Mathieu Decottignies-Lafon will take a two-stroke lead into day two of the Raifeisenbank Golf Challenge after carding an eight under par 63.
The Frenchman, who opened his round with a birdie on the tenth carded a further seven gains in a bogey-free opening round in Brno. The 33-year-old carded his joint-lowest round of the year, after missing the cut in his last two starts, and was pleased with his opening score.
“It was a really good round,” he said. “I didn’t have the best preparation; I had to pick up my bag in Poland and only arrived at the golf course at 1pm yesterday.
“I was fortunate enough to play the front nine, and I trained to get ready for today.
“It was a really good round, I just kept it together through 18 holes, it felt really good.
Decottignies-Laffon, starting on the tenth, was pleased with his aggressive approach, that seemed to pay off on the opening day.
“I missed my target just twice off the tee,” he added. “A few missed irons, and the putter wasn’t that hot. It’s always good to score that low when the putter isn’t firing.
“The first hole, I was really nervous as I knew with the wind I could drive the green, but I thought I should maybe just hit an iron, but I said to myself ‘no, come on, you feel the driver so you have to trust it’ and I drove it to 25-30 feet from the hole, and I hit some golf shots really close to pins.”
Decottignies-Lafon’s highest career finish to date came at the 2022 Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge, and the Frenchman is looking for his first top-ten finish since the Irish Challenge last August.
And with a two-hour delay due to thunder and lightning in the local area, Decottignies-Lafon was made to wait to get his opening round under way.
“It’s a life where you need to adapt,” he added. “I am learning, even after more than ten years, I just had to do my preparation 90 minutes later.
“My season has not been great, but it hasn’t been bad. My game has been really good, my putting has improved a lot.
“This is a life where four good rounds don’t happen a lot, a round like today with the preparation I had was very good. I will take the rest of the week shot-by-shot and see what happens after 72-holes.”
Japan’s Tatsunori Shogenji, who is embarking on his first HotelPlanner Tour outing, holds solo second at six under par, one-stroke ahead of Englishman Callum Tarren.
Five groups will return to the course tomorrow morning to complete their first rounds, before the second round gets under way at 7:15am local time. Leader Decottignies-Lafon will tee off on the first tee alongside Daniel Gale and Stepan Danek at 8:54am.
