Wentworth: Scott Henry revels on big stage

Scott Henry plays a shot at the ninth hole Wentworth yesterday. Picture: Getty

On a day when winter returned to Wentworth – it was bitterly cold and part of the Surrey course was hit by a hailstorm at one point – Scott Henry grabbed his late opportunity at the £4 million BMW PGA Championship with both hands.

Just over a year after winning a Tartan Tour 36-holer watched by a man and his dog at Spey Valley in Aviemore, the 26-year-old from Clydebank overcame early nerves – “it’s a huge tournament and you definitely feel that on the first tee,” he admitted afterwards – to open with a polished four-under-par 68. It left him sitting pretty, two behind South African leader James  Kingston, after day one in the European Tour’s flagship event.

“It was all pretty good – the first time this year that I put everything together,” said a smiling Henry after a round that was illuminated by an eagle-3 at the fourth and also contained four birdies. It was a splendid effort considering the two-times Scottish Boys’ champion only got into the event on Monday morning due to a withdrawal and had not played the famed Burma Road course before his first practice round.

In his rookie season at European golf’s highest level – he graduated from the Challenge Tour last season after winning the big-money Kazakhstan Open – Henry has missed eight out of 12 cuts and been unable to finish higher than 50th. But, having felt his mind has been wandering too much, the tough nature of this week’s examination has had the desired effect by getting him fully focused.

“I said to my caddie, Kenny, on Tuesday when we first played that I was just loving the course,” he added. “It’s almost as if, when you got to your ball or you get to the tee, you know exactly what you’ve got to do. That makes it easy – it takes out the options for me. It’s not really a course you can overpower and I mostly hit 3-woods off the tee today.

“I started with a bogey, which was disappointing, but then holed from about 45 feet for a birdie at the second and that settled me down. From there on it was good playing. There have been too many occasions this year when I’ve hit it great and just not converted putts. But today I holed a few 20-footers – the work I’ve been doing with my new putting coach, Phil Kenyon, is starting to pay off – and that really helps the scorecard.”

Henry has created the template that should be held up by the Scottish Golf Union to current amateur internationals and every wave that comes through the system after them. In additon to that brace of Scottish Boys’ triumphs – in 2004 and 2005 – he also won the Scottish Open Stroke-Play Championship seven years ago at Craigielaw before leaving the non-paid ranks in 2008.

As a professional, he has had to chisel away at the coalface, working his way up from the third-tier Alps Tour – he was still playing on that two years ago – to the Challenge Tour before earning a seat at the top table in the European game. “Right from when I turned pro it’s been slow progress, but it was great to win in Kazakhstan, a big occasion, last year and that’s basically why I’m here,” said Henry.

“The Scottish Boys is a long time ago now, but I still take a lot of confidence from those days. I’ve always been the kind of guy who likes playing well down the stretch in tournaments and there’s nothing that gives you more confidence than a win. Even at the start of last year, I won a mini-tournament in Scotland that had a lot of good players in it and I took confidence from that.”

Kingston’s confidence took a knock when he lost his card at the end of last season after 11 years on the circuit. Playing this week through an invitation, the 47-year-old from Rustenburg told a similar tale to Henry in terms of seeing his luck change on the greens as he bagged seven birdies, four of them coming home, to set the pace. “It’s tough to lose your card,” he admitted. “It was the first time it had happened in my career and I had to deal with that. Maybe I feel I have a point to prove again, even if it’s just to myself. But, at the same time, spending a lot of time at home and travelling a  little less has helped me become a little more relaxed.”

Sandwiched between Kingston and Henry as well as Spaniard Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, also on 68, is Finn Mikko Ilonen, who won the Amateur Championship 13 years ago before chalking up two European Tour titles in 2007 but is climbing his way back up the world rankings after undergoing foot surgery at the end of 2011 and requiring a medical exemption last season.

With two runner-up finishes under his belt this year – in Morocco and China – Ilonen underlined his growing confidence with an effort that was 16 shots better than his opening round here two years ago. “It was pretty easy all the way – a stress-free round,” reported the man from Lahti, who has a trail of promising young Finns bidding to follow in his spikemarks with Linus Vaisanen having won the Scottish Boys’ Stroke-Play Championship three years ago and, within the last month, Albert Eckhardt lifting the Lytham Trophy.

Among those also safely in the clubhouse by the time play was suspended for nearly 90 minutes due to the threat of lightning were Italian Matteo Manassero (69) and last year’s Ryder Cup hero Martin Kaymer (70), both of whom avoided the late lapses that left three pre-tournament favourites licking their wounds.

Having been motoring along nicely at three-under, world No 2 Rory McIlroy dropped five shots in the last six holes for a 74, matched by playing partner Graeme McDowell after he ran up a 7 at the last. “Just one of those rounds that got away from me a bit,” reported McIlroy, a feeling shared, no doubt, by fourth-ranked Justin Rose after he finished 6-7 for 72.

On his 600th European Tour appearance – just the sixth  man to reach the milestone and joining Sam Torrance (706), Barry Lane (682), Roger  Chapman (619), Eamonn Darcy (610) and Malcolm McKenzie (605) – pony-tailed Spaniard Miguel Angel Jimenez had to settle for a 76.