Hideki Matsuyama holds a two-stoke lead after the primary spherical of the lads’s Olympic golf occasion in Paris after the previous Masters champion shot an eight-under-par 63 at Le Golf Nationwide.
The Japanese participant, who misplaced out in a seven-man play-off for the bronze medal within the 2020 Tokyo Video games, had six birdies in his first 10 holes and saved a clear card with a 15-foot par save on the seventeenth.
“Thankfully, I used to be in a position to maintain the ball within the fairway and left myself with plenty of probabilities to attain,” Matsuyama mentioned. “I’m glad with the top outcome, however there are nonetheless plenty of issues I can enhance on. It’s an amazing begin and hopefully I can maintain the momentum going for the remainder of the week.”
Defending Olympic champion Xander Schauffele, contemporary off his victory within the Open Championship, is properly positioned after a gap 65 left the American on his personal in second place.
“It wasn’t form of the dream, stripey begin that you just envision as a golfer,” Schauffele mentioned. “However I’m completely satisfied to form of experience the ship in and get away with what might have been worse. I missed a number of putts coming in. However it’s Thursday. I’m probably not sweating it an excessive amount of.”
Additionally off to robust begins within the hunt for medals had been Joaquin Niemann (Chile), Emiliano Grillo (Argentina) and Tom Kim (South Korea), who all fired 66s, with Masters champion and pre-tournament favorite Scottie Scheffler (USA) tied sixth after a 67.
FLEETWOOD & MCILROY IN THE HUNT
That’s a spot shared by Staff GB’s Tommy Fleetwood, whose four-under-par spherical included 4 birdies and no dropped photographs on the par-71 course, together with Jon Rahm (Spain), Sam Valamaki ( Finland), Sepp Straka (Austria), Alex Noren (Sweden), Ryan Fox (NZ) and Erik van Rooyen (South Africa).
Rory McIlroy, taking part in in his second Olympics, stays very a lot within the hunt for Eire following a gap 68, a rating matched by fellow Ryder Cup participant Ludvig Åberg.
France’s Victor Perez hit the opening shot at 9am in entrance of an unsurprisingly raucous crowd of partisan supporters, whose numbers swelled to over 20,000 through the course a day that was twice halted as a result of storm warnings.
A complete of 41 gamers from the 60-man discipline completed the primary spherical beneath par on a day of low scoring helped by the rain-softened greens.
One the 19 gamers over par is Staff GB’s second starter Matt Fitzpatrick, whose detached season continued with a two-over 73 that left him in a tie for forty ninth.
The sector is propped up by Columbia’s Camilo Villegas whose five-over 76 included 4 bogeys and two double bogeys.
To take a look at the dwell scores, click on right here.
