Adam Svensson carded a ten under par 62 to take a two-stroke lead after the first round of the Barbasol Championship.
The Canadian, a three-time Korn Ferry Tour winner, carded seven birdies and two eagles at Keene Trace Golf Club to move two strokes clear of DP World Tour members Ricardo Gouveia and Robin Roussel on a low-scoring day in Kentucky.
“I've been playing well. I had a couple top‑25s the last few events,” said the 28-year-old. “I've always had not issues but just kind of struggled a little bit with the putter. I've been working more on putting than I have ball‑striking.
"Usually it's the other way around for me, so just I think the extra work and the extra time spent into putting has helped my game even more than just hitting balls.”
Portugal’s Gouveia set the early clubhouse target after carding the lowest round of his DP World Tour career, an eight under par 64, and he was joined in a share of second by Roussel, of France.
Gouveia, the 2015 European Challenge Tour Number One, made a fast start in Nicholasville as he birdied three of his first five holes, making the turn fiver under par after further gains on the eighth and ninth.
He then moved to seven under par after consecutive birdies on the 11th and 12th holes, and he finished on eight under as he finished birdie, bogey, birdie.
“It was a great round, really solid off the tee, hit a lot of fairways, a lot of greens, holed some good putts and yeah, just a very solid round,” said Gouveia, who missed Wednesday’s Pro-Am after suffering from a back injury.
“On Wednesday morning I just woke up with something wrong with my back and it wasn't getting any better. Got some treatment yesterday. Didn't feel great this morning, but warming up felt like it was loosening up, so I just gave it a go and it worked out.”
Roussel, who has missed the last five cuts on the DP World Tour credited a slight change in approach to his encouraging start in the United States.
“I changed my system a little bit,” he said. “I used to be a very straight player so I could miss left, I could miss right and now I'm hitting more fades like big fades, like at least I would say five, six, seven-yard fades.
"It helps me a lot because I'm missing only right now, I'm not missing left anymore. Well, maybe once or twice a day, but not as much as before. Apart from that, I haven't changed much. I'm just working pretty hard as I used to like for the last four, five years now.”
Matti Schmid, the 2021 DP World Tour Rookie of the Year, shares fourth place with seven others on seven under par, including PGA TOUR winners Michael Kim, Bo Van Pelt and Camilo Villegas.
“If you get it off to a good start on the first day, usually it's a lot calmer week after that, so yeah, I'm happy with that,” said Schmid.
“I played well on the front nine as well, but just couldn't really get it going and then dropped a couple long putts and everything went a bit easy after that I would say.
“The greens were quite soft before that, but now the fairways were soft as well, so you didn't get any run on the fairway. Played a bit longer, but obviously very receptive into the greens so you could be very aggressive out there.”
DP World Tour members Tom Lewis, Yannik Paul, Justin Walters and Andrew Wilson are a stroke further back in a share of 12th on six under.
