Shane Lowry and Paul Dunne put their respective runs of poor form behind them as they donned their Irish jerseys for the ISPS Handa World Cup of Golf at the Metropolitan Course in Australia. Shane Lowry / Image from Getty Images On the opening day of better ball competition the pair combined for a eight under par team score which sees them in tied 7th place on the leaderboard after they returned a bogey free card after the expected bad weather failed to materialise. There is a three-way tie at the head of proceedings with tournament favourites Australia (Leishman & Smith), England (Hatton & Poulter) and Korea (An & Kim) all sharing the top spot on ten under par. While Defending champions Denmark, represented once again by Thorbjørn Olesen and Søren Kjeldsen, are just one shot off the lead in a tie for fourth place. After the opening round Populter commented: “I think we’re quite happy with that. You know, on a day like today you have to make some birdies. We made enough to get on the top of the board, which is the main goal.” “We dovetailed nicely, when one was out of position, the other one was in position and that’s exactly what you have to do today. Foursomes is a completely different game. “This golf course will be a lot more difficult tomorrow and obviously Sunday, so we’ve got a couple of days of enjoyable golf and then there’s a couple days of stressful golf. We are happy with the start but there is a lot of golf to be played over the next three days.” The format for the event is fourball on days one and three with foursomes on days two and four so it’s still all to play for tomorrow for Lowry & Dunne and they have themselves in a strong position in the 28-team field heading to day two.
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