– Haotong Li (-6) is the provisional leader of the Genesis Championship after the morning session of play on the first day. There’s a long way to go in the tournament, needless to say, but who knows if the Chinese player could definitively secure his PGA Tour card this week, a tour he has never been a member of. Li sank two tremendous birdie putts on holes 4 and 8, but also missed some more reasonable birdie opportunities on the greens of the Woo Jeong Hills Country Club (Cheonan, South Korea), which are not exactly a model of fairness, with a lot of sand, although they appear more presentable and less irregular in the morning.
– Alejandro del Rey (-5) was another standout from the morning session, carding a 66 to sit just one shot behind the Chinese player. As you may recall, the Madrid native won for the first time on the European Tour last January (Ras al Khaimah), but since then he hasn’t finished in the top ten even once this season. Has it been a bad year for Del Rey? Certainly not, as evidenced by the fact that he is still fighting to get into the Dubai Final (he arrived in Korea ranked 56th), but one thing doesn’t negate the other: even the Spanish player expected much more from himself in 2025 after winning so early. Fortunately, as you can see, it’s never too late as long as there are tournaments to play. And he could still do more than just salvage the season. “I would like to finish the season well, feel again that it has been a productive year and gain confidence for next year,” he explained to Tengolf shortly after signing his card.
– Everything will be easier for him if he plays as orderly as he did today, a round in which he hit 15 greens in regulation, with a five-under-par score for the first nine holes of the Korean course. He then slowed down, especially on the greens, but finished with a birdie on the 18th, a par 5, where he was even close to holing a chip for eagle.
– Nacho Elvira (-3) also positioned himself at the top of the leaderboard, despite missing a par putt that was less than half a metre away on the 15th hole, towards the end of the round, an incident that did not knock him off course. Rafa Cabrera Bello (-2) and Eugenio Chacarra (-1) complete the list of Spaniards who outplayed the course, while Ángel Ayora (PAR) signed a hard-fought draw. Ángel Hidalgo (+1), Manu Elvira (+4), Iván Cantero (+4), and Alfredo García Heredia (+4) played over par and have left themselves a lot of work for the cut day, especially the last three.
– Also noteworthy is the poor end to the round for Hideki Matsuyama (+2), who finished on the 9th hole with three consecutive bogeys, following a surprising series of errors starting from the 7th hole, considering who he is, undoubtedly one of the pre-tournament favourites. The Japanese player even saved a great bogey on the 8th hole after finding water off the tee, sinking a putt of over four metres.
