Chile’s Felipe Aguilar made a fine start to the 71° OPEN D'ITALIA Presented by DAMIANI as Stephen Gallacher battled to keep his Ryder Cup hopes on track.
Aguilar, who won The Championship at Laguna National earlier this year in spectacular style, holing his approach at the 72nd hole for eagle to edge out Anders Hansen, raced to five under through 14 holes to join American John Hahn and Northern Ireland’s Gareth Maybin in a share of the early lead.
Gallacher is the only man capable of moving into the automatic qualifying places in the final counting event, a top-two finish in Turin enough to dislodge former US Open Champion Graeme McDowell from the team.
The 39 year old was quickly moving in the right direction with two early birdies at Circolo Golf Torino, but three bogeys in the space of seven holes left him level par with five holes to play.
Starting from the tenth, Gallacher pulled his opening drive into the rough but produced a superb recovery shot to the back edge of the green and safely two-putted for par.
The Scot was then involved in a lengthy search for playing partner Edoardo Molinari's ball on the 11th, but maintained his concentration and after the ball was found with seconds of the five-minute time limit to spare, eventually fired in a superb approach which was an inch away from dropping into the hole for an eagle.
Gallacher also got up and down from left of the green on the par five 12th to move to two under par, but dropped his first shot of the day on the 220 yard par three 16th, missing from ten feet for par after a poor chip from the back of the green.
A better chip ensured he avoided the same fate on the 17th and the Dubai Desert Classic champion almost got back to two under in style on the 18th, his recovery from a greenside bunker catching the edge of the hole and spinning out.
Gallacher did not have to wait long to card another birdie on the par five first, but promptly gave that shot back on the second and had to hole from ten feet to avoid three-putting the third.
Another bogey on the fourth then dropped Gallacher five shots off the lead, with France's Gary Stal having set the clubhouse target on four under after a 68.
