François Delamontagne leads ECCO Tour Championship after round one
Frenchman François Delamontagne carded a six-under par 66 on Wednesday to grab a one-stroke lead after the opening round of the ECCO Tour Championship, hosted by Thomas Björn & Mercedes-Benz at Stensballegaard Golf, Horsens, Denmark.
Joachim B Hansen of Denmark was listed second on the leaderboard after registering five birdies and an eagle against two bogeys for a five-under par 67.
Delamontagne credited his new coach, Benoit Ducolombier, for such a stunning performance in the opening round that saw him record eight birdies against two bogeys.
He told that he spent plenty of time on the range with his coach and the hard work paid him off in the end.
In his last 12 starts on the Challenge Tour, he missed the cuts in 10 of them. Therefore, it was a shocking moment for everyone on the course when he took the clubhouse lead after playing in the first group of the day.
“It took me a while to wake up, because it was an early start this morning! But the conditions were perfect first thing because there was hardly any breeze, so the course was probably playing as easy as it’s going to get this week and I managed to take advantage,”
he said.
He also told that he worked on his short game during the practice round on Tuesday. That was the main reason behind his superb performance on and around the greens.
Meanwhile, he also admitted that he could have been even more impressive if he had played a little better off the tee.
He was not as good with his driver as he was with his putter. As a result, he plans to work a bit extra on his driving technique before entering the second round on Thursday.
“Overall I’m pretty pleased with how I played, because I’ve really needed some confidence and hopefully I’ve found some,” he said. “It’s been a tough season, but that was much more like it and hopefully now I can start having bigger aims than just making
the cut”.
While talking about the recent change of his coach, he told that he started working with Ducolombier at the Open de France after having troubles for more than two years with his game.
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