ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Peter Uihlein, Sebastian Söderberg and Adri Arnaus shot 8-under 64s to share the first-round lead at the Dunhill Links Championship on Thursday as three of Europe’s Ryder Cup-winning team returned to action with solid starts at the European tour event.
The tournament is played over three of Scotland’s best courses across the first three rounds — each player has 18 holes at St. Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns — before the final round is held back at the Old Course.
Six of the best nine scores in the first round came at St. Andrews, including the rounds of Uihlein and Soderberg that featured fast starts in good conditions.
Soderberg birdied seven of his first eight holes to go out in 29, while all eight of the birdies by Uihlein, who plays on the LIV Golf circuit, were in the first 14 holes of the American’s bogey-free round.
Arnaus played at Carnoustie, where he birdied five straight holes from No. 17 after starting at the 10th and eagled the par-5 14th hole.
Among the six players a shot off the lead was Nicolas Colsaerts, one of Europe’s vice captains at the Ryder Cup in Rome that ended Sunday with a 16½-11½ win over the Americans to regain the gold trophy.
Tommy Fleetwood, who won the clinching point for the Europeans at Marco Simone, Matt Fitzpatrick and Robert MacIntyre were straight back playing, with Fitzpatrick having the best score with a 67 at Carnoustie.
Fleetwood and MacIntyre also played at Carnoustie and shot 69 and 70, respectively.