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SYDNEY – Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia, Ernie Els and other players at this week’s Australian Open could have another course hazard to contend with: Smoke from nearby bushfires.
A temperature inversion which formed over Sydney on Monday night trapped smoke in the region on Tuesday and caused considerable haze during a practice round. Golf Australia said it plans to increase on-site medical staff if the fire-driven smog disrupts the tournament.
With a wind shift on Wednesday, the situation had improved during the pro-am, but Golf Australia chief executive Stephen Pitt said he was concerned with the potential for smoke affecting the health of players.
“It was pretty bad yesterday, stinging eyes and all that,” Scott said after his pro-am round on Wednesday.
The tournament goes on, however, and after Thursday’s opening round, two amateur players top the leaderboard. Japan’s Takumi Kanaya, the No. 1-ranked player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, and Taiwan’s Chun-An Yu, a senior at Arizona State, posted rounds of 6-under 65.
Playing the back nine at the Australian Golf Course to open his round, the Japanese player had five birdies. He bogeyed the par-4 third hole before making birdie on the eighth and ninth holes.
Leaderboard: Australian Open
The leaders had a two-stroke lead over 2015 champion Matt Jones and fellow Australians Dimi Papadatos and Daniel Nisbet.
A winner last month in his homeland, 21-year-old Kanaya’s round came four years after he signed for an 85 at this course in his Australian Open debut.
“I have a little confidence, but I have three more days, so I will do my best tomorrow,” Kanaya said.
Jones complained of burning eyes from the smoke blowing in from about 25 bush and grass fires burning across New South Wales state, including a large one in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.
“It’s awful,” Jones saíd. “The smoke’s not good at all. It’s tough to see your golf ball when you’re out there playing, where it finishes. Your eyes do burn up. I hope my kids are inside in the hotel room.”
Players dealt with the haze in different ways, but it posed a particular problem for New Zealander Ryan Chisnall, who suffers from asthma. According to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald, Chisnall coughed and sputtered through the start of his round on Thursday afternoon before borrowing a face mask from a spectator. Several in the galleries were seen wearing them.
Robert Allenby reportedly ran out of eye-drops mid-round because he was applying them so frequently. Scott remarked that he felt he needed to spray salt water up his nose as a post-round cleanse.
While Golf Australia’s Pitt said he was confident the tournament would proceed without any smoke delays, he said officials will closely monitor the weather with children and elderly spectators most susceptible to the threatening air quality.
“Firstly, our issues with smoke at a golf tournament pale into insignificance with the things that home owners and property owners and people right around the country have dealt with,” Pitt said of the fires which have killed six people and destroyed dozens of homes.
“So we’re very aware of that fact and all our sympathies and thoughts go to them because that’s the real issue.”
Pitt said it was a new type of threat for the tournament.
“It’s something we’ve never had to give consideration to before,” he said. “We’ve had storms and rain and hail and heat and cold and all those sort of things that are your typical golf tournament issues. But this one is new and we have been in constant contact with the Bureau of Meteorology.”
Scott is among the International players for next week’s Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne playing this week in Sydney for team captain Els. Also in Sydney for the first time in his career is Louis Oosthuizen, the only South African player on the International team.
Other International team players at the Australian Golf Club this week are Marc Leishman, Cameron Smith, defending champion Abraham Ancer and Taiwan’s C.T. Pan.
The International team’s only win over the United States team was in 1998 when it was first held at Royal Melbourne. The Presidents Cup venue is roughly 550 miles southwest of Sydney and considerably south of New South Wales, where the fires are burning this week.
“I think we all sort of feel Royal Melbourne is the place we’ve got probably the best shot,” Oosthuizen said. “We’ve got a team that’s really in form. We’ve got a young side coming through. I think having an Aussie crowd behind us, playing Royal Melbourne especially, I think it will be the best home course advantage we can have.”
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