Jonathan Yates made an encouraging return to life on the Alps Tour by firing a two-under par round of 66 to open his Cervino Open account in Italy.
The Naas professional scored six birdies in-all, sandwiched between a brace of bogeys on both nines and trails Jordi Garcia del Moral atop the leaderboard by five strokes after the Spaniard fired a -7 (61) to start.
After his second-place finish two weeks ago at the Gösser Open, Jordi is obviously on form:
“My game today was perfect. I shot 5 under for 9 so I was thinking a little bit to try and do 5 or 6 under on the back nine .To be honest, I’m very happy I’m playing great golf right now so I just try to let it happen and we will see.”
In fact, after his 3 birdies and an eagle on the front nine, he carded two more birdies on the back nine.
In second position at -6 (62) is Marco Guerisoli from Italy who had 7 birdies and a bogey. Four of his birdies came on the back nine, including the last two, par four holes. In joint fourth place at -5 (63), the Frenchman, Romain Guillon, entered the club house as leader after the morning rounds:
“It was a really good day. From the beginning I placed my tee shots well and then had lots of wedge and iron shots to hit the green, so I was pretty efficient even if have a couple of regrets about the two bogeys but that’s golf, it happens.”
Alongside him is the American player Zeke Martinez. The Californian native is a long-time resident of Italy. Here by special invitation, he regularly plays at the Senior Italian Open, and produced 6 birdies going out, 1 more coming in and 2 bogeys.
We have a group of five players sitting at -4 (64) including the Frenchman, Xavier Poncelet who was at the top of the board after his morning round:
“The round went pretty well with a great start. After that I had a few of difficulties on the greens as they have irregular speeds, and you can have some unfavourable bounces. So, I three-putted twice but recovered well to finish with 3 birdies in the last 5 holes, so I’m happy.”
As for the rest of the Irish in the field, Michael Dallat carded an even par round of 68 to sit in a tie for 54th heading into day two. Peter Dallat and Damian Murphy are a shot further adrift at plus-one.
Full scoring HERE
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