Victor Pastor holds a one-stroke lead after firing a nine under par round of 63 on day one of the Hangzhou Open at Hangzhou West Lake Golf Club.
The Spaniard made nine birdies during his bogey-free opening 18 holes and sits one stroke clear of China’s Xinjun Zhang, who holds solo second.
Pastor, starting on the first, made three birdies in his first four holes before adding back-to-back gains to head out in just 31 strokes. A birdie on the par-five tenth was followed by three further back nine gains to leave the Spaniard clear at the top of the leaderboard.
“Today I played amazing,” he said. “Even my misses were good so I am really happy with the way that I played, and I will try to repeat it tomorrow and over the weekend.
“I did everything really well out there today. I had a great start. I hit two good shots and made a couple of putts before getting up and down on number three and I left it to about a foot on the fourth, which was a tough hole.”
Pastor started the penultimate event of the season and second of back-to-back events in China 56th in the season-long Road to Mallorca Rankings, with the top 45 currently projected to reach the Rolex Grand Final supported by The R&A at Club de Golf Alcanada.
The 30-year-old is need of a strong week to boost his chances of competing for promotion to the DP World Tour later this month, and he’s eager to capitalise on his positive start.
“I know I’ll need a great result this week to make the Rolex Grand Final in Mallorca, and this is a great start, which I’ll try to continue this weekend,” he added.
“If someone gives you nine birdies to start the tournament you’ll take it. Today has helped me a lot to reach the goal which is a good result in this tournament.”
Englishman James Morrison and Lukas Nemecz share third on seven under par, one shot ahead of England’s Tom Lewis, South African Bryce Easton and China’s Bowen Chai. Spanish duo Adri Arnaus and Sebastian Garcia, Swede Albin Bergstrom and Peruvian Julian Perico share seventh on five under par.
The second round of the Hangzhou Open gets under way at 6:30am local time with Pastor teeing off alongside Chinese Taipei’s Yi-Tseng Huang and Sweden’s Albin Bergstrom at 12:10pm.
