Mark Brown has shot a 1-under par 70 in the first round of the Barclays Scottish Open to be in a tie for 52nd place. Brown’s round was typically dramatic with a good start, average middle and solid finish with four birdies and three bogeys in total, including a nice putt for birdie on the last. The weather was warm and calm and therefore ideal conditions for scoring. Richard Green of Australia leads the way at 7-under. Click here for full scores, Mark will be off at 9:10am (8:10pm NZT) tomorrow.

The beauty of Mark Brown’s current status on the European Tour is that there is always another tournament next week so this week it is the Barclays Scottish Open at the scenic Loch Lomond north of Glasgow. Brown arrived on Monday and has spent the last two days practicing and settling in for two weeks in mild Scotland. The Brown clan are here in force to support and Mark will tee off the first at 14:10 (1:10am NZT) with Andres Romero of Argentina and Johan Edfors of Sweden. Live scoring is available at www.europeantour.com

Mark Brown blamed a dismal putting display for not finishing higher up the leader board on day one of the British Open Championship at Turnberry.

Brown recorded 33 putts in superb scoring conditions on the Ailsa course to end the opening round of his first-ever British Open trailing seven shots behind Spanish leader Miguel Angel Jimenez, who shot a six-under 64.

The 34-year old Auckland golfer dropped three strokes early but fought back to regain the shots with birdies at the seventh, 15th and 17th holes.

But a three-putt bogey at the last seemed to rub further salt into a day of putting woes.

“I got off to an awful start to be three over after six holes and then played pretty good for the next 12 holes but putted like a goat,” Brown said.

“I had 33 putts out there today so if it’s not one thing, it’s the other. It was a day where I played well tee to green, but it means nothing because my putting was awful.

“It was also a disappointing way to finish having managed to fight my way back to level par but then bogey the last. The conditions were perfect out there so considering the way I played a 71 is a disappointing score.”

Brown managed to get back to level par with a birdie at the 17th but only after missing a three-metre putt for eagle.

He then three-putted the last.

- NZPA

Mark Brown has shot a 2-over par 73 on a much improved day at Le Golf National but still well off the pace. Brown exorcised the demons of yesterday’s second hole disaster with a birdie and another on his final hole. Brown will now play a corporate day before returning to the UK ahead of his two weeks in Scotland. Click here for full scores.

A disappointed Mark Brown has shot an 8-over par 80 on the first day of the Open de France at Le Golf National outside Paris. On the bright side, with the course being a par 71 he avoided the dreaded ’snowman holding a doughnut’ (80). Brown did the damage with an 8 on the par 3 second and tried valiantly to fight back with birdies on three and five but double bogeys on seven and 15 didn’t help his scoring at all. Mark will need a big comeback reminiscent of his famous “Friday Fightbacks” of 2008 but realistically he will be saving his form for the next two weeks in Scotland. Click here for full scores.

Please note the “Tournaments” page is temproarily broken. It has gone out in sympathy and will take me a while to fix..