Seasoned tournament players, including the holder, Eamonn Darcy, had to share the leaderboard with gifted local talent after the first round of £50,000 Quinn Direct Pro-Am at Slieve Russell yesterday. In fact the half-way leader was Wexford professional Damien McGrane, with a three-under-par 69.

As it happened, this was McGrane's first competitive round of the season. And it was clearly a timely effort by the 27year-old, given that he is set to play in the PGA Championship at Wentworth later this week as one of three qualifiers through the Irish order of merit.

In delightful sunshine, the Ballyconnell stretch has rarely looked so attractive. Indeed, conditions contrasted sharply with the hostile weather of two years ago when Des Smyth captured the Irish Professional Championship here.

Competitors still experienced problems, however, largely on greens which were disappointingly slow. In fact they became the stuff of nightmares for Philip Walton, who had five three-putts in a 73, and for Christy O'Connor Jnr, who took 38 putts for the same score.

But as golfers have discovered over the years, there is always somebody out there holing putts. And McGrane found the target with five birdie-efforts, ranging in length from five to 15 feet. Yet, ironically, one of his two bogeys involved a missed four-footer at the 15th.

By his admission, it took Darcy a few holes to come to terms with the pace of the greens after the slick surfaces of The Oxfordshire last weekend. Then he succeeded in putting together an admirably tidy round that contained three birdies and a lone bogey - at the short seventh, where he was bunkered off the tee.

His first birdie came at the 167yard fourth, where he almost holed an eight-iron; he pitched to six feet for a four at the long ninth, and he finished with a twoputt birdie at the 540-yard 18th, where he reached the green with a three-wood second shot.

Given the inevitable pressure of being the resident professional, Liam McCool shot an admirable 70. Like McGrane, he had five birdies on his card, one of which was the product of a pitch into the hole from off the back of the difficult seventh. And by way of proving that there can be a way back, Seamus Duffy of Roe Park shot a 77, despite an eight at the water-dominated second.

Meanwhile, addicts would have delighted in yet another device by Smyth to heighten his competitiveness on the way to a 71. The 45-year-old has adopted a baseball grip on his iron shots "to try and achieve a longer takeaway".