Molinari continues great season at HSBC
BY Bruce Young | Asian Tour | 2010 HSBC Champions Tournament | Round One | 04 Nov 2010
The opening round of the World Golf Championship HSBC Champions tournament at the Sheshan Golf Club in Shanghai was played today and Italy’s Francesco Molinari leads the way with his opening round of 65.
Molinari, a winner of only one event on the European Tour when victorious at the 2006 Italian Open, has however developed into one of the most consistent players in Europe. He has recorded seven top five finishes since this event last year and although individually he had a horror debut at the Ryder Cup he bounced back to finish runner up at the recent Portugal Masters.
Molinari finished 10th in this event twelve months ago and today recorded a bogey free round to lead the newly crowned world number one Lee Westwood by one and Sweden’s Henrik Stenson, Malaysian Open winner, Seung-yul Noh, and Japan’s rising star, Yuta Ikeda, by two.
Last week’s third place finisher at the PGA Tour event in Malaysia, Luke Donald, Spaniard Pablo Martin and Tiger Woods have also made good starts to be at 4 under 68 and three behind the lead.
34 of the 78 players in the field broke par in excellent scoring conditions.
The best of the Australians was Adam Scott who is in 9th position at 3 under.
Australia’s leading world ranked player, Robert Allenby is at even par along with Marcus Fraser, Michael Sim, Richard Green and Stuart Appleby. Andrew Dodt faltered after a good start to finish with 73, Nationwide Tour player Alistair Presnell had 74 and successful Japan Tour player, Brendan Jones, struggled all day for a round of 76.
