Jonathan Thomson shot the lowest round of his European Tour career to take a two-stroke lead on the opening day at the Made in Denmark event.
The 22-year-old, who was diagnosed with leukaemia aged seven before going into remission five years later, carded an eight-under 63 at Silkeborg Golf Club.
A group of six, including England's Matthew Baldwin, are two shots back with a total of 18 players inside the top 10 as scoring is good.
“It’s fantastic to get off to a great start for a change,” said the 6ft 9ins Thomson, affectionately known as ‘Jigger’, who is battling to secure his playing privileges for next season.
“I have been playing some great golf recently but not scoring, so to get off to a low-scoring start today was great.
“I had a good lesson on iron play in Prague last week and it has really tightened up my iron play and given me more opportunities to give myself more birdie chances.
“Last week I played fantastic and didn’t hole anything, whereas today I played to a similar level and holed some putts.
“It would be great for me to have a positive result this week. I had a terrible start to the season and really positive result would give me a huge confidence boost going into the rest of the season.”
In the race for the final automatic qualifying place for the Ryder Cup team English duo Matthew Fitzpatrick and Eddie Pepperell opened with rounds of 72 and 70 respectively,
Both need to win to potentially dislodge local favourite Thorbjorn Olesen, who shot a 73.
Collated scores from first round of Made In Denmark, Silkeborg Ry GC, Aarhus, Denmark (Britain unless stated, par 72, no Irish competitors)
64 Jonathan Thomson
66 Brett Rumford (Aus), Lucas Bjerregaard (Den), Christiaan Bezuidenhout (Rsa), Matthew Baldwin, Hunter Stewart (USA), Josh Geary (Nzl)
67 Richard McEvoy, Scott Fernandez (Spa), Jazz Janewattananond (Tha), Robert Rock, Sam Horsfield, Ryan Evans, Jamie Donaldson, Thomas Detry (Bel), Erik Van Rooyen (Rsa)
68 Marcus Kinhult (Swe), Matt Wallace, Joakim Lagergren (Swe), Nicolas Colsaerts (Bel), Matthew Southgate, Jason Norris (Aus), Phachara Khongwatmai (Tha), David Drysdale, Pedro Oriol (Spa), Lee Westwood
69 Pontus Widegren (Swe), Richie Ramsay, Nicolai Tinning (Den), Danny Willett, Ashley Chesters, Niklas Norgaard Moller (Den), James Morrison, Fabrizio Zanotti (Pry), Nicolai Hojgaard (a) (Den), Scott Vincent (Zim), Thomas Pieters (Bel), Gregory Havret (Fra)
70 Steven Brown, Haydn Porteous (Rsa), Ashun Wu (Chn), Nick Cullen (Aus), Henric Sturehed (Swe), Chase Koepka (USA), Tom Lewis, Marc Warren, Chris Hanson, Thomas Bjorn (Den), Eddie Pepperell, Jordan Smith, Justin Walters (Rsa), Adrian Otaegui (Spa), 71 Ricardo Gouveia (Por), Lasse Jensen (Den), Bradley Neil, Oliver Fisher, Matias Calderon (Chi), Adrien Saddier (Fra), Jason Scrivener (Aus), Adam Bland (Aus), Laurie Canter, Bradley Dredge, Edoardo Molinari (Ita), Callum Shinkwin, Hideto Tanihara (Jpn), Paul Peterson (USA), Matthias Schwab (Aut), Jeunghun Wang (Kor), Gregory Bourdy (Fra), Richard Sterne (Rsa)
72 Matthew Millar (Aus), Thomas Aiken (Rsa), Felipe Aguilar (Chi), Peter Hanson (Swe), Robert Karlsson (Swe), Joachim B. Hansen (Den), Tapio Pulkkanen (Fin), David Lipsky (USA), Austin Connelly (Can), Yusaku Miyazato (Jpn), Richard Bland, Steve Webster, Christofer Blomstrand (Swe), Charlie Ford, Frederik Dreier (Den), Mark Tullo (Chi), Daniel Brooks, Pep Angles (Spa), Aksel Olsen (Nor), Stephen Gallacher, Sam Brazel (Aus), Matthew Fitzpatrick
73 Marcus Armitage, Soren Kjeldsen (Den), Anders Hansen (Den), Martin Kaymer (Ger), Jacques Kruyswijk (Rsa), Thomas Norret (Den), Jeff Winther (Den), Matthew Nixon, David Horsey, Julien Guerrier (Fra), Doug Ghim (USA), Jin-ho Choi (Kor), Simon Khan, Romain Wattel (Fra), Thorbjorn Olesen (Den), Gaganjeet Bhullar (Ind), Jens Dantorp (Swe)
74 S.S.P Chawrasia (Ind), Clement Sordet (Fra), Sebastian Heisele (Ger), Gary Stal (Fra), Lucas Herbert (Aus), Marcel Siem (Ger), Sebastien Gros (Fra), Oscar Serna (Mex), Rak hyun Cho (Kor), Michael Jonzon (Swe), Richard Green (Aus), Gavin Green (Mal), Marcus Fraser (Aus)
75 Daniel Im (USA), Ajeetesh Sandhu (Ind), Jonas Blixt (Swe), Dean Burmester (Rsa), Alejandro Canizares (Spa), Rasmus Hojgaard (a) (Den), Danthai Boonma (Tha), Oliver Farr
76 Mikael Lundberg (Swe), Jacob Glennemo (Swe), David Howell, Zander Lombard (Rsa), Morten Orum Madsen (Den), Lee Slattery,John Daly (USA), Mark Foster, Soomin Lee (Kor)
77 Connor Syme, Florian Fritsch (Ger)
78 Birgir Hafthorsson (Isr), Jaco Van Zyl (Rsa)
79 Scott Hend (Aus), Andrew Dodt (Aus), Jack Munro (Aus)
