Romain Langasque made seven birdies in a row to take a share of the lead at the Volvo China Open on Thursday.
“The last time I played here I finished in fifth place. I like this course and I like the way you have to plot your way round. I’ll be honest and admit that I didn’t believe that I could shoot nine under par today so I’m delighted.
“It gives me confidence that I have played well on this golf course in the past and I felt comfortable out there today. I didn’t try too hard today and that approach paid off.”
The Frenchman and Sweden’s Sebastian Söderberg both shot bogey-free, 9-under 63s.
Söderberg leads the Asian Swing Rankings which concludes on Sunday. The winner will gain £200,000 in prize money, exemption for the Back 9 events of the DP World Tour campaign and the top three will gain a spot at the US PGA Championship.
“I guess it would be really nice,” said Söderberg. “It is the first Swing I have been involved in and I’m not really that focused on putting tournaments together like that usually. But obviously it means spots into a Major, then you are paying extra attention to stuff like that.”
China’s Haotong Li shot a bogey-free 64 to take solo third place at 8-under followed a shot further back by the Czech Republic’s Gordon Brixi and and France’s Julien Guerrier who both stayed bogey-free as well as Italy’s Guido Migliozzi.
Related: Charley Hull, Danielle Kang and Hyo-Joo Kim headline Aramco Team Series in South Korea
| Pos. | Player | To Par | R1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LANGASQUE, Romain | -9 | 63 |
| | SÖDERBERG, Sebastian | -9 | 63 |
| 3 | LI, Haotong | -8 | 64 |
| 4 | BRIXI, Gordan | -7 | 65 |
| | MIGLIOZZI, Guido | -7 | 65 |
| | GUERRIER, Julien | -7 | 65 |
| 7 | JARVIS, Casey | -6 | 66 |
| | SORDET, Clément | -6 | 66 |
| | GIRRBACH, Joel | -6 | 66 |
| | CELLI, Filippo | -6 | 66 |
| SHARMA, Shubhankar | -6 | 66 | |
| | LOMBARD, Zander | -6 | 66 |
| | ARMITAGE, Marcus | -6 | 66 |
| | WARING, Paul | -6 | 66 |
| 15 | HILLIER, Daniel | -5 | 67 |
| | WANG, Jeunghun | -5 | 67 |
| | OTAEGUI, Adrian | -5 | 67 |
| | PAUL, Yannik | -5 | 67 |
| | SCHOTT, Freddy | -5 | 67 |
| | WIEBE, Gunner | -5 | 67 |
| | NORGAARD, Niklas | -5 | 67 |
| | SCHWAB, Matthias | -5 | 67 |
| 23 | MOLINARI, Edoardo | -4 | 68 |
| | KO, Jeong weon | -4 | 68 |
| | GO, Lloyd Jefferson | -4 | 68 |
| ROZNER, Antoine | -4 | 68 | |
| | YANG, Yinong | -4 | 68 |
| | DE JAGER, Louis | -4 | 68 |
| | LAW, David | -4 | 68 |
| 30 | KODAIRA, Satoshi | -3 | 69 |
| | GOUVEIA, Ricardo | -3 | 69 |
| | PAVAN, Andrea | -3 | 69 |
| | COCKERILL, Aaron | -3 | 69 |
| | Jin, Zihao | -3 | 69 |
| | ELVIRA, Manuel | -3 | 69 |
| | JAMIESON, Scott | -3 | 69 |
| | SVENSSON, Jesper | -3 | 69 |
| | TANG, Haizhao | -3 | 69 |
| | LUITEN, Joost | -3 | 69 |
| | VAILLANT, Tom | -3 | 69 |
| | HIDALGO, Angel | -3 | 69 |
| | BESARD, Matthis | -3 | 69 |
| | HELLIGKILDE, Marcus | -3 | 69 |
| | APHIBARNRAT, Kiradech | -3 | 69 |
| | YE, Wo-cheng | -3 | 69 |
| | HUANG, Zijie | -3 | 69 |
| | ELVIRA, Nacho | -3 | 69 |
| | BAIRSTOW, Sam | -3 | 69 |
| | VEERMAN, Johannes | -3 | 69 |
| 50 | FANG, Zeqian (AM) | -2 | 70 |
| SCALISE, Lorenzo | -2 | 70 | |
| | BRADBURY, Dan | -2 | 70 |
| | LACROIX, Frederic | -2 | 70 |
| | CHOUHAN, Om Prakash | -2 | 70 |
| | SMITH, Jordan | -2 | 70 |
| | TARRIO, Santiago | -2 | 70 |
| | SUWANNARUT, Sarit | -2 | 70 |
| | MCKIBBIN, Tom | -2 | 70 |
| | KINHULT, Marcus | -2 | 70 |
| | STRYDOM, Ockie | -2 | 70 |
| | CHANG, Tse-Yu | -2 | 70 |
| | CANTERO, Ivan | -2 | 70 |
| | BLIXT, Jonas | -2 | 70 |
| | WINTHER, Jeff | -2 | 70 |
| | SCRIVENER, Jason | -2 | 70 |
| | WU, Ashun | -2 | 70 |
| | FRITTELLI, Dylan | -2 | 70 |
| | SULLIVAN, Andy | -2 | 70 |
| | CHEN, Yilong | -2 | 70 |
| | KAWAMURA, Masahiro | -2 | 70 |
| | WU, Hongfu | -2 | 70 |
| | GREEN, Gavin | -2 | 70 |
| 73 | CAO, Senshou | -1 | 71 |
| | PENGE, Marco | -1 | 71 |
| | PARATORE, Renato | -1 | 71 |
| | LARRAZÁBAL, Pablo | -1 | 71 |
| | ZANOTTI, Fabrizio | -1 | 71 |
| | SADDIER, Adrien | -1 | 71 |
| | JORDAN, Matthew | -1 | 71 |
| | MORRISON, James | -1 | 71 |
| | BALDWIN, Matthew | -1 | 71 |
| | ZHOU, Yanhan | -1 | 71 |
| | ZHOU, Ziqin (AM) | -1 | 71 |
| | MA, Bingwen (AM) | -1 | 71 |
| | ZHANG, Xiaolang | -1 | 71 |
| | FISHER, Ross | -1 | 71 |
| | ZHANG, Huilin | -1 | 71 |
| | DEL REY, Alejandro | -1 | 71 |
| | LEVY, Alexander | -1 | 71 |
| | COUSSAUD, Ugo | -1 | 71 |
| | HANNA, Chase | -1 | 71 |
| | WIESBERGER, Bernd | -1 | 71 |
| 93 | GALLACHER, Stephen | Par | 72 |
| | KIEFFER, Maximilian | Par | 72 |
| | SYME, Connor | Par | 72 |
| | XUE, Han | Par | 72 |
| | KHO, Taichi | Par | 72 |
| | DANTORP, Jens | Par | 72 |
| | MANASSERO, Matteo | Par | 72 |
| | HAK, Shun Yat | Par | 72 |
| CABRERA BELLO, Rafa | Par | 72 | |
| | RAMSAY, Richie | Par | 72 |
| | LAPORTA, Francesco | Par | 72 |
| | PAEZ, Nicolas | Par | 72 |
| | TONG, Yang | Par | 72 |
| | HILL, Calum | Par | 72 |
| | LONG, Hurly | Par | 72 |
| | ZHANG, Jinshen | Par | 72 |
| | JIAN, Chuan-lin | Par | 72 |
| | MUIR, Kieran | Par | 72 |
| 111 | HUANG, Wenyi | +1 | 73 |
| | HUANG, Yi-Tseng | +1 | 73 |
| | SHE, Zihan | +1 | 73 |
| | BRUN, Julien | +1 | 73 |
| | KRUYSWIJK, Jacques | +1 | 73 |
| | FORREST, Grant | +1 | 73 |
| | LORENZO-VERA, Mike | +1 | 73 |
| | CHEN, Guxin | +1 | 73 |
| | VAN DRIEL, Darius | +1 | 73 |
| | XIAO, Bowen | +1 | 73 |
| | BAI, Zhengkai | +1 | 73 |
| 122 | COLSAERTS, Nicolas | +2 | 74 |
| | ZHANG, Jin | +2 | 74 |
| | LI, Linqiang | +2 | 74 |
| | MA, Chengyao | +2 | 74 |
| | JIN, Daxing | +2 | 74 |
| | STONE, Brandon | +2 | 74 |
| | SHEN, Nan-nan | +2 | 74 |
| | SOUTHGATE, Matthew | +2 | 74 |
| | ZHANG, Zi-Hong | +2 | 74 |
| | JIN, Cheng | +2 | 74 |
| 132 | JUNG, Woojin | +3 | 75 |
| | FAN, Jicheng | +3 | 75 |
| | LIU, Enhua | +3 | 75 |
| | ZHANG, Changlei | +3 | 75 |
| 136 | FAN, Shiyu | +4 | 76 |
| | FANG, Xiang | +4 | 76 |
| | NAN, Chenyou | +4 | 76 |
| | LIN, K.P. | +4 | 76 |
| | NEMECZ, Lukas | +4 | 76 |
| 141 | LUO, Xuewen | +5 | 77 |
| | ZHANG, Lianwei | +5 | 77 |
| | YE, Jianfeng | +5 | 77 |
| 144 | FRIEDRICHSEN, Sebastian | +6 | 78 |
| | WU, Di | +6 | 78 |
| 146 | QIU, Yongqi | +7 | 79 |
| | ENEFER, Will | +7 | 79 |
| | KJELDSEN, Søren | +7 | 79 |
| | ARNAUS, Adri | +7 | 79 |
| | QUAN, Gang | +7 | 79 |
| | ZHAO, Xingyu | +7 | 79 |
| 152 | WU, Tuxuan | +8 | 80 |
| | JACKSON, Grant | +8 | 80 |
| | TING, Lawrence | +8 | 80 |
| 155 | WORRALL, George | +9 | 81 |
| 156 | SHAO, Minghao (AM) | +11 | 83 |
