Poulter leads charge at Abu Dhabi

ABU DHABI (AFP) - Ian Poulter drained a magical 70-foot birdie putt on the final hole to break a logjam on top of the leaderboard as the quality field made a mockery of the thick rough and new grove rules on the opening day of the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship.

Poulter's massive putt took him one clear of a pack of nine players bunched at six-under par 66, but the final group threw in a couple more scores of seven-under par 65s.

Joining the Englishman on top of the table was compatriot Richard Bland and South African Keith Horne, who created a bit of their own magic by making their par putts in near-dark conditions.

Spain's Sergio Garcia, who showed no signs of the wrist injury that kept him off golf for almost two months, Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy and birthday boy Alvaro Quiros were among those tied for fourth place at six-under 66.

Joining them were Swedes Alexander Noren and Peter Hanson, Argentine Daniel Vancsik, Scot Paul Lawrie, and Welshmen Stephen Dodd and Rhys Davies.

Defending champion Paul Casey lost his ball in the bushes on the eighth hole for a double bogey seven in his even-par 72 round, while European No.1 Lee Westwood was scratchy in his three-under par 69 effort.

German Martin Kaymer, champion in 2008 and runner-up last year, opened with a five-under par 67.

As many as 70 players in the 126-man field were sub-par on what turned out to be a perfect day for golf.

World No. 11 Poulter was bogey-free for his round and was six-under after 12 holes at one stage before the birdies dried up on the back nine.

After the round, Poulter said: "I wasn't expecting to come out quite as fast as that, but I'll certainly take it. When I got in here, I didn't feel 70 per cent, let alone the way it was today.

"So I put an extra long session in on Tuesday and on Wednesday. My hands were raw and sore.

"I've obviously done an awful lot of work, and it's definitely paid off. I hit my irons very, very solid and holed some nice putts. It dried up a little bit on the back nine, but the one on the last was a little bonus.

"It was a downhill, downgrain 70 foot putt. I haven't really had a putt outside 20 feet all day.

"I hit it way too hard, probably ten foot too hard I guess, and it was on line and lucky enough hit the back of the hole and popped up and dropped."

Both Bland and Horne played in the final group of the day, both returned bogey-free cards, and both made their final putts with just enough light remaining for them to see it fall into the cup.

Horne, who shot a final-day 64 in last week's Jo'burg Open to finish tied second, continued his good form with a 65.

Horne said: "It was terrible. We were running like anything to try and finish. Just happy to get in and get finished. It was pretty dark on the last green.

"But as I said last week, I had been playing well for a long time, so there's a lot of confidence coming behind it. It wasn't just that I played well that week.

"I just couldn't get any scores going before that. It wasn't like it suddenly clicked last week."