{"id":559410,"date":"2026-04-30T21:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T21:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/559410\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T21:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T21:25:08","slug":"mckibbin-seven-off-the-lead-after-topsy-turvy-opening-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/559410\/","title":{"rendered":"McKibbin seven off the lead after topsy-turvy opening day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tom McKibbin is seven shots off the lead after a topsy-turvy opening round at the Turkish Airlines Open.<\/p>\n<p>The Co Antrim man carded a one-over 73 on a day when he experienced wildly contrasting fortunes on the front and back nines respectively.<\/p>\n<p>McKibbin struggled initially on the National Golf Course in Antalya with a nightmare run from holes two to four.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/sport\/results\/golf\/european-tour-1\/28889\/turkish-open-908766\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FULL LEADERBOARD <\/a><\/p>\n<p>A bogey on the second was followed by a double bogey on the par-4 third after an errant drive, and it did not get much better on the next hole with another bogey.<\/p>\n<p>Another dropped shot would follow on six leaving him five over, although a first birdie of the day on the ninth gave him a timely boost going into the back nine.<\/p>\n<p>He would pick up momentum from there with birdies on 12, 14 and 16 &#8211; the only bogey coming on 13 &#8211; before another birdie on 18 left him in a more steady position, tied for 82nd.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Sweden&#8217;s Mikael Lindberg will take a one-shot lead into the second round.<\/p>\n<p>The 33-year-old carded a bogey-free six-under-par 66, one better than Scotland\u2019s Ewen Ferguson, Spaniard Alejandro Del Rey and South Africa\u2019s Daniel van Tonder.<\/p>\n<p>In a bogey-free round, Lindberg, who started at the 10th hole, made six birdies, five of them as he completed the front nine in 31.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, Ferguson, who began his day on the same tee, went out in 32, but picked up only one more shot after the turn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom McKibbin is seven shots off the lead after a topsy-turvy opening round at the Turkish Airlines Open.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-559410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559410","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=559410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}