Australian Steven Bowditch equalled his best round on the PGA Tour to lead by two shots after the first day of the AT&T Byron Nelson Championship in Texas.
The 31-year-old carded a bogey-free eight-under-par 62 at a soggy TPC Four Seasons in Irving - his joint best score in 398 attempts.
Local hope Jordan Spieth, who is aiming to put pressure on Rory McIlroy for the world number one position, could only shoot a 69, though, and will start the second day well down the leaderboard.
Bowditch, disqualified after 36 holes of last week's Crowne Plaza International, sunk a 24-foot birdie at the first and never looked back, picking up further shots at the fourth, sixth, seventh and ninth to turn in 30.
Three more birdies coming home equalled his previous best at the Viking Classic in 2011 and gave him a two-shot lead over Ryder Cup star Jimmy Walker, already a two-time winner this year.
Heavy rain has drenched the region over the last week to leave the course playing very soft but Bowditch, a resident of the Dallas area and winner of last year's Valero Texas Open, did not seem to have a problem.
"I got off to a pretty good start, making a couple of putts early and I had some momentum and kept it in the fairways, which is a big thing out here with it being so wet," he told pgatour.com.
"Hopefully the [bad] weather stays away but it is really not as bad as everyone is making out."
Walker, starting at the 10th, went to the turn in one under but five birdies coming home - including three in succession to finish, lifted him into second place after a 64, a shot ahead of James Hahn and Ryan Palmer who share third place.
Like Bowditch, Spieth also started off with a birdie on the first but could only add one more - on the 10th - while also dropping a shot on the 14th as he finished the day one under par in his home-town event.
The shot of the day, meanwhile, went to New Zealander Danny Lee, who carded a hole-in-one at the 198-yard 17th to help him finish on three under.
Source: PA
