Tommy Fleetwood, Eddie Pepperell and Matt Wallace shared the overnight lead at the Sky Sports British Masters to delight the home fans on a wild and windy day one at Walton Heath Golf Club.
The English trio have five wins between them this season and fired rounds of 67 to get to 5 under and lead the way from countryman Richard McEvoy, Swede Joakim Lagergren, American David Lipsky, France’s Mike Lorenzo-Vera and another Frenchman in Alexander Levy, who will have to complete the last on Friday after play was suspended due to darkness.
Wallace has three of those wins and is playing in his 50th European Tour event this week, while Fleetwood is the reigning Race to Dubai champion and successfully defended his Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship presented by EGA title at the start of the year.
Pepperell won his maiden crown at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters in February and produced the highlight of the day on Thursday with his first European Tour hole-in-one.
TOP 5
1. Tommy Fleetwood -5
1. Eddie Pepperell -5
1. Matt Wallace -5
4. Richard McEvoy -4
4. Joakim Lagergren -4
4. David Lipsky -4
4. Mike Lorenzo-Vera -4
Read more at EuropeanTour.com
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Japan’s Nasa Hataoka carded eight birdies on Thursday at SKY72 Golf & Resort’s Ocean Course and will take a two-shot lead into day two of the LPGA KEB Hana Bank Championship.
“I was hitting very solid, so I gave myself a lot of birdie opportunities … and that really helped my game today,” said the 19-year old Japanese star via an interpreter.
“As a professional golfer, I believe that we need to be able to play solid under any conditions, including very strong winds. Until the 17th hole, I managed the wind very well, but at the 17th I kind of slipped in managing the wind.”
American Danielle Kang and England’s Charlie Hull shared second-place at 5-under par.
Rolex Rankings No. 1 Sung Hyun Park, and four-time LPGA Tour champion Minjee Lee, trail by three strokes at 4 under.
TOP 5
1. Nasa Hataoka -7
2. Danielle Kangl -5
2. Charlie Hull -5
4. Sung Hyun Park -4
4. Minjee Lee -4
Read more at LPGA.com
