Ricardo Gouveia produced what he described as the round of his life to lead by one shot after day one of the KLM Open.
Gouveia, starting from the 10th hole, played his first nine at The International in Amsterdam in a blistering seven under par with birdies at every hole save for the 13th and 16th.
He made another at the 3rd but then saw his momentum checked by a 90-minute storm delay, with a closing bogey for a 64 to leave him seven under.
Connor Syme birdied the last to sit just one behind on six under, ahead of a large group at five under including fellow Scot Richie Ramsay, France’s Pierre Pineau, Englishman Daniel Brown, American John Catlin, Germany’s Max Kieffer and Swede Joakim Lagergren.
Zander Lombard flies the South African flag after firing a three-under opening round 68 which leaves him four strokes off the lead.
“It was one of those rounds, started off really well and just kept the momentum going,” Gouveia said. “I haven’t holed this amount of putts in a long time.
“I hit it very close on the front nine. On the back nine I kept playing well but with the stop and the restart, it’s always tricky when you’re playing well.
“I’m really pleased with the round, I’d say it’s the best round of my life so far.
“I haven’t been this consistent in a while so it was nice to have a round like this. Extremely happy.”
Gouveia credited the work done on his game over the last two weeks after an observation from his coach during the Soudal Open in Belgium.
“In Belgium I felt like the game was good going into the week and then just made a few mistakes,” he said. “My coach was there on the sideline and he noticed something, we worked on quite a bit on the weekend there to prepare for Austria.
“Long game was much better in Austria but the putting wasn’t good, but I knew a good round like this was very close, I had great preparation this week, stayed very patient and barely made any mistakes today.”
Syme felt the conditions after the rain delay helped him build a score.
The Scot’s eight birdies included three in a row from the 7th and were offset by only two dropped shots.
He said of the delay: “I think we definitely got a little bit of a break with it – it was still tricky with the rain but I felt like there were a few shots where the greens had softened up a bit, a few pins we were able to get at that we might not have been able to this morning.
“It was nice to take advantage of that and hit some really quality shots.”
Pineau made six birdies, including back to back at the 15th and 16th and again at the 2nd and 3rd, and was bogey-free until his final hole, the 9th.
Even there, he did exceptionally well to limit the damage to just a bogey with a magnificent lofted escape from the front bunker.
“Very happy with that,” he said. “I did everything well, my irons were pretty good, and just no mistakes.
“I changed coach three weeks ago which is starting to work pretty well, but I’ve been playing pretty well the last few weeks and I feel it’s coming.”
Ramsay made five birdies and a hole-out eagle from the 3rd to the 8th in his 66 and Brown holed from 40 feet for an eagle of his own at the 8th.
Catlin was bogey-free, Kieffer had six birdies and just one dropped shot and Lagergren produced an extraordinary second shot into the 18th green before two-putting from 70 feet for a sixth birdie of the day.
Photo: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images
