Tournament host Sergio Garcia fired an excellent 66 at Real Club Valderrama to sit just one shot off the clubhouse lead on day one of the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters.
He was joined in the clubhouse by five players including Christiaan Bezuidenhout. The in-form Saffa made eight birdies to join Garcia in the hunt.
Garcia’s Foundation is playing host to the event for the third year in a row and the Spaniard is looking for a third straight win to go with his victory in 2011.
The 39-year-old has six other top fives and has finished outside the top ten just once in 14 appearances on a course he admits is his favourite in the world, and he continued that love affair with a bogey-free effort on day one in Sotogrande to sit one shot behind Victor Perez.
The Frenchman was also bogey free in a 65 that moved him to six under, with Swede Anton Karlsson and American Sihwan Kim alongside Garcia.
Welshman Bradley Dredge, Japan’s Masahiro Kawamura and American Julian Suri were then at four under, a shot ahead of a group containing South African Haydn Porteous, who recorded the third albatross of the season on the 17th.
Kim set the early pace as birdies on the first, fourth, seventh, eighth, tenth and 11th moved him to six under and into a two shot lead over Pablo Larrazábal.
The home favourite birdied the 11th, 13th, 14th and 17th but bogeyed the next before bouncing back with a birdie on the first.
A 15 footer from Larrazábal had him at five under and a Kim bogey on the 15th meant the lead was shared before the Spaniard double bogeyed the ninth after leaving a chip in the rough with his third shot.
As Larrazábal slipped back, it was Karlsson who hit the top spot, making a hat-trick of gains from the 15th to add to birdies on the sixth, eighth and ninth.
A bogey on the last put him in the clubhouse alongside Kim and they would soon be joined by a surging Garcia.
After birdies on the 11th and 17th, Garcia put his tee shot to 12 feet on the third, his approach to four feet on the fifth and holed a five footer on the eighth.
He had a good chance to get to six under but missed from six feet on the ninth and it was left to Perez to set the clubhouse target.
The European Challenge Tour graduate turned in 33 with birdies on the second and ninth and made it three in a row on the tenth and 11th before adding further gains on the 15th and 17th.
Dredge holed out for an eagle on his final hole to sign for a 67, while Kawamura was bogey free and Suri had a single blemish on his card.
Larrazábal and Porteous were at three under alongside Adri Arnaus, Joachim B Hansen, Scott Jamieson, Niklas Lemke, Joost Luiten and Richard McEvoy.
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