Linard and Kimsey tied at the top

England’s Nathan Kimsey and Thomas Linard of France are tied at the top after carding seven under par 65s in the opening round of the D+D REAL Czech Challenge.

Scoring conditions were ideal on Day One, as Linard recorded eight birdies in the morning session before Kimsey went bogey-free around Golf & Spa Kunětická Hora in the afternoon.

The fast start should have been no surprise to Linard who has two top five finishes to his name, including a win in 2014, in only three appearances at the D+D REAL Czech Challenge.

“I always seem to play well around here,” said the 30 year old. “I have a lot of good memories at this place.

“How I’ve played in recent weeks doesn’t matter too much to me as long as I am following the same process, because eventually I believe I will reach the level I want to.

“If I continue to play like this hopefully I’ll win again here.”

For Kimsey, the signs of promise had been emerging for a while, and he sensed that a good score might be right around the corner.

“I felt like it was coming,” said the 25 year old. “I’ve played some good golf the last three or four events, I just haven’t been putting it all together in one round or one week.

“I’ve definitely been striking it well, so I was hoping for a low one to come in soon.

“Today was just really solid all day. I wasn’t stressing for pars, it was just steady all the way around.”

The two men are one shot clear of Denmark’s Joachim B. Hansen, who also went bogey-free, and Germany’s Marcel Schneider, who offset his two bogeys with an eagle at the 545-yard par five seventh.

The shot of the day, however, is reserved for Frenchman Julien Brun, who made a hole-in-one on the 162-yard par three 13^th.

“It was an eight iron with the wind slightly off the right,” said Brun. “I was lucky enough to play third actually because I was debating between nine and eight and the other guys came up short, so I chose the eight and it ended up pretty good.”

The ace was the fourth of Brun’s career and the second this year after he recently made one in a Pro-Am.

“It’s crazy. I waited ten years for my third one and now I’ve got two in the last few months,” he said.

The one-and-done hole helped propel Brun to a round of one under par 71.

In all, 81players shot par or better at the 7,337-yard course on a sun-kissed day where the wind remained relatively calm.

The second round of the D+D REAL Czech Challenge begins on Friday when play resumes at 07:30 local time.