Gregorio De Leo proved he could more than match it with the "big guys" as a brilliant opening 65 at Galgorm put him right in contention at the ISPS HANDA World Invitational presented by AVIV Clinics.
The bulk of the low scores were made at Castlerock Golf Club on day one but the Italian bucked that trend with a five under effort that contained two bogeys in his closing two holes.
De Leo is a European Challenge Tour rookie after earning his card with three wins on last season's Alps Tour and is playing just his fourth DP World Tour event and first outside of Italy.
He played ten weeks in a row from the end of May to the middle of July - registering a best finish of third at the Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge - and admitted he was thinking of taking a week off after a 19th start of 2023 at last week's Farmfoods Scottish Challenge supported by the R&A.
But the chance to go up against DP World Tour stars was too much to resist and the 23-year-old was rewarded as he carded his best DP World Tour round by nine shots.
"I've played a lot," he said. "I played almost every tournament since we started in Europe.
"So I was thinking about taking a week off this week. But then last week they sent an email that we could enter here. So I said, 'OK, let's give it an experience out here with the big guys and try to understand how to play'.
Gregorio De Leo birdied three of the four par 3s in his opening round 🎯#WorldInvitational pic.twitter.com/010Zg94lCG
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) August 17, 2023
"I'm feeling confident. I think I will just enjoy this experience and if the results are coming, it's even better."
He added: "It was quite windy out there. I played really good, actually played really solid from the tee shot. I managed to to get in every fairway and my putter was really, really in the game.
"I think the secret was hitting a lot of fairways. I think being like solid from the fairway was the key to shooting a low round."
