For a man who, over an 11-year period, jumped out of an aeroplane about 800 times, the thought of a four-footer on even the slippiest of greens does not invoke the terror that it does for most mortals.
Thongchai Jaidee, a 32-year-old Thai from Lop Buri, did two years' national service in his country's army and was then invited to stay on, play a bit of golf and pop on a parachute from time to time.
The golf went so well that, though he had only a 15 handicap when he joined the forces, after two years he was scratch and thereafter a mainstay of Thailand's national teams. Three years ago he turned professional, and what a good decision that has turned out to be.
Last year he was number one on the Davidoff Tour, the Asian circuit, and yesterday he took a two-stroke lead over the field in the Johnnie Walker Classic here. His five-under-par 67 was compiled in the easier morning conditions but was good enough to put him ahead of his playing partner Sergio Garcia and Michael Campbell, who also played before the Fremantle Doctor really started to blow.
Jaidee has some substantial achievements to his name, not least needing only 25 putts yesterday on greens that were hard and very fast. Players had to get accustomed to seeing shots they would normally consider good bouncing high in the air and finishing well past the pin or even the putting surface.
But the Thai, who last year qualified for and played all four rounds in the US Open, played imperturbably through it all. Asked whether he preferred a four-footer to a parachute jump he chose the former, though he indicated by sign language that he had had some rough landings. It is understandable that he prefers golf. In his three professional years he has so far earned €676,000.
No one in the afternoon got close to Jaidee. In fact, of the morning starters 11 players were a total of 21 under par, whereas in the afternoon only three players broke par, all of them one under.
For a while it looked as if Lee Westwood might make a fourth, for he was three under with three to play. Two shots were dropped at the 16th and, when he was asked to describe how, he said: "Any live TV cameras around?" There weren't, and the expletives were not deleted as he described the lie he got only a yard off the fairway after his drive.
He dropped another shot at the last but 72 was a decent score in the afternoon conditions and he said: "That's the best I've played for over a year. With an ounce of luck it could have been a 67." It was an encouraging start for a man who went without a win in 2001 after winning 19 tournaments in the previous three years.
Ernie Els birdied the last two holes, the only man in the 156-strong field to do so, to be on level par, but his playing partners Justin Rose and Craig Parry were both six over on 78.
Parry caused one of the biggest panics of the day when, at the ninth, he carved his drive miles off line and the spectators who could see the flight of the ball yelled "Fore" for the benefit of those who could not. This so startled a family of kangaroos, watching peaceably in the bush on the left of the fairway, that they went pogoing deep into cover.
Guardian Service
Details in SPORTS ROUND-UP
