Sports marketing graduate Travis Perkins put on a show of his own in Northern Ireland yesterday when he led the first qualifying round of the British Amateur Championship.

The 22-year-old American from Florida Southern University carded a five-under-par 67 to set a course record at Kilkeel and give him pole position going into today's second qualifying round which will whittle the field down to the matchplay qualifiers.

Perkins hopes to make the American Walker Cup team which will face Britain and Ireland at Nairn in September, and with US captain Danny Yates also competing this week, he gave himself the ideal platform to impress.

"The greens were absolutely perfect, so I couldn't help but make birdies," said Perkins, who rattled in seven in all to soothe the pain of dropped shots at the fourth and 12th.

Perkins led by one shot from Frenchman Gregory Havret with five players one shot further adrift, including former English amateur champion Aran Wainwright of Garforth.

At Royal County Down, where the matchplay phase will unfold from tomorrow to Saturday, leader after the opening exchanges was Yorkshireman Simon Dyson from the Sand Moor club.

The 21-year-old managed five birdies and only one dropped shot in his four-under-par 67 and admitted he had already fallen in love with the course after having only seen it for the first time on Thursday.

"It's a hard course but fair," said Dyson. "If you hit a bad shot you'll be punished but with the fairways quite firm if you hit a good shot you'll get the benefits and the greens run lovely and true too."

One shot behind Dyson was another American, James Sullivan, who notched eagle threes at both the opening 506-yard hole and the 525-yard 12th on his way to a 68.