Todd Clements and Ivan Cantero both turned their 2026 form on its head in spectacular fashion to share the lead after day one of the Corales Puntacacna Championship.
There are 50 DP World Tour members teeing it up at Puntacana Resort and Club, with both PGA TOUR and DP World Tour cards on offer to the winner.
Clements and Cantero both currently hold the latter but after struggling so far this season are battling to keep their playing privileges and sit outside the top 100 on the Race to Dubai Rankings Delivered by DP World.
A pair of 65s on day one made a mockery of those positions and the duo finished Thursday on seven under, a shot clear of a group of six players including fellow DP World Tour members Alejandro del Rey and Johannes Veerman.
Clements birdied the first, second and third and then bounced back from a bogey on the fifth with gains on the seventh and eighth.
Further birdies on the tenth, 12th, 13th and 15th had him at eight under but he dropped a shot on the 17th.
"Got off to a great start," said the 2023 D+D Real Czech Masters champion. "I kind of just kept it going. I had a nice putt on five, six, somewhere around there, for bogey and it felt like it kept the momentum going. Yeah, just kept going through.
"It's been a challenging year really for me so far and I know that there's some good golf in there and it kind of just validates if I can do the right things."
Cantero started bogey-bogey from the tenth but recovered brilliantly with four birdies in a row from the 13th and another on the 18th to turn in 33. More birdies on the first, fourth, seventh and eighth then put him in a share of the lead.
Fellow Spaniard Del Rey recoved from a bogey on the 11th with seven birdies, while American Veerman also had seven gains with a single dropped shot.
Americans Jonathan Byrd, Austin Eckroat and Gordon Sargent and Canadian Mackenzie Hughes were also at six under, one clear of a group containing Italian pair Filippo Celli and Stefano Mazzoli, Dane Jacob Skov Olesen and Frenchman David Ravetto.
