Jonathan Caldwell is best of the Irish after day one of the HotelPlanner Tour’s Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge as the Clandeboye man shares 25th place.
An up and down start saw him birdie two of his opening five holes but these were sandwiched by a bogey and a double and he turned at +1. After six pars on the front side, he caught fire on the closing stretch, reeling off three birdies in a row to move to -2 for the day.
Max Kennedy is next best on level par after trading three birdies with three bogeys to lie tied for 56th, but Liam Nolan (+2) and Dermot McElroy (+4) will need significant improvements on day two if they’re to see weekend action.
Robin Sciot-Siegrist impressed to take a one stroke lead into day two..
The Frenchman signed for a seven-under round of 65 on day one in Normandy, with a birdie at the last seeing him move one clear of countryman Clement Charmasson, Scotsman Daniel Young and James Allan from England.
Sciot-Siegrist, who narrowly missed out in a play-off in this event three years ago, was delighted to get off to a fast start on a course he knows well.
“I’m very pleased,” he said. “It’s a good test of golf, there was a lot of wind, and I played very solid. It was a nice round.
“It’s a course where I think if you’re a little short of the pins, or middle of the greens, you’ll be okay. You don’t have to go for the pins, so I just tried to stick to that, and it paid off today.”
Sciot-Siegrist parred his opening six holes before catching fire around the turn.
The 31-year-old made four successive birdies from the seventh, and seven birdies in a nine-hole stretch to climb into the lead.
Despite his only dropped shot of the day coming at the 17th, Sciot-Siegrist responded with a closing birdie at the par five 18th to move ahead.
“I didn’t make some putts at the beginning, but I actually played quite decent, and then just started going,” he added. “I then made four in a row. I just kept doing what I was doing, and they kept going in.
“I made two long putts, and the other birdies, I just played the par fives well. I hit it close on the others too.”
Frenchman Mathieu Decottignies-Lafon birdied each of his closing five holes to move into solo fifth on five-under.
Four players sit one shot further back in sixth, including German Anton Albers, Scotland’s Jack McDonald, Austrian Maximilian Steinlechner and Nicolas Calvet from France.
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