BMW PGA Championship, Helligkilde alone

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The golfers of the DP World Tour kick off a new intense weekend. In fact, there will be room for the BMW PGA Championship (overall prize money of 9 million dollars), an event born back in 1955 and won last season by the Irishman Shane Lowry.

The first round ended up with Danish Marcus Helligkilde in the solo lead.

BMW PGA Championship, results

The Dane closed his debut with a score of -8 (64 strokes) thanks to 10 birdies and 2 bogeys. For the Scandinavian, a two-shot margin over his closest pursuers who bear the names of the Scotsman Richie Ramsey and the Englishman Matt Fitzpatrick.

The first round - which all in all selected the group of participants - with only 65 golfers able to finish Thursday with scores below par. On the par 72 course of the Wentworth Club in Virginia Water (Surray, England), the Belgian Thomas Detry, the Japanese Rikuya Hoshino, the Polish Adrian Meronk, the Spaniards Pablo Larrazabal and Jorge Campillo close the top ten in fourth position with a score of -5, and the Englishmen Matthew Baldwin and James Morrison.

At -4 another large group of players which includes, among others, the Scot Calum Hill and the German Yannik Paul. Chiaroscuro debut for Italians, with Guido Migliozzi, who is in the cut zone after today's par. The blue is 66th in the company of Rory McIlroy but has to regret the triple bogey committed on the 17th hole.

+1 for Edoardo Molinari, +3 for an increasingly unrecognizable Francesco Molinari. The PGA Tour became its own organization back in 1968, when it split from the PGA of America, which is now primarily an association of golf professionals, such as instructors and club managers.

The tournament players first formed their own organization, the Association of Professional Golfers (APG). Subsequently, in 1968, the players abolished the APG and agreed to operate as the PGA "Tournament Players Division", a completely autonomous division of the PGA, under the supervision of a new 10-member Tournament Policy Board.