Marcus Armitage held a two-shot lead after an opening 64 at the 2025 FedEx Open de France.
A run of eight birdies in 10 holes powered the Englishman to the head of the field at Golf de Saint-Nom-La-Bretèche, Paris, with home favourite Julien Guerrier and Australia's Min Woo Lee his nearest challengers.
Armitage birdied the second and though he gave the shot straight back, he hit his approach to two feet at the sixth to kick-start an extraordinary run of scoring.
He birdied the eighth and ninth for a front nine of 33 and extended that run to six birdies in a row, with pinpoint approaches to the tenth and 13th and putts from 18 and 13 feet at the 11th and 12th respectively.
"I was hitting it pretty close and just the putts started to drop," he said. "I think I one-putted every green for that space of holes. Yes, that will work."
Another 12-footer followed at the 15th and despite an untidy bogey at the 17th, he ended the day two clear.
"Once you see a few go in, you get on a run and then you just feel like you're just moving the putter and picking it out of the hole," Armitage added.
"Yeah, you definitely feel it with the putter. You know, sometimes you get it with your irons and drivers become automatic, but mainly the putter, you get a lot of momentum with it."
Armitage is 45th in The Race to Dubai rankings going into this week and said: "I'd love to get a Top 20, Top 15 on the Order of Merit and press forward from there. That's a big goal for me, and this is an important week for The Race to Dubai.
"Just three more of them and we'll see where we are."
A chip-in from a greenside bunker at the ninth was the highlight of Guerrier's 66, providing one of his six birdies to go with a single bogey at the 12th as he saved par from another bunker at the last.
"Very proud," he said. "With the scoring, of course, because the last few weeks, I was playing good but I didn't score. And this time, I was playing okay and the scoring, the momentum when I hole on nine and 18 two bunker shots, it helps."
Lee, starting on the more difficult back nine, took advantage on his closing stretch with four straight birdies to also sit at five under.
He said: "A few putts didn't drop early (but I) finished off with four birdies in a row which is very, very nice - it was deserving, I guess, with the shots that I was hitting."
Guerrier's compatriot Ugo Coussaud was in a large group at four under with Maximilian Kieffer, Marcus Kinhult, Jens Dantorp, Keita Nakajima, Jorge Campillo and Sam Bairstow.
Englishman Dan Bradbury began his title defence with a one-under 70. Spain's Pablo Ereno, playing in just his fourth DP World Tour event, made a hole in one at the 153-yard seventh hole.
