Dou’s PGA push off to encouraging start

The stakes are high for Dou Zecheng this weekend.

A return trip to the PGA Tour is within his grasp if he can secure a high enough finish at the regularseason-ending Portland Open in Oregon.

A tie for seventh would likely accomplish that, and that’s the position Dou was in after the first round of the Korn Ferry Tour’s finale. The top 25 players on the points list following this event will gain cards for next season’s PGA Tour. There is nothing Dou would like better than to return to the tour he played in 2017-18.

Dou made three birdies on his outward nine at Pumpkin Ridge and finished the day bogey-free on the strength of three additional birdies to close his round.

Dou’s final three holes were probably his most memorable on Thursday.

At the par-five seventh, he hit his approach to two feet for a tap-in birdie. He followed that with another fine approach on No 8 to the same distance as the ball settled near the hole.

He then maintained his momentum on his final hole. After hitting his drive into a fairway bunker, he flew the green with his approach, chipped to eight feet and then curled in a par-saving putt.

“It’s a good start. My game has been solid the last couple of weeks overall,” Dou said of his two top-30 finishes after missing the cut at July’s Pinnacle Bank Championship in Nebraska.

He’s been disappointed in his putting recently, something he remedied at Pumpkin Ridge’s perfectly groomed greens.

“The conditions are really good out here,” said Dou. “My putting hasn’t been very good recently. But coming out here, the greens are pure, and I’ve been dropping in putts and not thinking much. I just played really solid, like I should.”

Dou is tied with Colombia’s Nicolas Echavarria at 6-under, four strokes behind early leader Robby Shelton, who shot a 10-under 61. Shelton’s position is important, as he is currently No 2 on the points list behind Zhang Xinjun, trailing the Chinese by 232 points. Zhang opened his tournament with a 71, leaving him tied for 107th.

Among the other Chinese players in the field, Andy Zhang (No 156 on the points list) was tied for 60th, at 2-under. Hong Kong’s Motin Yeung (No 153) opened with a 1-under 70 and was tied for 85th, while China’s Yuan Yechun (No 56) struggled to a 2-over 73.