythm and I putt a new putter in play this week. It proved to be a good first round with it so I’m really happy.

"Actually‚ I am very impressed with the conditions of the course and the greens‚” added Peterson.

• Porteous struggling with his game but determined to defend his Joburg Open titleJoburg Open defending champion Haydn Porteous is having issues with his game but he is determined to give it a go in the tournament which tees off at the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club’s East and West courses on Thursday morning. 

“They even put mowers on the fairways‚ I wasn’t sure they were going to be able to do that‚ so hats off to the superintendent and everybody for getting the course prepped.

"It was all well and good to be happy with fairways and greens‚ but there’s more to a golf course than that. You definitely got so mud balls in the rough.

"I did a couple of times today‚ I tried to manage my ball as best I could but thankfully I was in the fairway a lot.”

Defending champion Haydn Porteous was off to a solid start and was three-under through 12 holes when play was abandoned.

The three major champions in the field had varying degrees of success with YE Yang‚ the 1999 PGA champion‚ carded one-under 71 on the East course‚ 2008 Masters champion Trevor Immelman was three-over through 12 on East and 2011 Open champion Darren Clarke was two-over on East.

- TMG Digital