Jonathan Yates picked up where he left off at last week’s Open Mirabelle with a five-under par 66 to open his account at the Toscana Alps Open.
The Kildare man produced his best performance since the lockdown to capture a welcomed share of third spot in France last week to add to his second place finish at Sokhna Golf Club back in February and the momentum continued on day one in Italy on Thursday.
The Naas professional fired seven birdies in another superb showing with two dropped shots on the card and shares tenth, four shots back of Andrea Romano atop the board at nine-under par.
The Italian was superb, picking off nine birdies and an eagle to head the field after a successful first outing in Grosseto.
“It all happened so quickly,” said the leader. “I stopped for about ten minutes and then took a pill and carried on. It was hurting all the way round, but I didn’t let it distract me from my game.”
”It was a nice experience representing Italy in that tournament. We won all our matches in the qualifications but finally finished fourth but were very happy.”
As for the other Irish in the field, Peter Dallat returned another encouraging opening performance with four birdies in his two-under par round of 69.
Damian Murphy had four birdies of his own but was unable to cut out the errors in posting a one-under par round of 72.
Full scoring HERE
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