Joel Sjöholm leads by one stroke at the BMW Italian Open presented by CartaSi
After missing the cut in the four of the last five European Challenge Tour events, Joel Sjöholm bounced back strongly at the BMW Italian Open presented by CartaSi, as he stormed to lead the field by one stroke at the Royal Park I Roveri.
Right from the beginning of the 2012 golf season, the Swede has been looking to get his form back, as he failed to make it to the final two rounds in 15 of the 26 starts that he made.
In the Omega European Masters and the KLM Open – the last two tournaments he participated in – he missed the cut by one shot.
This week, he is expected to remain in the top-10, heading into the weekend, provided he maintains the consistency on Friday’s second round.
He got off to a confident start on Thursday and signed a 32 before the turn, thanks to four birdies on the front nine of the course.
He then added another three shots on the first four holes on the back nine, prior to ending the day with the eight birdie of the day on the 18th hole.
Overall, he was brilliant in every aspect of the game. He played well off the tee and his short game complemented that with some great putts on the greens.
“I want revenge,” he said. “The last two weeks I actually played quite good golf”.
“Normally when I score well, I have to putt well,” he continued. “The last few weeks I've putted quite poorly and missed the cut by one stroke. Both times I felt like I had a good chance to make the cut, but you have to forget and keep moving on”.
“I hit it basically everywhere. I was in the woods a lot and made some funny birdies today. It was a big, fighting 64 rather than a solid 64, but it's great fun to be eight under,” he added.
In the meantime, Lee Slattery of England birdied three of the last four holes, to surge to the second place on the leaderboard. His score at the end of the round was a seven-under par 65.
Tags: