Ramos bucks shaky driving, shoots 66 to trail by one in ADT Taiwan
MANILA, Philippines — Sean Ramos continued his impressive run on the Asian Development Tour, overcoming an erratic day off the tee to card a 66 and trail just by one after the opening round of the US$100,000 Ever Glory ADT Open at the Dong Hua Elite Golf Club in Chinese Taipei on Wednesday.
The young Filipino standout, who has been knocking on the door of a breakthrough ADT victory this season, shared second place with Hong Kong's Matthew Cheung, one shot behind local favorite Shen Wei-cheng, who fired a seven-under 65 on the par-72 layout.
Ramos' latest performance further underscored his growing consistency on the regional circuit. After narrowly missing his maiden ADT title in Malaysia last May, where he lost in a playoff, the 22-year-old has continued to contend. He tied for fifth in the Philippine ADT Open at Luisita before settling for a share of 26th in Bangkok last month.
Despite struggling with his driver throughout the day, Ramos delivered one of the grittiest rounds of the opening day.
Starting on No. 1 in the afternoon wave, he came out firing with birdies on Nos. 2, 3 and 4. Consecutive bogeys from the fifth briefly slowed his momentum, but he quickly regained control, birdieing the seventh and eighth before adding three more on Nos. 10, 11 and 17 to finish with eight birdies against two bogeys.
"I’m very happy with my round today considering how bad I drove it," said Ramos. "I think I only hit, at most, five fairways today. So being able to shoot 66 was really good. I did everything well today except the driver."
Although he repeatedly found himself in the rough, Ramos managed to avoid costly mistakes and relied on solid approach shots and timely putting to stay in contention.
"Thankfully, I wasn’t driving it well enough to hit the fairway, but not bad enough to go out of bounds or into the hazards," he said. "I was able to judge my rough second shots pretty well today and I just had to make some putts."
Cheung likewise posted a bogey 66, making six birdies without dropping a shot to join Ramos in second place.
Shen, meanwhile, delighted the home crowd with a sparkling seven-under card. Beginning his round at the back, he birdied the first two holes before collecting six more birdies on Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 9, negating his lone bogey on the sixth.
The Taiwanese credited his precise iron play and sharp putting for his strong start.
"Bogey-free is always nice when you’re playing a difficult golf course like this," Shen said. "I hit a lot of nice iron shots and holed a couple of good putts out there, so I’m very happy with my game."
Shen also drew confidence from his previous success in Chinese Taipei.
"I’ve had a lot of good finishes in Taiwan, so I guess the golf courses just suit me out here," he said.
Six players put in 67s, including Hsu Yu-cheng, Americans Nathan Han, Carson Herron and Shotaro Ban, and Malaysians Justin Chan and Shahriffuddin Ariffin.
Han, who also turned in a bogey-free round, said patience was key after a slow start.
"It felt great," Han said. "I got off to a little bit of a slow start, then I locked in and made a couple of birdies. I put myself in a good position for the next two or three rounds."
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