Erik van Rooyen continued his impressive start to life on the European Tour with an opening 68 at the Trophée Hassan II.
The South African finished third on last season's Challenge Tour to secure his card and has not looked back, finishing second at the Joburg Open and securing another top ten at the Tshwane Open to sit in the top 50 on the Race to Dubai Rankings presented by Rolex.
The narrow, tree-lined layout at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam always provides a tough test but conditions were perfect on Thursday and Van Rooyen made five birdies on the back nine after starting on the tenth as he turned in 32.
A poor third shot on the par five eighth led to a second bogey of the day but the 28 year old put his tee-shot to five feet on the par three next to end his round with a birdie.
"I'm really pleased," he said. "I played my front nine extremely well. Really good tee-to-green and that made it easy. I hit the ball really well with my irons and had a lot of short putts, especially my first nine.
"Back nine was different, I missed a couple more fairways and I guess just didn't hit it inside ten feet as much but I'm very satisfied.
"There's a long way to go. Keep it in the fairway on this place, you can control the spin coming out of the fairway which is key to getting it close to some of these pins."
Joakim Lagergren and Oliver Fisher have not had quite as productive starts to their season but they both rediscovered some form to join Van Rooyen at four under.
Englishman Fisher won the Czech Open in 2011 but his runner-up finish at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters was his best finish since 2014 and one of just three made cuts in nine events so far this term.
Anything under par is good here. I'll just stick to the game plan I have and do my best - Joakim Lagergren
"It's been a hard kind of season," he said. "I've not played a lot early on in the year with the Middle East swing and Oman and Qatar, and I had a few weeks off after that. Struggled with a little bit of an injury after India but now I'm getting back into it, getting ready for the thick of the season.
"Today I played pretty solid. I was on a lot of fairways and the score reflected that. It's always nice to go bogey-free."
Swede Lagergren finished in a tie for second in Qatar in 2017 for his best European Tour finish but had missed five cuts in eight events so far this campaign.
"I think that's a great round," he said. "The course is really tough, the greens are really severe, so anything under par is good here. I'll just stick to the game plan I have and do my best."
