Stephen Gallacher made an excellent start to his bid to secure a place on Europe’s Ryder Cup Team - and was agonisingly close to producing a spectacular one in the 71° OPEN D'ITALIA Presented by DAMIANI.
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.
And the 39 year old was quickly moving in the right direction in the early stages of the first round, carding two birdies in his first three holes at Circolo Golf Torino.
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 and that was good enough to be just one shot off the lead shared by seven players, including English pair Tyrrell Hatton and Seve Benson.
Gallacher 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.
At one under, Gallacher was four off the lead held by John Hahn, the American covering the back nine in 33 and picking up further birdies on the second and fourth.
Hahn, who has missed the cut in six of his last nine events, was one shot ahead of Benson - who was joint eighth here last year - and France's Gregory Bourdy.
