Matthew Fitzpatrick made a fast start to set the early pace on day one of the first Rolex Series event of the season at the BMW PGA Championship.
Glorious sunshine had greeted the players and celebrities for the pro-am at Wentworth Club on Wednesday but an overnight storm and some early morning rain meant the course would be a different proposition on Thursday.
There were just seven players under par in the early stages and Fitzpatrick led the way at three under having played six holes.
An elite field of 150 was playing for a prize fund of seven million US dollars as the first of eight prestige events in the 2018 season teed off, and home favourite Fitzpatrick was the man making early progress.
The four-time European Tour winner birdied the first, third and fourth to sit two shots ahead of fellow Englishmen Richard Bland and Eddie Pepperell, Frenchman Alexander Levy, Dutchman Joost Luiten, Italian and Matteo Manassero and Spaniard Alvaro Quiros.
Bland made two birdies and a bogey in his first ten holes, while Pepperell recovered from a bogey on the first with birdies on the fourth and fifth in his first seven holes.
Manassero - the 2013 champion - had a single birdie on the eighth, with Levy, Luiten and Quiros also making single gains in the early stages of their rounds.
There was then a large group at level par including reigning Race to Dubai champion Tommy Fleetwood, fellow Englishman Ian Poulter and in-form Spaniard Jorge Campillo.
