Slow start for Shubhankar in French Open golf

Paris, Oct 11 (PTI) Indian golfer Shubhankar Sharma's patchy form continued as he carded a topsy-turvy one-over 72 in the opening round of the FedEx Open de France that left him tied 77th in the standings here.
     Sharma struck four birdies against five bogeys.
     He was one of the early starters and stumbled to a bogey on the second hole but quickly made amends with two fine birdies on the fourth and the sixth.
     On the back nine, he had a good start with a birdie to go to two-under.
     Then came three bogeys on the trot from 11th to the 13th and he was not able to recover from that, managing a birdie-bogey finish in the last two holes.
     The cut looks likely at even par or better and Sharma will need a solid round to make the cut, after missing out last week.
     Joe Dean, Thorbjorn Olesen and Jesper Svensson shared the first-round lead after carding identical six-under 65s.
     The trio made the most of soft conditions at Le Golf National after almost 80 millimetres of rain fell on Wednesday, causing the ground staff to work through the night to make the course playable.
     Englishman Dean, making his first appearance at this venue, posted the early clubhouse lead after carding four birdies and an eagle.
     He was then joined at the top of the leaderboard by Olesen, who has fond memories of the Albatross Course as a member of Thomas Bjorn's victorious 2018 Ryder Cup side.
     The Dane was one-under after playing the back-nine, but then reeled off four consecutive birdies from the first before adding a seventh gain of the day on the par-four seventh hole.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)