Max Kennedy is right in the thick of it after day one of the Raifeisenbank Golf Challenge in the Czech Republic after an opening four-under 67 leaves him tied for fourth.
The Royal Dublin man began his opening round on the 10th and got off to a slow start with three pars before a bogey on 13 dropped him the wrong side of par. That was his only dropped shot of the round, however, and he fired back with consecutive birdies on 14 and 15 to make the turn at -1.
Another brace back-to-back on two and three got him to three-under, and he added a fifth birdie of the day on the eighth to get to -4 and become part of a seven-way tie for fourth, four shots off the lead.
Kennedy’s round was the lone bright spark on an otherwise disappointing day for the strong Irish contingent. At +1 and tied for 59th, Mark Power is the only other Irishman inside the provisional cutline, with Conor Purcell (+2, T82), John Murphy and Robert Brazill (+3, T106), and Gary Hurley (+4, T119) all needing to break par in round two if they’re to have any chance, while James Sugrue (+6) and Liam Nolan (+10) will have to do something special to earn weekend tee times.
Frenchman Mathieu Decottignies-Lafon will take a two-stroke lead into day two after carding an eight-under-par 63.
The 33-year-old carded his joint-lowest round of the year, after missing the cut in his last two starts, and was pleased with his opening score.
“It was a really good round,” he said. “I didn’t have the best preparation; I had to pick up my bag in Poland and only arrived at the golf course at 1pm yesterday.
“I was fortunate enough to play the front nine, and I trained to get ready for today.
“It was a really good round, I just kept it together through 18 holes, it felt really good.
Decottignies-Laffon, starting on the tenth, was pleased with his aggressive approach, that seemed to pay off on the opening day.
“I missed my target just twice off the tee,” he added. “A few missed irons, and the putter wasn’t that hot. It’s always good to score that low when the putter isn’t firing.
“The first hole, I was really nervous as I knew with the wind I could drive the green, but I thought I should maybe just hit an iron, but I said to myself ‘no, come on, you feel the driver so you have to trust it’ and I drove it to 25-30 feet from the hole, and I hit some golf shots really close to pins.”
Decottignies-Lafon’s highest career finish to date came at the 2022 Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge, and the Frenchman is looking for his first top-ten finish since the Irish Challenge last August.
And with a two-hour delay due to thunder and lightning in the local area, Decottignies-Lafon was made to wait to get his opening round under way.
“It’s a life where you need to adapt,” he added. “I am learning, even after more than ten years, I just had to do my preparation 90 minutes later.
“My season has not been great, but it hasn’t been bad. My game has been really good, my putting has improved a lot.
“This is a life where four good rounds don’t happen a lot, a round like today with the preparation I had was very good. I will take the rest of the week shot-by-shot and see what happens after 72-holes.”
Japan’s Tatsunori Shogenji, who is embarking on his first HotelPlanner Tour outing, holds solo second at six under par, one-stroke ahead of Englishman Callum Tarren.
Five groups will return to the course tomorrow morning to complete their first rounds, before the second round gets under way at 7:15am local time. Leader Decottignies-Lafon will tee off on the first tee alongside Daniel Gale and Stepan Danek at 8:54am.
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