Jarryd Felton carded a opening round of 8-under-par 64 on Friday to set himself up heading into the weekend at Spalding Park where the greens have been rated by players as “the best in the world” according to the likes of Jarrod Lyle and Leigh McKechnie who enjoyed an opening round of six-under-par 66 playing alongside Felton.

“This golf course is simply amazing,” said Felton who even had room on his card for a bogey on the par four 13^th hole.

“The greens are up there with the best anywhere I have ever played,” said the local West Australian Felton who was a first time winner on the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia back in 2015 when he claimed the Coca-Cola NSW PGA Championship.

Defending champion Andrew Martin from Victoria managed to post an opening round of 1-under-par 71 despite a few challenging moments on his way to Geraldton on Thursday when he and Rory Bourke struck a Kangaroo whilst driving north.

“It’s a beautiful drive up to Geraldton but that wasn’t ideal and we are just lucky to make it here,” said Martin who was happy to arrive on time and defend his title from 2016 when he won in a playoff.

Following his record breaking round on Wednesday at Sun City, Tournament favourite Jarrod Lyle could only manage a 1-over-par 73 and will have his work cut out to catch Felton.

The Mitchell & Brown Spalding Park Open is one of the feature events on the Ladbrokes PGA Pro-Am Series and a one of the very best on the WA/SA Subaru Series which is in full swing ahead of next week’s TX Civil & Logistics WA PGA Championship in the desert oasis of Kalgoorlie where Stephen Dartnell will be defending his crown.

The second round begins at 7:30am Saturday morning with the 36 hole cut being decided Saturday afternoon which will see the top 40 players advance to Sundays final round.

Scores can be found at www.pga.org.au