Austria’s Sepp Straka surrendered a -8 card to take control of the Olympic golf tournament at Kasumigaseki Country Club on Thursday, with favorites Collin Morikawa and Hideki Matsuyama showing less vigor.
The 1st round was stopped just over two hours in the afternoon due to thunder, but ended up resuming for 27 of the 60 players who had not yet completed their course. Ranked 161st in the world, Straka, who has a professional title, the KC Golf Classic (2018) in a parallel circuit to the PGA, had already been at the end of his day before the interruption. And she was perfect, with eight birdies, without making a single mistake.
He is suddenly ahead of the no less surprising Thai Jazz Janewattananond (150th world). Behind, at two lengths, is a duo made up of Mexican Carlos Ortiz (61st worldwide) and Belgian Thomas Pieters (120th worldwide). You have to go down to 14th place to find a trace of the first player to be part of the World Top 10 and therefore claiming the gold medal. In this case the American Xander Sc Chaudele (5th in the world), who is still five lengths behind Straka.
As for his compatriot Collin Morikawa (world n ° 3), fresh winner of the last British Open, he is behind in 21st place with a total of -2. Ditto for the Irishman Rory McIlroy and the Japanese Hideki Matsuyama, hero of his country since his coronation at the Augusta Masters in April.
On the French side, they did rather well for their start. Antoine Rozner is in 14th position (-3), while Romain Langasque is in 21st place (-2), after having committed two bogeys on his last four holes, on his return to the greens after the storm.
Provisional classification of the 1st round of the Olympic tournament (par 71):
1. Sepp Straka (AUT) -8 (63)
2. Jazz Janewattananond (THA) -7 (64)
3. Thomas Pieters (BEL) -6 (65)
. Carlos Ortiz (MEX) -6 (65)
5. Joachim Hansen (DEN) -5 (66)
. Jhonattan Vegas (VEN) -5 (66)
. Juvic Pagunsan (PHI) -5 (66)
8. Sebastian Munoz (COL) -4 (67)
. Paul Casey (GBR) -4 (67)
. Anirban Lahiri -4 (67)
. Alex Noren (SWE) -4 (67)
12. Antoine Rozner (FRA) -3 (68)
. Xander Schauffele (USA) -3 (68)
. Patrick Reed (USA) -3 (68)
. Si Woo Kim (KOR) -3 (68)
. Viktor Hovland (NOR) -4 (68)
21. Hideki Matsuyama (JPN) -2 (69)
. Collin Morikawa (USA) -2 (69)
. Rory McIlroy (IRL) -2 (69)
. Romain Langasque (FRA) -2 (69)
… etc.
»READ ALSO – Le leaderboard complet
.
