It's hard to imagine watching the Qatar Masters afternoon round being played in a desert sandstorm that looks on TV like fog, but the World Cup (soccer) will be played here in 2022 and Doha is bidding for the 2020 summer Olympics, a tribute to how far the middle east has been developing in the last 20 years. Qatar is one of the region's wealthiest states due to its enormous oil and natural gas revenues.
europeantour.com Spain's Gonzalo Fernandez-Castaño overcame a desert storm to grab the lead away from American John Daly on the opening day of the Commercialbank Qatar Masters presented by Dolphin Energy in Doha.
Daly's return to form - he is 543rd in the Official World Golf Ranking - with a five under par 67 looked an unreachable target for the later starters as conditions worsened.
But Fernandez-Castaño, currently on course for a Ryder Cup debut later this year, birdied four of the last five holes for a brilliant 66.
The 31 year old from Madrid, wearing sunglasses to limit the amount of sand blowing in his eyes, had a remarkable nine birdies during his round, but also bogeys on the fourth, long tenth and 13th.
The 45 year old Daly surprised even himself with five birdies and no dropped shots."It's one of the best rounds I've ever played in a wind like that," You feel like you are eating a lot of sand - it was brutal. I'm pretty shocked myself. I had five and a half weeks off and really didn't touch a club much."
live scoring click
http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/season=2012/tournamentid=2012005/leaderboard/index.html
Bryan Angus also on twitter@mummmbles
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