Wack Wack Golf & Country Club’s East Course lived up to its tough reputation today with Sarut Vongchaisit’s four-under-par 68 good enough to take the first-round lead in the Philippine Golf Championship presented by Philippine Sports Commission.

On a hot and windy day in Manila in the season-opening event on the Asian Tour, it gave him a one-shot lead over American Charles Porter and Jeunghun Wang and Wooyoung Cho, both from Korea.

Wang Wei-hsuan and Hung Chien-yao from Chinese-Taipei, Australians Travis Smyth and Kevin Yuan, and Marcus Plunkett from the United States, returned 70s, for a tie of fifth.

Sarut rallied strongly at the end of last year, finishing 64^th on the Asian Tour Order of Merit – which sees the top 65 keep their cards. He also won earlier in the year at the Nam A Bank Vietnam Masters on the Asian Development Tour – for his maiden professional victory.

Despite a two-week break from the game during the off season it appears he has not lost his touch. He made six birdies and two bogeys, having started on the 10^th.

Charles Porter.

He was out in the morning session with the target he set proving unreachable for the afternoon flights.

“I’m feeling good. Just put it in play and my all-around play was good, pretty much, no bad shots,” said the 26-year-old, who has been a professional for two years.

“Definitely tough out there, with the wind, especially on the back nine, my front nine. I did prepare well for this course. I know it’s a tight course, so I hit a lot of rescues off the tee. So, I have been practicing, a lot of those.”

Two top 10s on the Asian Tour last year, at the SJM Macao Open and Mandiri Indonesia Open, put him on track to keep his card for this year.

“I took a break from golf for like two weeks. That was nice but I definitely missed it. It was nice to get back to it,” he added.

“I would definitely love to get a win out here on the Asian Tour, yeah, and hopefully get the spot for LIV next year.”

His strong start means he already has cash in the bank this week as the club is rewarding the player who shoots the lowest round each day with US$10,000.  Porter is another rookie from last year who played well in the second half of the season to keep his playing privileges. He finished 29^th on the Merit list, catching the eye by finishing tied second in the Yeangder TPC in September before nearly winning the season-ending Saudi Open presented by PIF, where he was joint third.

Wang Wei-hsuan pictured with his girlfriend Cindy Zhou.

Said the 26-year-old, who is the tallest player in the field at 6 feet 9 inches: “It was playing tough, because it was windy. I just tried to hit the fairways. It’s easier when you hit it in the fairway, but I wouldn’t say it’s ever easy. I just think plodding around, as opposed to hitting lots of drivers, is important. It’s good. It’s really challenging

‘I got to play two practice rounds here with a member on Saturday and Sunday. So that was huge. It’s friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, but super welcoming. And I love the Philippines. Lots of jet lag though having come from the US.”

As well as the cash prize for the lowest round of the day, there are impressive prizes on two of the par threes for holes in one. An ace on the seventh comes with a BMW i5 eDrive40 520i Hybrid, while a one on the 17th lands a BMW i5: the BMW all electric BMW 5 Series.

Making an ace on the penultimate hole would be quite a feat. The 191-yard hole is infamous and iconic as it is one of the hardest on Tour. The treacherous hole is guarded by bunkers and has a ‘camels back’ green and saw only 14 birdies today from a starting field of 142 players.

Pictures by Graham Uden/Asian Tour.