Robert MacIntyre closed his opening round with a 6-under 64 in spite of a pair of bogeys at the par-4 8th and par-3 10th to take the Made in HimmerLand lead by two-shots.
“I’m in a good mindset just now, I just pitched up here refreshed and with a good attitude,” said the Scot.
“It was really tough today. When I was sat in my room this morning, I was quite glad that I wasn’t out there. It got a little bit nicer. Obviously, the breeze was really strong, but at least we didn’t have any rain.
“It was just a mental battle out there and just had to stay positive. The dropped shots were going to happen and just had to take the chances when they came and thankfully I did that. Bit of luck here and there.
“I’ve been working hard on the my game the last three weeks, I’ve chopped and changed. There’s been a lot of changes and I’ve kind of gone back to what I know I’m good at. I’ve stayed positive and I knew my game was there, just had to drive the ball a little bit better this week.”
England’s Ross Fisher carded a 66 in the morning to take the clubhouse lead and currently lies in solo second place at 4-under.
“It’s a good day,” he said. “We were just saying the weather was not very pleasant when we were waiting for the boys in front to tee off. Thankfully, we only had a couple of holes (in the rain), but the wind was really, really strong, it played tough.
“There wasn’t much run on the fairways. Both the par fives were pretty much out of range. It was just nice to almost come through the round unscathed.
“Sixteen was a little disappointing, felt like I hit a really nice shot in there and but just left myself no putt off the top tier, but nice to bounce back with a birdie on 17. Disappointing not to hole that one on the last but if you’d have offered me four under when we pitched up this morning, I’ll definitely take it.”
Johannes Veerman of the United States closed with a bogey-free 67 for a share of third place alongside The Netherlands’ Daan Huizing and Germany’s Nick Bachem.