2005 China Tour Leg - Round 1: No surpirses as Li takes one shot lead

The first round of the first event of the China Tour went according to the formbook as Li Chao claimed a one shot lead. The 25-year-old carded a four-under-par 68 at the Elephant Golf Club in Langfang to top the US$100,000 Beijing Leg standings.

¡°At times I felt like everything was under control. Every shot, every putt did as I planned it to do,¡± said Li, who was the China Golf Associations¡¯ top ranked player in 2004.

¡°The night before, I really focused on the planning stage. I thought hard about my strategy for the day, how to play the first round of the tournament and how to match my target of averaging 69 per round. I am treating this as a big tour. It is a big, professional tournament. I am trying to be my best.¡±

Li who finished last year with a couple of top ten finishes on the Asian Tour succeeded where his closest rivals failed, by playing up to expectations. AS it is no-one would have predicted his nearest challenger.

Ye Pengfei, a 23-year-old competing as a professional coach or what would be known as a club pro elsewhere in the golfing world, beat his best score in a professional event by two shots to stand just behind Li Chao on the leaderboard, thanks in part to one of only two eagles on the day ¨C a three on the 552-yard par five 12th hole.

¡°I was on in two and I holed from nine yards. My putting was really good, I only had 29 putts, and I didn¡¯t make any mistakes with the driver,¡± said a shy Ye, who took up the game at the unusually young age, for China, of nine because of his father, the deputy secretary general of the Fujian Golf Association.

Ye, who revealed he was talked out of quitting the game three years ago by his coach coach Cao Mingchang, admitted he had never been so close to the top of a leaderboard, but insisted the pressure wouldn¡¯t be getting to him over the remaining two rounds.
¡°I feel relaxed. I feel steady. I¡¯ll stay calm over the next two days,¡± he said.

A further shot behind Ye, was 38-year-old Liu Guojie ¨C by Chinese standards a grizzled veteran ¨Cwhose best finishes are third places and none more recent than three years ago. A gaggle of seven other golfers shot par or one-under, including Ye Pengfei¡¯s fellow teaching pro at the Beijing Huatang Golf Club, Shi Ningjie. He grabbed four birdies in his first six holes before slipping back to shoot 72.

¡°When I was started I was a little nervous, which I liked very much. I used to train for track and field at the Ningde Sports School from the age of nine until I was 15. I was a sprinter. So I like to be nervous. It gives me focus,¡± said Shi, another Fujian native, whose brief but colourful life includes three years spent studying to be a seafarer at his province¡¯s sailing academy.

¡°The problem is as I played I got more and more relaxed and if anything I lost attention. I just got a little careless with my putter. At the start it was so smooth the ball just flew to where I wanted it to land. At my ninth hole I missed a putt of about one yard and that affected me for the rest of the round.¡±

Shi is at least within striking distance of the leader, which is more than can be said for almost all of the players whose names were being talked about as potential challengers for Li Chao. Wu Weihuang, who has a share of twelfth after a one-over-par, is arguably the best placed of them, or at least better than a group of that includes Shang Lei, Huang Yonghuan and Liu Qiang who were all eight shots off the pace.

China Tour ¨C Beijing Leg

Leading first round scores(Par 72)

68 - Li Chao
69 - Ye Pengfei
70 - Liu Guojie
71 - Chen Yu, Xing Xiaoxuan, Qi Zengfa, Xia Zhengrong, Zhang Meng
72 - Zhang Xingyong, Shi Ningjie, Song Zhiqiang
73 ¨C Wu Weihuang, Qiu Zhifeng, Liao Guiming, Meng Qingpeng, Xiao Jiancheng, Qing Sanyong, Wu Xujun, Xu Qin
74 - Cao Zhiqiang, Yuan Hao, Liu Xin, Wang Huiqiang, Tang Jinchang, Liu Anda, Yu Wei
75 ¨C Zhong Yongguang, Shang Lei, Huang Yonghuan, Liu Qiang, Zhou Liansheng, Gao Lei, Song Qingli, Fu Xin, Tan Guoha
76 ¨C Chen Dongsheng, Cui Xiaolong, Zheng Wengen, Tan Yongzong, L¨¹ Wenxu, Liu Xiao, Nie Hong, Xiang Pinglang

August 17, 2005

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