Sebastian Garcia opened up a two shot lead with three holes left to play before play was suspended due to lightning on the opening day of the new DP World Tour season at the BMW Australian PGA Championship.
Making the most of his first start back since regaining his DP World Tour card through the Road to Mallorca Rankings on the Hotel Planner Tour, the Spaniard went bogey-free for the first 15 holes on Thursday at Royal Queensland.
Starting from the tenth, Garcia went out in an opening four-under par 31, starting his round with a birdie and adding further gains at the 12th, 15th and 18th holes to join the clubhouse leaders.
Making the turn with consecutive pars, he then moved ahead with a birdie at the fourth before back-to-back gains at the fifth and sixth holes gave him a two stroke advantage before play was suspended.
Garcia, who was in one of the many groups unable to complete their rounds on Thursday, will resume his opening round at 6am AEST on Friday, with second round tee times pushed back by 90 minutes.
He has just three holes left to play, while others will have to complete 11 holes of the first round before getting their second rounds under way, with the first groups of round two teeing off at approximately 7:30am AEST.
Behind him, Australian Daniel Gale sits in solo second and five-under-par through 12 holes, having produced the first second of the new season at the par-three 11th (Kazuma Kobori had the first on the 17th).
With an 8-iron from 154meters, Gale delighted home fans at the hole in one prize hole, taking one bounce to the left of the flag and then finding its way to the bottom of the cup to win a BMW M5 Touring.
He was two under for his opening ten holes when he arrived at the par-three 11th, then added a fourth birdie of his round at the 12th to sit two behind Garcia with six holes of his opening round left to complete.
Gale, who is 887th on the Official World Golf Ranking, played on the DP World Tour last year but finished 171st on the Race to Dubai Ranking, with a best of tied 17th in Austria.
And while the hole-in-one has helped relax some of the pressure of a home event, Gale is not losing focus on the oppportunity ahead of him this week after missing out on regaining his playing privileges at second stage of DP World Tour Qualifying School.
“The biggest thing for me straight after the hole-in-one is reset and onto the next and made a nice birdie on 12,” he added later.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet in all honesty. The hole-in-one’s great – I guess it helps relax me a lot because it’s quite a nice prize – but I’ve got a job to do this week and my focus doesn’t change.”
Of those that did finish were home favourites Min Woo Lee and Adam Scott, who made it into the clubhouse on three under. But it was Scott's playing partner Ryan Fox that set the early clubhouse target at four under.
Fox, who hasn't played competitive golf anywhere since he finished tied 14th at the FedEx Open de France in September, also started from the tenth, making two birdies in his opening nine holes for a front-nine 33.
He bounced back from a dropped shot at the second hole (on his back nine) with back-to-back birdies from the fourth, parring his way in to set the target for the rest of the field.
Reflecting on his round after two months off, Fox said that while he hadn't been expecting much he was "really happy".
"I haven’t played tournament golf in two months, so the legs are a little tired. It was good," he said.
"I actually played really nice today, to be honest. Probably left a little bit out there on the greens, but holed a couple of nice ones as well and drove it good. Hit my irons pretty good. A couple of scruffy chips here and there. But yeah, all in all really happy."
