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Ernie Els is looking to put a disastrous US Open behind him by winning the BMW International in Germany.
The big South African is lurking menacingly just two shots off the lead after the opening round.
But the surprise leader is José Filipe-Lima. He is tied at the top with Raphaël Jacquelin.
The 25 year old Portugese player has missed the last six cuts on The European Tour to find himself languishing at 216th on the Order of Merit. But he is firing on all cylinders in Germany and carded four birdies and an eagle three at the sixth to go along with his one at the 18th to finish the day on seven under par 65. He bogeyed the first!
It gave Lima and Jacquelin a one shot lead over Spain’s Gonzalo Fernandez-Castaño, Marc Farry and England’s Paul Broadhurst.
Late in the day, Broadhurst joined the Frenchman and the Spaniard in a tie for third place, an eagle three at the sixth hole being the highlight of the Englishman’s day.
Els said:. “That was a decent start to my tournament,” he said. “We had beautiful weather conditions in the morning apart from towards the end (when play was suspended for 45 minutes due to thunder and lightning in the area).
“I think I only hit one bad drive all day on the 15th (where he dropped his only shot of the day) but apart from that I was pretty solid and for the rest of the day I kept it in play, hit a lot of greens and made a putt here and there. It was a nice, enjoyable round, especially coming from last week.”