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Jeev shares first round PGA lead

India’s Jeev Milkha Singh was savouring his major moment when he fired a solid two-under-par 68 to earn a share of the first round lead in the weather-interrupted US PGA Championship on Thursday.

The 2006 Asian Tour number one carded one eagle, three birdies and three bogeys at Oakland Hills Golf Club to share the clubhouse lead with Sweden's Robert Karlsson.

Korea’s Charlie Wi, a multiple winner on the Asian Tour, was also in the hunt when he fired an even par 70 with four birdies, two bogeys and one double bogey to lie in tied 14th place.

Australian Scott Strange was two over par through nine holes when play was suspended while James Kingston of South Africa was three over par through 10 holes. Thailand’s Prayad Marksaeng shot a 76, Mark Brown of New Zealand a 77 while K.J. Choi of Korea, who contended in the British Open last month, shot a disappointing 78.

Singh has enjoyed a superb season so far with one victory each in Europe and Japan and has the belief in himself that he can contend for a major title.

He bogeyed his opening hole but bounced back with a stunning eagle, firing a four iron to four feet of the flag.

“I’m excited about today's round. I started with a bogey, but I think I got a jump start on number two. I got a good bounce off the left side of the green to about five feet and holed that for eagle,” said Singh.

“After that, just kept plugging away and made a lot of up-and-downs and I think that my putting helped me quite a bit today. My short game was sharp. I didn't drive the ball that good, but any time you shoot under par in a Major Championship I think you got to take it and put it deep down in your pocket and I've done that today.”

Singh’s superb rise was made the more commendable as he has been struggling with a strained tendon in his right ankle. He’ll be hoping that the injury would be a blessing in disguise as Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington won the last two majors while playing with injuries.

“It's got a lot of pain. I've been wearing a brace for the last four weeks. I did injure it just before the French Open, that was about seven, eight weeks ago. I've been getting a lot of physio done and it gets better, but you hit one of those shots out of the rough and I'm back to square one.

“I haven't played any practice rounds for the last seven weeks in the tournaments I've played and it's worked for me pretty good, touch wood. I won twice, once in Europe, the Austrian Open and two weeks ago in Japan. Basically I got a MRI done three weeks ago, the doctor said I need four weeks off and the caution I put up to him was, "Well does two weeks help?" And he said no. And he said there's a lot of fluid and that means a lot of inflammation in there,” said Singh.

“Then I decided if I'm going to play the PGA Championship I'm going to push myself through to this week and next week and after that I'm going to I'm surely taking two weeks off, maybe I'm going to extend it to four. So it depends how the ankle holds up. It feels fine, but the more drivers I hit, I feel it just kind of comes back. And you do need to hit a lot of drivers on this golf course,” added Singh, who only played nine-hole practice rounds on Tuesday and Wednesday at Oakland Hills.

August 8, 2008