Hall, Lopez-Lazaro and Verselin set the pace

French duet, Jean-Pierre Verselin and Johan Lopez-Lazaro joined early leader, England’s Jean-Michel Hall with -4 total in 2015 Alps de Extremadura.

Perfect condition today but a true test of golf with almost 6500 meters for the Talayuela golf course. Jean-Michel Hall was the first to tame the long course thanks to an ace on the 8^th.

“I was in between 7/8 but I went with a smooth 7, I hit a very good shot, starting the ball a few yards right of the pin, and I actually said ‘be the right distance’ and luckily it was! We heard it hit the flag and everyone behind the pin cheered but because we couldn’t see, I wasn’t sure if the ball had gone in! But when we got down there, we saw it had, so I could celebrate a bit. Luckily not many people wanted a drink in the end so the bar bill wasn’t too high haha!!”

The 27 year old player scored 3 birdies and one bogey beside his hole in one.

“I played very steadily, I hit a lot of quality shots and although I probably left 2 or 3 more birdies out there, I made some good saves too, so -4 is a fair reflection of how I played. The greens were very good for us in the morning, so you knew when a putt was going in. It was a fun morning .”

A butch of 5 players are one shot back including, France’s Damien Perrier, best player this season without a win. Alps Tour leader, Dutch Darius Van Driel, is 2 shots back of the lead alongside 9 other players.