{"id":6744,"date":"2012-01-06T01:18:55","date_gmt":"2012-01-05T23:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/01\/golf-two-eagles-help-aiken-to-fly-high-at-africa-open\/"},"modified":"2012-01-06T01:18:55","modified_gmt":"2012-01-05T23:18:55","slug":"golf-two-eagles-help-aiken-to-fly-high-at-africa-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/golf-two-eagles-help-aiken-to-fly-high-at-africa-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Golf-Two eagles help Aiken to fly high at Africa Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Jason Humphries<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">EAST LONDON, South Africa<\/span> Jan 5 (Reuters) &#8211; Spanish<br \/>\nOpen champion Thomas Aiken took full advantage of benign<br \/>\nconditions to snatch a one-stroke lead after the first round of<br \/>\nthe Africa Open on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The 28-year-old South African fired a nine-under 64 at the<br \/>\ncoastal East London Golf Club to edge out fellow countrymen<br \/>\nRetief Goosen, his playing partner, and Jaco Ahlers.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The course is short by modern standards, measuring 6,191<br \/>\nyards, and relies on blustery winds for its main defence.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Aiken, playing in the first group of the day, stole a march<br \/>\non his rivals by grabbing two eagles and five birdies in a<br \/>\nbogey-free round.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I wasn&#8217;t really expecting that after two weeks without<br \/>\ntouching a club,&#8221; he told reporters. &#8220;It was a great morning<br \/>\nthis morning and scoring conditions were good.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The course was there for the taking. It&#8217;s not the longest<br \/>\nbut it bites if you go wrong. Anything off line is pretty much a<br \/>\nreload off the tee which makes it a thinking man&#8217;s course.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Goosen, holder of two U.S. Open titles, reeled off nine<br \/>\nbirdies and a single dropped shot in his round.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>South Africans Dean O&#8217;Riley and Michael du Toit and Briton<br \/>\nPhillip Price shared fourth place on 66.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jason Humphries EAST LONDON, South Africa Jan 5 (Reuters) &#8211; Spanish Open champion Thomas Aiken took full advantage of benign conditions to snatch a one-stroke lead after the first round of the Africa Open on Thursday. The 28-year-old South African fired a nine-under 64 at the coastal East London Golf Club to edge out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-6744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}