Darren Clarke made an unsolicited plea for a cooling of expectations surrounding Rayhan Thomas on the eve of the teen’s Dubai Creek Open title defence Sunday. Good luck with that now.

The rise and rise of the 17-year-old reached giddy new heights on Tuesday when the Indian amateur No.1 tied the world record for successive birdies in a professional event to ignite his defence of the MENA Tour title.

Riding a hot putter and the encouragement of his major championship winning playing partner, the Indian teen rattled off nine straight birdies from the second to emulate 1989 Open champion Mark Calcavecchia and European Tour star Bernd Wiesberger.

Related: Rayhan Thomas Equals World Record As He Flirts With Mythical 59 At Dubai Creek Open

After an outward nine of just 27 strokes and another birdie on the 10th, local social media was abuzz with a “#59 watch”. Thomas would eventually have to settle for a course-record tying 61 but the global reverberations were no less seismic.

Clarke, the 2011 Open champion, Europe’s beaten Ryder Cup captain last year and the MENA Tour’s patron, hasn’t changed his view on Thomas despite Tuesday’s eventual hullabaloo.

Indeed, the Ulsterman quickly rebuked a local reporter for daring to mention “Rory [McIlroy] at this age and Rayhan at this age” in the same breath.

“They’re totally different, you can’t compare them and I think you’ve got to be respectful as well. You can’t be heaping too much pressure on Rayhan,” Clarke said.

“He’s going to play Junior Presidents Cup [in New Jersey later this month], his game is going in the right direction, everything is really good , but we just need to let him get on with things.”

But as unfair as the McIlroy comparsion was, the fact Thomas’ name was even uttered in the same sentence gives a sense of the interest in the online-schooled teen.

This time last year he was the 1050th ranked amateur in the world but now, after becoming the first amateur to win on the MENA Tour, making his first European Tour cut at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic and a run to the semifinals of the U.S. Amateur, Thomas is 50th and suddenly the talk of the developmental tour. If he hasn’t quite put the MENA Tour on the global map, he’s certainly given the world’s golf media a jolly good reason to at least Google his and the Pro-Am circuit’s name as these tweets suggest:

Rayhan Thomas is 17, an amateur and today posted nine straight birdies in the Dubai Creek Open, a professional event. Ties a world record.

— Jason Sobel (@JasonSobelTAN) September 12, 2017

@RayhanThomas=baller! https://t.co/9XPQvR39ki

— Claude Harmon III (@claudeharmonIII) September 12, 2017

Of course, Trevor Immelman, the 2008 Masters champion, knows about the Dubai Creek product who has qualified No.1 for his International team ahead of the inaugural Junior Presidents Cup. 

Yeah baby! Great playing!
Enjoy and see you soon @RayhanThomas….

— Trevor Immelman (@TrevorImmelman) September 12, 2017

Even Clarke relented a little.

“He didn’t quite play so well yesterday [Monday] but today he played fantastic. The score he shot is probably the worst he could have shot and you can’t say that too often.

“He’s very clam and collected and knew exactly what he wanted to do.”

Perhaps the most impressive of all Thomas’ quotes afterwards was when he admitted golf’s once mythical 59 mark entered his thinking.

“When I birdied 10, it was my 9th birdie, it crept into my head that I could of made, possibly 59, but I just tried to make sure I remembered I have a tournament to play,” he said. “You know, 59 is not the goal, trying to get myself into contention is, so I didn’t want to do anything silly, stick to my game plan.”

The game plan Wednesday will be to emulate Englishman Zane Scotland as a back-to-back winner of the Dubai Creek Open.

Thomas will start two shots adrift of MG Keyser after the Dubai-based South African backed up his part of the now joint Creek course record on Monday with a 68 to move to -14 for the championship.

At -9, Englishman Robert Harrhy is certainly not out of it. But, despite Clarke’s sage plea, the only story in town will inevitably focus on a kid who started playing golf at the club just eight years ago, and began this week having a rock named after him

Related: Rayhan’s Dubai Creek Legacy Literally Set In Stone

Clarke has been around long enough to know his plea has now fallen between an altogether different rock and a hard place. But without wanting to heap too much added pressure on the level-headed lad, we sense the Rayhan headlines will continue to flow.

The post VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Watch Rayhan Thomas seal his world and course record-equalling MENA Tour round appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Kent Gray
Add a world record to the remarkable CV of Dubai golf prodigy Rayhan Thomas.

The 17-year-old Indian amateur sensationally reeled off a record nine successive birdies and flirted with golf’s mythical mark of 59 at the MENA Tour’s Dubai Creek Open on Tuesday.

Thomas eventually signed for a 10-under-par round of 61 to tie the course record at his home Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club, set just 24 hours earlier by Dubai-based South African professional MG Keyser.  After opening with a one-under 70, Thomas’s historic round saw him snatch the clubhouse lead and well and truly rekindle the defence of the title he famously captured as a 16-year-old a year ago, becoming the first amateur to win on the developmental Middle East and North Africa  Pro-Am circuit in the process.

Related: Rayhan’s Dubai Creek Legacy Literally Set In Stone

Tuesday’s nine birdies, achieved courtesy of an impossibly hot putter from holes 2 through 10 at the Creek, saw the correspondence schooled teen provisionally join 1989 Open champion Mark Calcavecchia in the record books with the most successive birdies in an Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR)/professional event.

What a world record equalling card looks like. And signed by 2011 Open champion and Ruder Cup captain Darren Clarke to boot!

Calcavecchia’s run came on holes 12 to 2 (he started on the back nine) at the 2009 RCB Canadian Open on the PGA Tour. Bernd Wiesberger matched the feat at February’s Maybank Championship Open en-route to a 63 although it is not officially recognised as preferred lies were in force at the European Tour event due to wet conditions at Saujana G&CC in Kuala Lumpur.

The world birdie and local course records are further milestones in a young career clearly going places. Before this tournament last year, Thomas was the 1050th ranked amateur in the world. Now he’s up to 50th place on the back of a remarkable run of form which has included making his first professional tournament cut at February’s Omega Dubai Desert Classic and a run to the semifinals of the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship.

“I don’t know what to say” was Thomas initial reaction on learning he was a world record holder. “It certainly wasn’t going through my head, I was just trying to make as many birdies as I could.

“Last year I set the amateur course record [65] in the first round so it feels really good to have the actual course record now and share it with a friend of mine, feels good to have it at my home club.

“I’m very happy. I’ve played well here because I know the course well and to do it front of all the members and my parents was even more special.”

Have you ever had a birdie blitz even remotely close to that before? “Never nine, nine’s a lot,” Thomas conceded after his round in the company of Swede Fredrik From and 2011 Open champion and former European Ryder Cup captain Darren Clarke, the MENA Tour’s patron. “ I just started holing putts. Hit a lot of good iron shots and I was just holing putts all day. Today almost all the putts I looked at, I felt like they could go in. It was just good to keep it going.”

The round was a huge confidence boost for Thomas who is using the tournament as prep for the inaugural Presidents Cup in New Jersey later this month. The 61 certainly won’t have gone unnoticed by International team captain Trevor Immelman, the 2008 U.S. Masters champion.

“It was good to get this good round in, it just shows I have what it takes to go low and going forward for the rest of the season it’s going to be a good memory to fall back on,” he said.

https://twitter.com/JParsonsGolf/status/907535579352616960

Thomas admitted thoughts of shooting 59 “crept in” when he birdied the 10th but his putter cooled every so slightly.

“I just tried to make sure I remembered I have a tournament to play and you know, 59 is not the goal, trying to get myself into contention is, so I didn’t want to do anything silly [in the closing stretch of holes].

“After the first day I was nine back so I know I had to shoot something better than six or seven under to get myself into contention and I was able to achieve that.”

Well done @RayhanThomas , different league @MENAGolfTour #golf #golfer #juniorgolf… https://t.co/MeUSRnvhrd

— Jamie Mcconnell (@JMGolfCoach) September 12, 2017

As for the game plan on Wednesday when Thomas has the chance to emulate MENA Tour record holder Zane Scotland as a back-to-back winner of the Dubai Creek Open? Expect more of the same.

“If I can shoot one more of these I’ll probably be fine [laughs] tomorrow but, no, it will be the same mentality, stick to my game plan, if I can hole putts, I can hole putts, but if not, just be sure I make pars in the right places and attack in the right places.”

The field have been forewarned.

The post Rayhan Thomas equals world record as he flirts with mythical 59 at Dubai Creek Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.