Jonathan Thomson wrote the latest chapter of his remarkable story as he carded the lowest round of his European Tour career to take the first-round lead at the Made in Denmark.
The 22 year old was diagnosed with leukemia aged seven but continued to play golf throughout a five-year battle with the disease before going into remission as a 12 year old.
Eight years later he was a professional and last season he came through all three stages of the Qualifying School to earn his European Tour card and - at six feet nine and a half inches - become the tallest player in Tour history.
He equalled the course record at last month's Porsche European Open and his eight under par 64 on Thursday would have entered the record books at Silkeborg Ry Golf Club had preferred lies not been in place.
What his round did do was hand the Englishman a two-shot lead over countryman Matthew Baldwin, local favourite Lucas Bjerregaard, South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout, New Zealander Josh Geary, Australian Brett Rumford and American Hunter Stewart.
In the race for the final automatic qualifying place for the Ryder Cup Team, English pair Matthew Fitzpatrick and Eddie Pepperell were both seeking the victory they needed to potentially dislodge local favourite Thorbjørn Olesen.
Olesen opened with a 73 in the morning but remained in the driving seat as Fitzpatrick carded a 72 and Pepperell a 70.
Fitzpatrick was playing alongside Ryder Cup Vice Captain Robert Karlsson, who opened with a 72 in his 600th European Tour event.
Thomson has played just 17 events in a shaky start to life on Tour but has made four of his last five cuts as he battles to retain his playing privileges at 216th on the Race to Dubai Rankings presented by Rolex.
“It’s fantastic to get off to a great start for a change,” he said. “I have been playing some great golf recently but not scoring, so to get off to a low scoring start today was great.
“I had a good lesson on iron play in Prague last week and it has really tightened up my iron play and given me more opportunities to give myself more birdie chances. Last week I played fantastic and didn’t hole anything, whereas today I played to a similar level and holed some putts.
“It would be great for me to have a positive result this week. I had a terrible start to the season and a really positive result would give me a huge confidence boost going into the rest of the season.”
Geary was the man who set the early pace as he he birdied eight out of ten holes from the third with pars on the fourth and ninth to lead by three.
But Thomson set about cutting his advantage, adding a birdie at the 11th to earlier gains on the third, fourth, fifth, seventh and ninth.
Geary then bogeyed the 13th and with Thomson picking up a shot on the 12th, he was in a share of the lead.
Thomson went bogey-birdie from the 13th but made a gain on the 16th and when Geary dropped a shot at the last, the lead was two shots.
Bjerregaard and Bezuidenhout both made six birdies in their rounds of 66, while Baldwin was also bogey-free in making four birdies and an eagle.
Rumford also made an eagle but had a bogey in his round, with Stewart starting with five birdies from the tenth to turn in 31 before coming home in 35.
Englishmen Ryan Evans, Sam Horsfield, Richard McEvoy and Robert Rock, Belgian Thomas Detry, Welshman Jamie Donaldson, Spaniard Scott Fernandez, Thai Jazz Janewattananond and South African Erik van Rooyen were all three shots off the lead.
