{"id":261370,"date":"2025-10-30T19:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T19:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/261370\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T19:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T19:28:09","slug":"tom-mckibbin-ni-golfer-hits-course-record-to-lead-hong-kong-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/261370\/","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":261371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-261370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}