{"id":234297,"date":"2025-10-30T16:34:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T16:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234297\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T16:34:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T16:34:07","slug":"tom-mckibbin-ni-golfer-hits-course-record-to-lead-hong-kong-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234297\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom McKibbin: NI golfer hits course record to lead Hong Kong Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;ve shot 62 maybe four times before but this was definitely my lowest and I think it might be very hard to beat,&#8221; said McKibbin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He began with a birdie on the second hole, then carded an eagle on the third, before further birdies at the eighth, 10th 12th and 13th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Belfast-born McKibbin, who made the switch to LIV Golf for the 2025 season, then started a run of three consecutive birdies on the 15th and finished bogey-free at 10 under par to lead Thailand&#8217;s Jazz Janewattananond &#8211; who carded 61 &#8211; by a shot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fellow NI golfer Graeme McDowell is 87th after a disappointing one-under-par 69.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The winner of the event will qualify for the 2026 Masters, while the highest-placed non-exempt player who makes the cut will earn a place in the field for the 154th Open at Royal Birkdale in July. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;I&#8217;ve shot 62 maybe four times before but this was definitely my lowest and I think it might&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-234297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}