Ludvig Åberg and Tom Vaillant share the lead at the BMW PGA Championship on eight under par after the first round at Wentworth Club was suspended due to darkness.
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Frenchman Vaillant, who hit the opening tee shot in the first group on the West Course this morning, set the clubhouse target at eight under after firing ten birdies in his round of 64. He made the turn two under and then carded six birdies on his final seven holes.
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Heading into the third Rolex Series event of the season 124th on the Race to Dubai Rankings, Vaillant is finding form at the right time. His best result of the season so far came two weeks ago in Switzerland where he finished in a tie for 17th courtesy of scores of 64 and 66 in the third and fourth rounds respectively.
Åberg, who will make his second Ryder Cup appearance for Team Europe in a fortnight’s time, opened his round with a bogey, but recovered with nine birdies as he joined Vaillant at the top of the leaderboard. Play was suspended for more than an hour due to the threat of lightning as he was playing the 18th hole, but he returned to finish with a birdie – his third in a row to close out his round.
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Casey Jarvis was the co-leaders’ nearest challenger on seven under after the South African closed his round with five straight birdies.
Home favourite Matt Fitzpatrick, Scotland’s Richie Ramsay, France’s Antoine Rozner and Swede Joakim Lagergren were another stroke further back.
Thursday’s later starters will return to the course to complete their first rounds on Friday morning at 07:45 local time after play was suspended due to darkness at 19.30. There is no change to round two tee times, with the first group teeing off at 06:40.
Player Quotes
Ludvig Åberg: It was very efficient. I felt like once I got on the greens, I was rolling the putter really nice and tried to be aggressive with the speed. Managed to make a lot of putts, which is nice.
Any time you shoot that kind of score, I think you need to be good on the greens, and that was what it was today.
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It’s one of my favourite events of the year. I think I said that multiple times in the last couple days, and it’s really nice to be here. Obviously the golf course is in great shape and the crowds are always amazing. It’s a treat to play well here and it’s a treat to play well here, as well.
Matt (Fitzpatrick), we get along great. He’s a great guy. It’s very easy to be around him, and we can chat about all sorts of things that are not even golf related, so that’s always nice. Today was one of them days where we both played pretty well. Hopefully we can do that in New York in a couple weeks’ time, too.
