Peter O’Keeffe had a slow start to the British Amateur yesterday as a wide range of scores were reported on day one in Royal St Georges.  O’Keeffe is the only Cork golfer in action and he signed for a three over par 73 on the par 70 layout.  O’Keeffe was one under through nine, he responded to an early bogey on the third with two birdies on the 7th and 9th.  The back nine was tougher though and the Douglas man ran up five bogies and one birdie to come back in 39 strokes.  O’Keeffe is just inside the top 200 and has a lot of work to do today on the Princes course.  He’ll need to get under par to have a chance of making the top 64 and get through to the match play stage.  Princes played somewhat easier yesterday with 18 of the top 20 scores coming from that course.  That included a course record -8 by Iceland’s Gisli Sveinbergsson.  Qualification is definitely possible for the big hitting Irish Amateur Open Champion.  He’s in a good vein of form after winning in Tralee last week and a good start is all he’ll need to mount a strong challenge for qualification.

Robin Dawson is the best placed Irish golfer, the Munster golfers shot a four under par 68 on the Princes course to lie tied for 20th place after the first round.  Fellow Munster golfers Geoff Lenehan and Jack Pierre are both outside the top 200 and qualification for the match play stage is unlikely.

O’Keeffe tees off at 10.45 this morning while Dawson is out on St George’s at 8.50.