Daniel Gaunt off to a strong start at the ALLIANZ Open de Lyon
Daniel Gaunt carded a five-under par 66 on Thursday, and shared the second spot on the leaderboard, after round one of the ALLIANZ Open de Lyon.
The European Challenge Tour event is being played at Golf de Gouverneur, featuring some of the prominent names from different parts of the world.
It is really important for Gaunt to record a good finish this week, if he really wants to retain his card for the 2013 Challenge Tour season.
He currently lies at the 108th place in the rankings and a win in the fourth-last tournament of the season will greatly help his cause.
The Australian got off to a confident start on the back nine of the course by recording a par putt on the 10th hole, followed by a birdie on the 11th.
The 2010 English Challenge winner then added another shot to his scorecard on the 15th hole. However, a couple of straight bogeys on the 16th and 17th hole put a small dent on his campaign to reach the top.
Still, he did not lose hope and bounced back with a birdie on the 18th hole to reach the turn with a one-under par score.
The front nine of the course witnessed him play some better shots, as he recorded four birdies without conceding a single bogey to take the outright lead, early in the day.
Later in the evening, four other players also joined him on the leaderboard and Morten Orum Madsen surpassed him to take the top spot with a score of six-under par 65.
Despite slipping down to the shared second place at the end of the day, he was happy with his overall performance in the opening round.
“It was so much better than the past 12 months out there,” said Gaunt. “I'm starting to hole some putts and the short it game is coming along nicely”.
He added, “I just putted well today. The greens are awesome out there so once you get it on the right line and get the pace of it, it’s going to go in. It’s good to stand over a putt knowing that you can hole it again”.
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