Miguel Martin, the player Severiano Ballesteros called "that little man" when he clashed with him before last year's Ryder Cup, showed he has a big heart, an iron constitution and unshakeable determination yesterday in Majorca, to capture the lead in the Turespana Masters.

Nine months after undergoing keyhole surgery on his left wrist tendons and eight months after giving up his fight to make the 1997 Ryder Cup team, Martin was back on top of a leaderboard again. But it was not about a return to form. Martin revealed he was playing through pain again.

As his playing-partners, one of them Paul McGinley, would have spotted, all is not well again with the Martin wrist, even though he was capable of shooting a five-under-par 67 to share a one-stroke lead with his compatriot Santiago Luna at Santa Ponsa.

As last year, Martin is left wincing every time he plays one of those gentle little wedge shots that come about every hole. And it seems the diminutive Spaniard is not long from the operating table again.

Not only from wrist surgery either. Yesterday before Luna joined him one ahead of England's John Hawksworth, young Scot Andrew McKenna, Australian John Wade and Italy's Michele Reale, Martin revealed that he was on the brink of pulling out of this event after suspecting he had a kidney stone.

On Wednesday he had to go in for hospital tests but after the kidney stone diagnosis, just decided to skip the pro-am and soldier on. For the first round yesterday he drank two litres of water and made five trips to the loo in a bid to keep the stone as well as the field at bay, for this week at least.

It is the wrist which is proving the millstone, however, around his neck. After taking the lead with a burst of three birdies in his first nine holes and then collecting two more in a solid back nine, Martin said: "I'm starting to think that I may have to go back to the surgeon over my wrist. It's never really been right since my operation last year and it is very painful on the softer shots, the wedges, not the full shots. It's not even 90 per cent recovered. So I'm pretty pleased to be leading."

Martin's woe was easily discernable through the wrist bandage he sported. Playing-partner McGinley knows all about injury this year after missing nearly six weeks of full action because tearing a rib cartilage.

He at last found some form last week in Italy so decided to change his mind and come here. The result was a round of 71 to track the leaders four behind them, even though he confessed to being far off his best - like the 63 last week in Milan - and delighted to mount a recovery operation after an inauspicious outgoing nine which left him two-over-par.

The recovery came in the shape of three birdies, a 20-footer and a pitch to eight feet as soon as he started the back nine.

While he was satisfied with half his round, there is a lot of room for improvement if he is to take advantage of the weakened field here and capture the £58,330 first prize. "I played average for most of the time and I got an average score for it," McGinley said. "This is a long course with tight greens which rewards good all-round play and that has to be sharpened up before the second round."

He at least outshot one of the favourites, Bernhard Langer, by a stroke and easily surpassed the promoter Seve Ballesteros, who probably acknowledged the leading score through gritted teeth. On a wayward day, Ballesteros did well to card 75.

The three Irishmen trying to enhance their tour school rerankings, David Higgins, Francis Howley and Cameron Clark, did their causes no particular good, Howley and Clark shooting 75 and Higgins - "I hit the ball the wrong side of the hole all day" - a 77.

Raymond Burns did well to card a 72 after being two-over for much of the round, his putting again trying his patience to the full. Philip Walton refused to blame his chest infection on a 78, admitting his swing was ailing more than his health.

Eighteen-year-old Sergio Garcia, the highly-rated Spanish amateur champion making another attempt to become the first amateur to win a European Tour event, opened with a 70.