David Mullin assembled the steadiest round of the day at PGA Catalunya's Tour course. He drew level for the Trophy (Net VP) lead at the 3rd. A bogey at the par-5 5th dropped him back to level again. By that same hole he had taken outright control of the Green Jacket (Gross) lead. Two separate two-hole stretches passed without a dropped gross shot, at the 6th-7th and again at the 10th-11th. Nothing thrilling happened in either. That was rather the point.

By the close Mullin led the Jacket outright, while Gregg Williams headed the Trophy with no gap at all on net scoring, leaving that race level after round one. The louder story belonged elsewhere, with Jon Baker carding a personal-best gross round of +18 amid the wreckage. But Mullin's round was the one that mattered to the shape of the days ahead. The Jacket race is tight. The Trophy race has suddenly gone very loose indeed.

Round one at PGA Catalunya's Tour Course found the bottom of the Wooden Spoon race a crowded place. Henry Meller was the worst affected. He ran up quadruple-bogey 9s twice in the same round, first at the par-5 7th, then again at the par-5 15th. One such hole is misfortune. Two suggests a settled philosophy. A double bogey at the 11th offered no relief, and he finished rooted at the foot of the Spoon table.

He was not alone. Jon Baker slipped to the bottom of the same race three times over the round, undone by a triple bogey at the 4th and two further double bogeys. Stuart Neumann managed a triple at the 3rd and then a quintuple-bogey 9 at the 9th. The 9th ranks only mid-difficulty on the card. Neumann treated it as a personal matter. Between them the trio painted a round in which the course punished nearly everyone chasing the wrong end of the leaderboard, not just one unlucky victim.