Golf

Paul Dunne seven shots off the pace in China Open

25-year-old has plenty of work to do to reel in surprise leader Daxing Jin in Beijing

Paul Dunne shot an opening round of 71 in China. Photograph: Andrew Redington/Getty

Thu Apr 26 2018 - 12:43

Paul Dunne is seven shots off the lead in the Volvo China Open, after he posted an opening round of 71 in Beijing.

The Greystones golfer enjoyed mixed fortunes on Thursday - with five birdies offset by four bogeys, leaving him on one under par.

Dunne is well off the pace set by first round leader Daxing Jin (China), whose opening round of 64 gave him a one stroke lead over England's Matt Wallace and Italy's Nino Bertasio.

Wallace reaped the rewards of putting the Ryder Cup firmly to the back of his mind with an opening round of 65.

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Wallace followed his victory in the Hero Indian Open by missing the cut in his next two events, but bounced back to top form in Beijing to card an eagle, seven birdies and two bogeys at Topwin Golf and Country Club.

That gave the 28-year-old Englishman a share of second place on seven under par with Bertasio, a shot behind surprise leader Daxing Jin of China, who is ranked 1,426th in the world.

“I made a couple of bogeys, which were probably mental errors rather than swing errors, but I’m swinging it great and really happy after today,” Wallace said in a post-round interview broadcast on Sky Sports.

"I have been trying to shorten my swing for a while, it's been an ongoing thing since I've been working with [fellow European Tour professional] Robert Rock and I've never really managed to do it, but last week I found something.

“It’s a weird feeling, I feel like I’m swinging it halfway [back] but I’m not losing any distance and I’m just hitting better shots. I had two missed cuts but I was trending in the right direction. I was swinging it nicely, hitting some good shots.

“Last week was a different test playing with the Ryder Cup captain Mr Bjorn [in the first two rounds of the Hassan Trophy] and I just tried to impress him too much and I’ll learn from that.”

Jin compiled a flawless 64 which included six birdies and a chip-in eagle on the par-five eighth, his penultimate hole of the day.

“I played really well today,” said Jin, who missed the cut in this event last year.

“I’m really happy with my form and I have to say I would give myself 100 marks for today’s round.

“I’ve been relaxed coming into this week because I don’t have too much expectation but I’ll just keep playing one stroke at a time, one day at a time and see how it goes for me.”

Defending champion Alexander Levy, who also won in Morocco on Sunday, carded an opening 69, while Japan's Hideto Tanihara won a Volvo XC90 for a hole-in-one on the 16th in his 72.

Volvo China Open collated first round scores:

64 Daxing Jin (Chn)
65 Matt Wallace, Nino Bertasio (Ita)
66 Alexander Bjork (Swe), Scott Vincent (Zwe)
67 Jason Scrivener (Aus), Scott Jamieson
68 Marcus Kinhult (Swe), Panuphol Pittayarat (Tha), Julien Guerrier (Fra), Yuxin Lin (a) (Chn), Andrea Pavan (Ita), David Lipsky (USA), Gaganjeet Bhullar (Ind), Johannes Veerman (USA), Adrian Otaegui (Spa), Soomin Lee (Kor)
69 Jorge Campillo (Spa), Blake Snyder (USA), Nicholas Fung (Mys), Alexander Levy (Fra), Wade Ormsby (Aus), Masahiro Kawamura (Jpn), Nacho Elvira (Spa), Andrew Dodt (Aus), Jin-ho Choi (Kor), Alvaro Quiros (Spa), Shubhankar Sharma (Ind), Arjun Atwal (Ind), Sam Horsfield, Yuta Ikeda (Jpn), Keith Horne (Rsa), Jordan Smith
70 Sihwan Kim (Kor), Lucas Bjerregaard (Den), Adilson Da Silva (Bra), Joost Luiten (Ned), Ryan Fox (Nzl), Ashun Wu (Chn), Yan-wei Liu (Chn), Pablo Larrazabal (Spa), James Morrison, Phachara Khongwatmai (Tha), Haotong Li (Chn), Tapio Pulkkanen (Fin), Sam Brazel (Aus), Daisuke Kataoka (Jpn)
71 Ricardo Gouveia (Prt), Wei-Chih Lu (Tha), Mikko Ilonen (Fin), Maximilian Kieffer (Ger), Shaun Norris (Rsa), Richard T Lee (Can), Carlos Pigem (Spa), Bradley Neil, Oliver Fisher, Miguel Tabuena (Phl), Dean Burmester (Rsa), Julian Suri (USA), Xinyang Li (Chn), Adam Bland (Aus), Wei-Huang Wu (Chn), Paul Dunne (Irl), Khalin H Joshi (Ind), Austin Connelly (Can), Thomas Detry (Bel), Hyun-woo null Ryu (Kor), Yi Cao (Chn), Clement Sordet (Fra), Matthieu Pavon (Fra), Callum Shinkwin, Micah Lauren Shin (USA), Chris Hanson
72 Bowen Xiao (Chn), Jin Zhang (Chn), Brandon Stone (Rsa), Matteo Manassero (Ita), Thongchai Jaidee (Tha), John Michael O'Toole (USA), Wen-yi Huang (Chn), Erik Van Rooyen (Rsa), Bernd Wiesberger (Aut), Marcus Fraser (Aus), Edoardo Molinari (Ita), Rattanon Wannasrichan (Tha), Daniel Brooks, Xue-wen Luo (Chn), Ashley Chesters, Ajeetesh Sandhu (Ind), Paul Peterson (USA), Hideto Tanihara (Jpn), Brett Rumford (Aus), Romain Wattel (Fra), Jeunghun Wang (Kor), Hai-Meng Chao (Chn), Gregory Bourdy (Fra)
73 Richard Bland, Lasse Jensen (Den), Shiv Kapur (Ind), Joakim Lagergren (Swe), Lian-Wei Zhang (Chn), Zi-han She (Chn), Aaron Rai, Lee Slattery, Kiradech Aphibarnrat (Tha), Prom Meesawat (Tha), Hong-fu Wu (Chn), Gavin Green (Mys), Gregory Havret (Fra)
74 Nicolas Colsaerts (Bel), Ding-gen Chen (Chn), Hui-lin Zhang (Chn), Renato Paratore (Ita), Jazz Janewattananond (Tha), Jason Norris (Aus), Seung-su Han (USA), Zeming He (Chn), Rak hyun Cho (Kor), Thorbjorn Olesen (Den)
75 Zi-hao Chen (Chn), S.S.P Chawrasia (Ind), Shih-Chang Chan (Tpe), David Gleeson (Aus), Zhang-Wen Tong (Chn), Wen-chong Liang (Chn), Xiaozhong Chen (Chn), Xuefeng Yao (Chn), Lucas Herbert (Aus), Marcel Siem (Ger), Guo-wu Zhou (Chn), Benjamin Hebert (Fra), Poom Saksansin (Tha)
76 Ze-yu He (Chn), Changping Chen (Chn), Marc Warren, Xu Wang (Chn), Tu-xuan Wu (Chn), Daniel Im (USA), Zehao Liu (Chn)
77 Jeev Milkha Singh (Ind), Scott Hend (Aus), Chengyao Ma (Chn), Daniel Nisbet (Aus), Yi-nong Yang (Chn)
78 Shiyu Fan (Chn)
79 Dongyu Wang (Chn), Xiaoli Wang (Chn), Shao-cai He (Chn), Haydn Porteous (Rsa), Zheng Ouyang (Chn), Lu sen Lien (Tpe), Jian-feng Ye (Chn), Dong Su (Chn)
80 Peicheng Chen (a) (Chn)
83 Guxin Chen (a) (Chn)
84 Rongjian Tang (Chn)

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