An Byeong-hun falls to 4th in blustery conditions at BMW Masters

November 13, 2015
An Byeong-hun (Peter Morrison/AP)

An Byeong-hun (Peter Morrison/AP)

By Brian Han

After an opening round at the BMW Masters where it seemed nothing could go wrong for South Korea’s An Byeong-hun, Friday brought an extra dose of disappointment for the 24-year-old.

“It wasn’t a good day. I struggled most of the time,” he told reporters after the round.

But nothing catastrophic happened at Lake Malaren Golf Club in Shanghai. In fact, An ended up shooting a 1-under 71, which only bumped him two spots down the leaderboard to fourth place.

He opened with a birdie, but had a bit of trouble on the front nine par-5s of which he bogeyed both.

Most of his issues stemmed from the cold and windy conditions. On the holes he did have trouble, his shots seemed to fall short of his intended targets.

“I don’t think the ball is flying very far, at least for me, this week and it’s hard to judge the distance in the wind, so it’s rough out there,” he said.

He still had four birdies on the round, which was slightly lower than average for Friday’s round compared to the rest of the field in the top-20.

Tournament leader Lucas Bjerregaard on the other hand put together an almost flawless round of 6-under 66 that included his only bogey of the week. He sits at 12-under giving him a comfortable lead over Sergio Garcia and Thongchai Jaidee who are tied for second at 9-under.

The most impressive round of the day goes to Peter Uihlein who also shot a 6-under 66 to put him in a tie for seventh place. The 26-year-old American posted seven consecutive birdies and knew it was only a matter of time before he went on a scoring spree.

“It was weird. I was level-par going into 15, 1 over for the day, and I felt like I played 24 holes really, really well,” the he told reporters. “I felt like there was going to be a surge coming and I didn’t know it would be seven in a row, but I’m pleased it was.”