Wayne Grady and Noel Ratcliffe, two of the best-performed Australians in the field, share the lead after the first round of the $180,000 Handa NZ Senior Masters at Millbrook.
The pair shot 3-under-par 69s yesterday to hold a one-shot advantage over fellow Australian Mike Harwood and New Zealander Simon Owen, while the only other player to break par (72) was Mike Clayton with a 71.
Conditions were ideal until early afternoon when a stiff southwest wind made scoring difficult.
Grady (52), who was among the early groups to tee off, notched four birdies on his first nine - the new and testing Coronet layout - with his only blemish a bogey 5 on the challenging 12th.
But he then parred the last nine, including a great sand save on his last hole.
Ratcliffe (65), who started later in the morning on the front nine, parred his first 10 holes before birdying the 11th, 12th and 18th holes, with a three-putt par 5 on the difficult 14th costing him the outright lead.
"I didn't play great but I played steady golf.
"I just didn't hit my iron shots as close as I'd have liked," Ratcliffe said.
Ratcliffe, who turned professional in 1974, won the 1978 Belgian Open and the 1987 Benson and Hedges International Open, and has notched eight wins on the European Seniors Tour, winning the prestigious Order of Merit in 2000.
He will not be competing at Balmacewen next week as he is returning to the senior tour, which kicks off in Bruneii early next month.
Grady, playing his first competitive round of golf since November, said he had missed several chances on his second nine.
"But I was happy with how I played," the 1990 US PGA champion said.
"The course was perfect and the conditions were very playable - good for us old fellas."
Owen (59) said apart from a stray drive on the 14th, he never put a foot wrong all day, scoring four birdies, including a near hole in one on the 16th, and two bogeys.
"I'd be happy to play that way every day . . . and if I keep playing like that I could be dangerous," he said.
Owen, like Grady, has played very little competitive golf, having been hampered by a frozen shoulder since October, which required cortizone injections in December.
Wellington's Richard Coombes (56) provided the day's highlight with a hole in one on the 113m par 3 11th, his third ace in 34 years as a professional golfer.
Playing into a strong wind he hit an 8-iron punch shot which ran down from the top level of the green, hit the pin and sat on the edge of the hole briefly before dropping in.
Tournament sponsor Dr Haruisha Handa later congratulated him and promised a $1000 bonus prize for scoring the first hole in one on the new Coronet lay-out.
