RAYMOND BURNS was back to something near his best on the El Saler links yesterday scoring a first round 68 to head the Irish challenge in the Turespana Masters. It put the 22 year old from Banbridge two shots behind the leading trio of Ross McFarlane, Spain's Diego Borrego, and Frenchman Fabrice Tarnaud, and on the heels of a quartet that included Peter Baker and former PGA champion Tony Johnstone.

Seve Ballesteros had a dismal 76 and, with 51 players beating par on an idyllic day of warm sunshine and a gentle sea breeze, the Spaniard must make dramatic improvements to avoid a fourth failure in six starts this season.

Burns, who has shown only glimpses of his best form since Dubai's Desert Classic where he was a career best fifth, revelled in the perfect conditions on a course for which he has a high regard. "It is one of the best I have ever played and I get excited by it," he said after claiming five birdies.

"Driving is the strongest part of my game and here I can stand up and hit the ball and know that I am going to use all the clubs in the bag. That is always the mark of a first class course.

Had his putting with the longhandle been as assured as his long game Burns might well have been the pacemaker. But he three putted the sixth in between two birdies, and missed good chances from around 10 feet at the eighth and ninth. Out in 35 he made a birdie at the 10th despite driving into a divot hole from where his eight iron approach finished less than six inches from the flag. No one bettered his finishing trio of threes, as he holed from 15 feet for birdies at the 16th and 18th and found the heart of the green at the 213 yard 17th, a hole on a par with Portmarnock's famous 15th.

"Some of the courses we have been playing recently don't suit me at all," he added. "But this is one that matches my character and I have liked it ever since I came here as an amateur to play in the Spanish championship.

David Feherty, Eamonn Darcy, and Christy O'Connor Jnr, who also beat par, are also unstinting in their praise of what many regard as the best course in Spain. Next week the Feherty celebrates his 20th year as a professional and he was in a happy frame of mind after tackling what he described as "a magnificent challenge".

Feherty had four birdies, three of them at long holes, but missed five foot chances to move alongside Burns at the 16th and 18th after superb approach shots. Darcy, who is undertaking a radical overhaul of his putting technique, owed his 71 to an inward 33, ending at the ninth with his third birdie from 10 feet. He had opened the stretch with another from the same distance then holed from 60 feet for an eagle three at the third.

His caddie lined him up before each putt, in the manner Fanny Sunesson does with Nick Faldo, then stepped away before Darcy made the stroke, as the rules oblige. "I am working on a load of things. I won't know whether they are effective until the end of the week," he said.

O'Connor Jnr played the course in the same sequence, getting out in 34 with the aid of birdie fours at the 11th and 15th, but then three putted the first and seventh, the latter a newly laid green on which he misjudged the pace. His only homeward birdie came from a five iron to the short fourth which finished only a foot from the flag.

Padraig Harrington had a hat trick of birdies on the home stretch to also shoot 71 and Des Smyth was on the same mark after a flourish of three birdies in his last five holes. Philip Walton and Ronan Rafferty had first use of the greens, but both had to settle for rounds of 72 after some untidy close range work.

Walton pointed to two off line drives at the fifth and 14th which cost him bogeys, but he holed only one putt of note, from 20 feet at the 13th.