It may be called the European Masters and it may be the first qualifying event for next year's European Ryder Cup team, but yesterday was a day for non-Europeans at Crans-sur-Sierre.
Argentina's Eduardo Romero leads by one from New Zealander Michael Campbell and by two from South African Hennie Otto after the opening round of the £900,000 event high up in the Swiss Alps.
Helped by holing a 110-yard sand wedge for eagle at the sixth hole and chipping in for birdie on the 14th, 46-year-old Romero shot a seven-under-par 64 on the course where he had the last of his six European Tour victories six years ago.
Campbell, meanwhile, shrugged off flu symptoms to grab seven birdies and tour rookie Otto, a lowly 134th on the Order of Merit, had five successive birdies from the fifth and then eagled the 519-yard 15th after hitting a three wood to within eight feet of the flag.
The Swede Per-Ulrik Johansson, desperate to regain his Ryder Cup place, pulled out of the event just before he was due to tee-off yesterday. Johansson, a member of the winning teams in 1995 and 1997, was suffering from high blood pressure and instead of playing was referred to a local doctor for tests.
Three years ago Johansson was taken ill with serious headaches and dizziness at the World Cup in America and extensive tests failed to discover the root cause of the problem.
Johansson later announced that he could be taking the next three weeks off to try to get the problem cleared up.
The leading European is Swiss player Paolo Quirici - and he shares fourth place with Australian Brett Rumford on 67.
Of the big names, defending champion Lee Westwood and Nick Faldo both returned two-under-par 69s and Darren Clarke, less than £40,000 behind Westwood at the top of the Order of Merit, turned a possible double bogey at the last into a birdie for a 68.
The Ulsterman's blocked drive was close to out of bounds and so he hit a provisional ball. The first was just in play, however, and he hit it to 15 feet and made the putt.
Clarke blamed that drive on his "foul temper", which had suddenly erupted after a series of misses on the controversial greens redesigned recently by Seve Ballesteros in order to toughen up what used to be the lowest-scoring course on the circuit.
"I was the consummate professional until the 15th but then I failed abysmally to keep my cool," he said. "It's not very clever to keep missing from three feet, but it's easy to do here."
Westwood complained last year of the fun being taken out of the week by the change in the greens and he was not about to change his mind after taking a bogey six at the long ninth - he was just short of the green in two - and then bogeying the 17th.
Faldo is currently 43rd on the European Order of Merit but needs to climb into the top 20 to earn a spot in the £3 million American Express World Championship at Valderrama in November.
If he makes that - and a victory this weekend could take him to 20th spot - he would then have a chance of improving his current world ranking position of 121st enough to qualify for the £3 million Andersen Consulting World Matchplay Championship in Melbourne in January.
That is restricted to the world's top 64, or at least the leading 64 available with Tiger Woods and others already having stated that they will not be there, and like the Amex event carries a $1 million first prize which counts towards the Ryder Cup.
After seeing playing partner Ballesteros hole from 30 feet on the opening green and then missing from six and eight feet himself, Faldo must have feared that was going to be the story of the day.
But while he went on to convert four other birdie chances - and lipped out for eagle from fully 60 feet at the 319-yard seventh after driving to the edge of the green - Ballesteros went backwards.
On the course where he has won three times Ballesteros could only shoot a three-over 74 and is now in danger of his 13th missed cut in 15 starts this season.
