TOKYO—Juvic Pagunsan carded a five-under 66 in a rain-interrupted first round of the men’s golf competition at the Tokyo Olympics on Thursday to find himself three shots off leader Sepp Strata of Austria.
Pagunsan nailed six birdies and a lone bogey at the par-71 Kasumigaseki Country Club course to tie for fifth place with Denmark’s Joachim Den Hansen and Venezuela’s Jhonattan Vegas.
PGA Tour veteran Strata carded a flawless eight-under 63 for the first-round lead with Thai ace Jazz Janewattananond also going bogey-free round for a 64 good for solo second place.
Germany’s Thomas Bel Pieters and Mexican Carlos Ortiz were tied for third at six-under.
A thunderstorm on Wednesday night softened the 7,447-yard course, allowing players to go for the pins and with only 13 of the 60-player field submitting over par rounds.
Pagunsan has just holed his sixth birdie at No. 16 when rain stopped play of the last two flights for over an hour.
Pagunsan was at the second to the last flight with Zimbabwe’s Scott Vincent and Paraguay’s Fabricio Zanotti. Pagunsan went one-under with a birdie on the first hole but yielded a shot with a bogey at the par-three No. 4.
Pagunsan was 34 at the front nine with birdies at No. 6 and 8. He collected three more birdies going back for a solid 66, overshadowing major winner Collin Morikawa and top 10 players Xander Schauffele and Justin Thomas.
Schuaffele closed out with a bogey and settled for a 68 for joint 12th with a big group including American Patrick Reed, Korean Kim Si Woo and Swede Henrik Norlander.
Morikawa, the 2020 PGA champion and 2021 Open winner, and Rory McIlroy, another big gun in the field, were in another big group a shot back at 69.