Flag for ENG
G4D Tour @ BMW PGA Championship (Gross)
Round 1 in Progress
News

Home pair set pace at Wentworth

Home duo Richard Bland and Matthew Fitzpatrick delighted the bumper crowds at Wentworth Club as they set the clubhouse target at five under on day one of the BMW PGA Championship.

Matt Fitzpatrick

An elite field was gathered at European Tour HQ for the opening Rolex Series event of the season, with a prize fund of seven million US dollars available at the first of eight prestige tournaments throughout the season.

Conditions had been glorious on Wednesday for the pro-am but an overnight storm and some early rain along with chilly temperatures meant Wentworth was showing its teeth on day one.

English duo Bland and Fitzpatrick signed for rounds of 67 to sit at the top of the leaderboard, with South African duo Dean Burmester and Darren Fichardt alongside them approaching the end of their rounds.

Chris Paisley and Fabrizio Zanotti were a shot further back also playing the back nine, one ahead of Australian Andrew Dodt, South African Trevor Immelman, Dane Lasse Jensen and South Korean Soomin Lee.

Fitzpatrick birdied the first, third and fourth to hold a two-shot lead in the early stages and while he was passed by Alexander Levy, he got back into a share of top spot with a 12-footer on the 11th.

The four-time European Tour winner then got an incredible stroke of luck out of the trees on the 12th but there was no fortune in what happened next, holing an 18-foot putt to get up and down on the par five and lead on his own.

Bland - who had made just two of ten cuts before this week - had birdied the fourth, eighth and 11th with a bogey on sixth, and edged closer to the lead when he holed from the front edge on the 15th.

An approach to eight feet on the 17th moved him to four under and when he got by the green in two on the par five last and got up and down, he was at the top of the leaderboard.

Fitzpatrick dropped a shot on the 16th but took advantage of the par five penultimate hole to get back on top before saving par after going in the water on the last.

Burmester was level par stood on the 12th tee but went birdie-birdie before holing his second on the 15th for an eagle. A birdie on the 16th then handed him a share of the lead with two to play alongside Fichardt, who had birdies on the fourth, seventh, eighth, tenth and 12th.

England's Paisley recovered from a bogey on the second with gains on the fourth, sixth, seventh, 12th and 15th, while Paraguayan Zanotti also had five birdies and a bogey in his first 15 holes.

Levy, reigning Race to Dubai champion Tommy Fleetwood and last year's runner-up Francesco Molinari were in the clubhouse at two under.

Read next

Discover more