The class of Welsh professional champion, Trevor Jones, was all too evident when he teed up just three days after mixing it with the best in Europe.
Playing in the West Region's qualifying round at Taunton Vale for the Powerade PGA Assistants' Championship, the 26-year-old from Bristol toured the Somerset layout in just 68 blows, two under par, which left him three shots clear of six other challengers.
"I was disappointed not to have made the cut (in the Celtic Manor Wales Open), but I'm sure I won't find it too hard to pick myself up and make the most of what I've got."
Jones' first challenge was on the practice putting green at Taunton. "The greens, it seemed to me, were half the pace of Celtic Manor's and I just had to make sure I didn't leave my early putts half-way there."
In any event, no such problems arose. The assistant from Hambrook Driving Range soon found his distance, rattling off five successive three's, three of them birdies, from the fourth to the eighth, for halves of 32 and 36 (the inward comprising two birdies and three bogeys).
His shot of the day came at the par-four seventh, where after a wayward drive in among trees, he fashioned a 150-yard wedge shot which soared over the foliage, landed 15 feet from the pin, and the holed putt was his third successive birdie.
He now leads the 15 West qualifiers to the 54-hole Powerade final at The London Club in August, when he again has the opportunity of infiltrating the big boys of the European Tour - the winner gets an invite to the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth next year.