Staff WriterAndrew Johnston turned the Austrian Alpine Open into something approaching a comeback cabaret on Friday, firing an eight under par 62 at Golfclub Kitzbühel-Schwarzsee-Reith to take a one-shot lead into the weekend.
It was Johnston’s lowest round on the DP World Tour since the Scottish Open in 2019, which in golf years is roughly long enough to grow a beard, lose a swing thought, find three more, and start questioning the moral character of your putter.
The Englishman, still known to most of the golfing world as Beef, moved to 11 under par after a second round that had momentum, timing and the sort of putting performance that makes a leaderboard suddenly look a great deal more interesting.
Behind him, Scotland’s Calum Hill, Spain’s Rafa Cabrera Bello and Japan’s Kota Kaneko sit one shot back at ten under, close enough to make Saturday uncomfortable and Sunday potentially rather excellent.
Johnston Finds His Spark In The Mountains
Johnston is making his tenth DP World Tour start of the season on a medical exemption, which tells you this is no ordinary leaderboard story.
The 37-year-old has been limited to just 17 appearances across the last three years, a stop-start stretch shaped by injury and frustration. Last year, it was revealed he had suffered a complete ligament tear and a partial tear in two other tendons in his thumb after a series of earlier misdiagnoses.
That sort of medical history is not exactly the preferred route back to the top of a DP World Tour leaderboard. Yet here he is, striding into the weekend in Kitzbühel with a scorecard that looked less like golf and more like a polite assault.
His last DP World Tour title came at the 2016 Real Club Valderrama Open de España. A decade is a long time between trophies, but Johnston’s Friday round had the unmistakable feel of a player rediscovering not just form, but a bit of freedom.
A 62 Built On Birdies And Belief
Johnston began his move with a birdie at the 12th before a hat-trick of gains from the 15th helped him reach seven under for his opening nine holes.
At that point, he was still one behind first-round leader Yanhan Zhou, which says plenty about the pace being set around Golfclub Kitzbühel-Schwarzsee-Reith. Then came birdies at the first and second, followed by further gains at the sixth and ninth, and suddenly the clubhouse target had Johnston’s fingerprints all over it.
This was not a fussy round. It was not one of those polite 67s that nods respectfully at the leaderboard and keeps walking. It was a 62 with elbows.
And, as Johnston explained afterwards, the putter finally joined the party.
“Look, it’s hard to describe. Just hit a lot of good shots. The putter got a bit hot, which I’ve been trying to do now for six months. Yeah, you know, putts start dropping. It’s a good day.”
Golfers spend half their lives trying to make the game sound complicated. Sometimes, beautifully, it is as simple as good shots and a hot putter.
Yoga, Recovery And A Body That Finally Cooperates
The more revealing part of Johnston’s story may not be the 62 itself, but the work behind it.
Injuries force golfers into all sorts of corners: swing changes, specialist consultations, depressing gym mirrors and the grim realisation that bodies are not machines but moody old pets. Johnston, though, has found benefit in a routine that has made him move better and feel better.
“I think with the injury I looked at stuff that I could personally sort of be better and I started going back into the gym and I felt really compressed and body everywhere and there’s a nice little coffee shop in Perth next door and there’s a yoga place next door and I was like, do you know what, I’m just going to wander in and have a look in, ask a few questions and I found this yoga teacher and she has been brilliant.
I just think my body’s been a lot more flexible, day-to-day I’m feeling better, just day-to-day and moving it and when I come back, I hadn’t seen Goughy (Jamie Gough) for a year. He just said ‘you’re moving so much better and the club’s in such a better position’ and I think it’s a big part to do with that.”
It is a wonderfully human detail: one minute you are dealing with a thumb injury, the next you are wandering into a yoga studio because it happens to be next to a coffee shop in Perth.
Elite sport often dresses itself up in brutal language: marginal gains, performance units, load management. Sometimes the most useful breakthrough starts with curiosity, stiffness and a decent flat white nearby.
Calum Hill Threatens, Then Slips Late
For a while, Calum Hill looked ready to sweep past Johnston altogether.
The Scot produced a brilliant front nine of 29 and briefly overtook the Englishman, only for the tougher back nine to bite late. Dropped shots at two of his final three holes pulled him back into a tie for second at ten under.
That late wobble did not ruin his tournament, far from it. But it did hand Johnston the outright lead and gave the Austrian Alpine Open another layer of intrigue heading into the weekend.
Cabrera Bello and Kaneko are alongside Hill at ten under, both firmly positioned to make this a proper scrap rather than a one-man stroll through the Tyrolean scenery.
Zhou Stays In Touch As Home Hopes Remain Alive
Yanhan Zhou, the DP World Tour’s youngest member this season, followed his opening-round lead with a level par 70. That leaves the Chinese player in a six-way share of fifth at eight under.
He is joined there by last year’s runner-up Marcel Schneider, Brandon Robinson Thompson, Tobias Jonsson and French pair Alexander Levy and Tom Vaillant.
The home challenge is still very much alive too, with Austrian duo Sepp Straka and Max Steinlechner both at seven under, four shots off Johnston’s lead.
That is close enough to matter, especially on a course where precision is not optional and yardages apparently require the attention span of a codebreaker.
The Mountain Course That Keeps Players Honest
Johnston was clear that Golfclub Kitzbühel-Schwarzsee-Reith is not a place where players can simply point, swing and hope the ball behaves itself. Mountain golf has its own little menu of mischief: elevation changes, awkward numbers, optical trickery and the constant suspicion that the yardage book is quietly laughing at you.
“We’re getting there. But you should see the yardage book and stuff. There’s like four or five numbers every time because obviously you’ve got the normal number, then adjustments, front pin and any cover.
There’s still a lot going on and you still sort of have to take that extra ten, 15 seconds just to double check and make sure we’ve got the right yardage because it’s one of these mountain courses that are fiddly, and if you start getting the wrong yardages and flying greens, you can rack up some scores.”
That is the danger now. Johnston has the lead, the feel and the story. But the Austrian Alpine Open is being played on a course where one lazy number can turn a tidy round into a small accounting scandal.
The leaderboard is packed, the local interest is still simmering, and Johnston’s putter has remembered it has a job to do.
For Beef, the weekend now offers something bigger than a low round. It offers a chance to turn a long, awkward recovery into the kind of golf story people actually want to read: bruised, funny, stubborn and very much alive.
