Zander Lombard finally had a decent start to a tournament with his five-under-par 67 in the opening round of the DP World Tour’s Amgen Irish Open at the K Club in Straffan, County Kildare, Ireland.

Lombard started his round on the 10th hole, and he had his first birdie in the bag on the 11th. But he dropped a shot on the 13th, before picking up two more strokes with birdies on 16 and 18 ahead of the turn. He was blemish-free on the way in on the front nine, with birdies on two-three and four. He was in a share of fourth, just one stroke off the lead.

Up front, it was Spain’s Nacho Elviro, Dane Thorbjorn Olesen and Romain Langasque of France on five-under-par who led the way.

Elvira held the solo lead for much of the day, having birdied four of his final six holes in a bogey-free 66. He was joined late in the afternoon by first Olesen, whose birdies at the final two holes were his seventh and eighth in a round which started unpromisingly with – by his own admission – “a full duffed five-iron straight in the water” for double-bogey at the third, and then Langasque after he also finished with a birdie. Asked what he had done to put himself in contention, Elvira joked, “Hit it straight! I haven’t been able to hit it very straight lately. When my iron play is very solid, when I’m on the fairway, I manage to score.”

Casey Jarvis also had a good start, with his three-under-par 69 putting him in a share of 12th with the likes of Shane Lowry and Laurie Canter. Also on three-under was Thomas Aiken.

Richard Sterne and Jayden Schaper were on one-under in a share of 50th, together with, amongst others, Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka.

Shaun Norris, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Robin Williams each had an opening level-par 72 to be in a share