A level-par opener sees Tom McKibbin tied for 75th after day one at the acciona Open de España presented by Madrid, while Jon Rahm, seeking a fourth win in five years, finished strongly to post -4.
Bogeys at two and four made it far from an ideal start for the Holywood DP World Tour rookie, but after battling his way back to level-par at the turn, he’d trade another birdie and a bogey on the front to shoot 71 and end day one eight shots adrift.
Defending champion Rahm birdied three of his final five holes to turn what until then had been a scrappy round into a very respectable -4.
“It’s a good score,” Rahm said afterwards. “You can’t win it on the first day, but I put myself in a good position. I just, I feel like I drove it so good, I wish I would have taken advantage of a couple of other opportunities right. I put myself in the right spots often enough and even a couple of holes I struggled to make a birdie on par fives are two great shots, but besides that it was really good organised round of golf, play really good. Hopefully I can keep hitting it to the green like that and just make a few putts the rest of the week.
“Well, the only thing is this is not the biggest golf course right and it’s a massive honour to have as big a gallery as we have. So, it’s just dealing with that right, obviously everybody here watching, I’ll say most of them watching want me to do good and this is managing that energy around me.
“So obviously I want to do good but if you start adding that energy of wanting to hit a good shot, you don’t want to start trying too hard, and I’m going to play golf like I do any other week. But the beauty of something like this is, you know, maybe when I’m not hitting my best shots, just using that crowd to my advantage right. That moment on 18 and one where I made a bogey, made a great par on one, you know using the crowd energy and turning around and playing golf was key and I was glad I was able to do that.”
Matthieu Pavon went one better than last year as a 63 handed him a one-shot lead after the opening round.
Last season’s Thursday 64 helped the Frenchman finish second behind Rahm and he will be hoping to go one better again on Sunday as he looks for a first DP World Tour title at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid.
His eight under score left him one clear of Dutchman Wil Besseling and two ahead of countryman Mike Lorenzo-Vera, Portuguese Pedro Figueiredo and England’s Eddie Pepperell, all of whom are looking for a strong end to the season to maintain their playing privileges.
A two-time winner on the Alps Tour, Pavon has been a picture of consistency since finishing second three times on the European Challenge Tour in 2016 to earn his card, with last season’s second place in Spain the third of his DP World Tour career.
He already has five top tens on Tour this season – including at last week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship – but revealed a second-placed finish on home soil at the Open d’Arcachon during Ryder Cup week could be the key to him potentially breaking his duck on Sunday.
Englishmen Ross Fisher and Nathan Kimsey, South Africans Deon Germishuys and Zander Lombard, Spaniard Victor Garcia Broto, Scot Calum Hill, Frenchman Romain Langasque, Dutchman Joost Luiten, Finn Tapio Pulkkanen, India’s Shubhankar Sharma and German Marcel Siem were all three shots off the lead.
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