McKibbin returns to finish round one with fast finish in Doha

When play was halted on Thursday, Tom McKibbin was two-over at the halfway stage of his opening round of the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters but when he returned this morning to complete his round he birdied three of his last five to soar up the leaderboard.

The 20-year-old was riding the crest of a wave and fortunately for him he didn’t stop and made a quick turnaround before beginning his second round in Doha where he birdied his opening hole (par-5 10th) to move to two-under and five off the lead held by Scott Jamieson and Daniel Hillier.

Jamieson and Hillier were grateful to be among the early starters at Doha GC, getting in with seven-under-par rounds of 65 before first a sandstorm and then the threat of lightning forced play to be suspended.

Jamieson’s fellow Scots Stephen Gallacher, Robert MacIntyre and defending champion Ewen Ferguson completed rounds of 66 to share second place with Spain’s Santiago Tarrío.

The leaders both started on the back nine and Jamieson, playing in one of the first groups out at 6am local time, hit the front immediately with a birdie at his first hole, the tenth, and added another three holes later.

He fired four in five holes from the 17th and rounded off a bogey-free day with a seventh birdie at the fifth.

He said: Delighted with that start. It was pretty solid tee to green and I managed to hole some putts today, which has probably let me down in the last few weeks – certainly been hitting the ball well enough to do better than I have done – but today was a different story.

“It was lovely (being out first). The only problem is it is so humid but you obviously get less wind as you always know you are going to get wind here in the afternoon and the course is a little softer as well so, thankfully, I was able to take advantage of that.”

Hillier was slower to hit his stride but opened with six pars before bursting into life with birdies at the 16th and 18th, an eagle at the par-five first and another birdie at the second.

Further gains at the seventh and ninth took him alongside Jamieson and the New Zealander, speaking before the disruption from the weather, said: “It’ll be interesting to see how it goes this afternoon but I’ll be at the hotel kicking up my feet, so happy days.

“You have to battle with the heat this week. A little bit of wind out there made it bearable. I just didn’t do much wrong, had a good stretch through the middle that put me in a good position and kept my foot down from there.”

Tarrío finished off his own bogey-free round in style with an approach to two feet at the ninth to set up his sixth birdie.

The Spaniard is secure in the top 116 of the Race to Dubai Rankings in partnership with Rolex, ensuring his presence on tour for another year.

But he admitted: “I never keep calm with myself. Never. Even with a card safe for next year. My problem is in my head, there’s a lot of wind inside there, never mind the golf course.