Fresh from a victory on the Third Level Nordic League last weekend, Sweden’s Christian Nilsson stepped up a level to the European Challenge Tour and continued his winning form with an excellent first round of seven under par 66 to surge into a one shot lead from Frenchman Julien Van Hauwe at the Telia Challenge Waxholm.
Nilsson submitted a blemish free first round scorecard that contained seven birdies and 11 pars. Only twice did the 26 year old have to hole out from more than ten feet to save par as he charged up the leaderboard into first place after Van Hauwe had set the early clubhouse lead.
Nilsson started his round on the back nine, and produced some text book golf to ‘turn’ in 33 before heading back to the clubhouse with the same score for a seven under 66.
Van Hauwe’s opening effort was form a different book. The 28 year old had two eagles on his card – one at the par five second, the other at the par four 14th – as well as four birdies and two bogeys.
Trailing the Frenchman by one is Australia’s John Wade, while Sweden’s Kalle Edberg, Scotsman Greig Hutcheon, another Swede, Fredrik Orest and Finalnd’s Tomas Tuovinen share fourth place on four under par after round one.
Nilsson was pleased to have established the first round lead, but is well aware that, having made the step up from the Nordic League to the Challenge Tour, he will require three more similar scores to have a chance of being in contention come Sunday afternoon.
“I was pleased with how it went today,” said Nilsson. “Seven birdies and no bogeys is always satisfying. I managed to birdie all four of the par fives and I think that was the key to it all. This is the first time I have played here at Waxholm but I really like the course – it’s long and quite wide which suits my game.
“Winning on the Nordic League last week has definitely given me confidence coming into this week. I’m in pretty good shape and am hitting the ball well.
“You have to score low if you are going to do well on the Challenge Tour. The standard on the Nordic League is good, but I think that when you come to a Challenge Tour event you know that it is going to be more difficult and that the scores are generally going to be lower.”
