Hong Kong Open: Richard McEvoy had always looked up in awe at "the man" Nick Faldo, but the roles were reversed yesterday as the qualifying school graduate produced a stunning opening round to lead the Hong Kong Open.

In his first tournament as a fully fledged member of the European Tour since winning the six-round qualifying school in Spain last month, McEvoy carded an eight under par 62 to finish four shots clear of the field and equal Faldo's course record.

McEvoy's performance was arguably better than Faldo's 13 years ago given the changes made to toughen up the course.

McEvoy showed composure beyond his 24 years not to let a bogey on the 12th worry him and instead hit back to birdie three of the last five holes before hailing Faldo's influence.

"Faldo's always had great rhythm and I tried to copy that," said McEvoy. "Faldo was my man. I was in awe of him really, he was a great player. In the time I was growing up he was the man.

It could have been even better for McEvoy had he not dropped that shot on 12 or left a 10 foot putt short by a whisker on the 17th, but he finished with a curling birdie putt on the last to seal a sensational start to the new season.

The Essex golfer leads by one shot from Steven O'Hara of Scotland and Indian Amandeep Johl.

Padraig Harrington was among a group of eight players one shot further back, after shooting 67.

Fellow Irishman Darren Clarke threatened the top of the leaderboard but dropped two shots on the homeward nine to finish on two under par, level with former champions Jose Maria Olazabal (2001) and Fredrik Jacobson (2002).

Faldo, cut a frustrated figure as he logged a "messy" round of 69.

The 46-year-old, without a tour victory in six years, made a promising start with successive birdies before struggling on a cloudless, warm but breezy day.

"I just made a few mistakes - tactical, club selection errors," he said. "It was a very good start, then I lost the momentum and was up and down.

Defending champion Peter Lonard shot a six-under-par 66 to share the first-round lead with Marcus Cain in the Australian Masters yesterday.

Lonard, the world number 41 after four top-10 finishes in his rookie season on the US PGA Tour, fired eight birdies at Melbourne's Huntingdale course.

His two blemishes were on the par-three 15th hole and the par-four 18th, where he found a fairway bunker and had to chip out before two-putting.

Queenslander Cain also had eight birdies and two bogeys.

Western Australian Jarrod Moseley, who shared last year's Australian PGA title with Lonard, engaged in an entertaining battle with the twice Australian Masters winner as the pair traded birdies in the closing stages of their rounds.

However, Moseley, 44th on this year's European Tour's order of merit, bogeyed the 17th and 18th holes to slip to a share of third place on five-under-par 67.

Robert Allenby, Australia's Presidents Cup hero, was one of three other players to card a 67 along with fellow countrymen Peter Senior and Geoff Ogilvy.

Steven Bowditch, John Senden, Nick O'Hern, Brad Lamb and Adrian Percey shared equal seventh place on four-under-par 68.