GOLF: Germany's Tobias Dier equalled the lowest score on the European Tour with a superb 60 in the first round of the TNT Open yesterday. Dier carded 10 birdies, six of them in an inward half of 29, to card the 10th 60 on tour at Hilversum, and had a putt on the last to create history with a magical 59.

His long-range eagle attempt slipped past the hole, but the birdie was enough to give him a five-shot lead over former Ryder Cup players Ronan Rafferty and David Gilford, local favourite Chris Van Der Velde and Scotland's Raymond Russell.

"I'm still not on earth, I'm somewhere in orbit," said the 25-year-old from Nuremberg, who had missed the cut in 12 of his last 15 events. "It will feel great in a few minutes.

"I've never had a score like this, 60 is a number everybody dreams of."

Dier had also fired an albatross on the 18th in Wednesday's pro-am; had he repeated the feat yesterday he would have gone round in 58.

"I thought about it when I hit my second shot," added Dier. "It was straight at the pin (with a four-iron) but just a bit too long. When I holed my three-wood yesterday I thought 'why I am doing it in the pro-am and not the tournament?' "

Dier's longest birdie putt was from 25 feet on the 17th, and he missed from just eight feet on the 15th and 16th as he took advantage of the perfect playing conditions.

It was his lowest round by five shots and came completely out of the blue, as did his first tournament win - the North West of Ireland Open last last year, the only time he made the cut in 13 events.

"Don't ask me what happened then, it's still a mystery," he added. "I missed seven cuts in a row and then won, and then missed the next five in a row as well. The last few months have also been a struggle, I was playing all right but I could not get a score on the board.

"The 60 has come out of the blue and I have no idea what will happen the next three days."

It has been a similar tale of woe for Rafferty, the former European number one who has made just two cuts in his last 29 events, one in 19 starts last year and one in 10 so far this season.

"I've been driving very badly for the last couple of seasons, so the last three months have been about finding a method to get myself on the golf course," said the 38-year-old, who missed two seasons with a thumb injury.

"It might not be the prettiest thing, but if I aim left and cut it I can find the fairway. I've never had the greatest swing but it gets the job done and today that's the emphasis more than ever."

Rafferty finished 243rd on the Order of Merit last year and is only exempt for this season due to his position in the top 40 on the career money list, but has never thought of hanging up his spikes.

"I'm in the very lucky position that I love to play golf and I know that a lot of my fellow professionals don't," Rafferty added. "I know they wouldn't play any social golf and hate pro-ams, but I don't have any problem going out to play golf.

"It has been a struggle, but as long as we occasionally play the odd decent golf course in a tournament I will probably come out and play.

"I haven't been playing well enough to fight myself out of a paper bag and getting to play the weekends now is a big deal."

Pre-tournament favourite Padraig Harrington, who bogeyed the last to miss out by one shot on a play-off for the British Open on Sunday, carded an opening 66,

David Higgins had level-par 70 while Paul McGinley was shot back on 71.

Van Der Velde is a former tour professional who won the qualifying school in 1997 and has 19 tournament wins to his name, but is happy with his position as coach to the Dutch national team and prefers to spend his time rock climbing, despite Holland being a flat country.

"Holland is a very industrious country, when they find something they like, they build something like it," said the 38-year-old. "They have a couple of indoor skiing centres and underneath several of them they have climbing walls.

Lee Westwood fired a battling 70, and Ian Poulter and Justin Rose had matching 67s. Gary Evans, also one shot out of the play-off after his dramatic closing round at Muirfield, birdied the last three holes to lie one under.