Romain Langasque (-9) and Sebastian Soderberg (-9) lead the Volvo China Open after the first day, having both handed in cards of 63 strokes. A dazzling and uncontested start from the French and Swedish players, although it is the latter, Soderberg, who truly deserves a special mention, as he comes from being second in his last two appearances in India and Japan. He is in great form, just on the verge of the second Major of the year, the PGA Championship, in which he already has a nearly reserved spot…
Could this player become a rank outsider in the PGA? His history in the majors is almost non-existent, as at 33 years old he has only played two, the US Open in 2016, where he missed the cut, and again the US Open in 2023, where he finished 53rd. Let’s look on the bright side: perhaps Soderberg can indulge himself in two weeks by achieving his best ranking in a Major at Valhalla. From there to being a protagonist there may be too much ground to cover, although anyone would say so seeing him in action this year, the best of his career (he had never entered the top 100 in the world until 2024).
Pay close attention to this fact: on this first day on the Hidden Grace Golf Club course, up to eighteen cards have been counted without a single bogey. The course, very soft due to the water that had fallen on Wednesday, was very wide and the greens very receptive, being also tremendously noble, very noble. White and in a bottle.
In any case, it is striking that among the first six players in the ranking (Langasque, Soderberg, Li, Guerrier, Migliozi and Brixi) they have only added up… one bogey. In other words: in the 108 holes that these players have added up in the first round, only one blot has fallen. The picture can be expanded even further: among the fourteen players who currently make up the top ten of the table, they only add up five bogeys (in 252 holes added up between all of them) and nine of those fourteen have handed in cards without a single bogey.
Adrián Otaegui (-5), the best Spanish player, has just missed out on the top ten, but he has not signed a single bogey either. In total, up to 18 players have handed in immaculate cards in this first round, without a single blot, an exaggerated figure that is not usually seen in the first division of European golf, although this does not mean that birdies or safe conducts were being given away to avoid mistakes. Far from it. At the end of the day there is always someone who pays the broken dishes and leaves the field with a good bag of bogeys. It’s the law of golf and there is always someone who gets caught off guard by the festival. Unfortunately, Adri Arnaus (+7) was one of them today.
