Tamsui: Defending champion Wang Wei-hsiang picked up where he left off in last year's Mercuries Taiwan Masters by shooting a six-under-par 66 to take the first-round lead yesterday.
A bogey-free scorecard at the par-72 Taiwan Golf and Country Club, with four birdies on the front and two on the back, saw him top the leaderboard again in the US$1 million event and comfortably handle the fact that this year the event is back on the Asian Tour, unlike last season when, because of the global pandemic, it had to be played as a local event.
Sarit Suwannarut, Donlaphatchai Niyomchon and Nitithorn Thippong of Thailand, India's Rashid Khan, and Hung Chien-yao from Taiwan shot 67s.
Thailand's Suradit Yongcharoenchai, the winner here in 2019, and Taiwanese star Chan Shih-chang fired 68s, along with four other players.
Remarkably, when Wang triumphed in 2021 it came a year after his brother Wang Wei-hsuan had been victorious -- again when, due to Covid-19, the event was not on the Asian Tour schedule.
"Not thinking too much about my title defence," said Wang Wei-hsiang, 26 and three years older than his brother, who carded a 74 yesterday.
"Not much pressure to be honest. I told myself to stay relaxed and not give myself too much pressure. The conditions this week are not quite similar to last year. The course has improved and the greens are faster. It felt like summer wind out there, different from past years. Felt like we were playing in Southeast Asia. I was actually aiming to shoot even par today."
Thailand's teenage amateur star Ratchanon "TK" Chantananuwat came in with a 70 to put himself in a good position to make the halfway cut, something which he didn't do in last week's Yeangder TPC, which was his first Asian Tour event since June.