Having taken the big decision to play golf full-time only last month, Graeme Lornie showed his potential with a four-under-par 69 in his first round over the PGA Centenary Course.

Having taken the big decision to play golf full-time only last month, Graeme Lornie showed his potential with a four-under-par 69 in his first round over the PGA Centenary Course to lead the £55,000 Gleneagles Scottish Championship by two shots.

"If I don't try now I never will," said Lornie, who believes that at the age of 28 time is already running out on his efforts to be as good as he can be. The £8800 top prize on Sunday in the Tartan Tour's flagship event would go a long way to vindicating his decision.

He was a greenkeeper for 10 years at Royal Aberdeen and Newmachar and a leading amateur in the north-east before turning professional three years ago and working at a golf range before taking on an attachment with the Kings Links Golf Centre in Aberdeen.

With the rough up, keeping the ball on the fairway was paramount on a day when the average score was approaching 80. Lornie spoiled an eagle 3 at the second with four bogeys in his next five holes but made his score with an inward five-under-par 32 and credited a coaching session with Birmingham-based Paul Hurrion.

Hurrion, a biomechanic who specialises in putting, also coaches Open champion Padraig Harrington and fellow Irish Ryder Cup player Paul McGinley. "He improved my posture and my form on the greens is like night and day," said Lornie, No.2 on the young professionals' order of merit for the last two years.

His Kings Links stablemate Scott Henderson, a former European Tour rookie of the year, said Lornie was a real prospect, but warned he must be careful to avoid becoming bogged down in technicalities.

On a sunny day of light winds which strengthened throughout the day, Henderson was one of the few later starters to break par. He lost a ball at the eighth, but a three-wood to four feet at the last set up an eagle 3 and a round of 72.

Four players were in joint second place on 71: Craig Lee, Paul McKechnie, Nigel Scott-Smith and Eddie Thomson.

Lee, a European Tour rookie, is No.228 on the money list with just over £20,000 and he estimates his expenses at more than double that. He is looking for a good week to fund the remainder of his campaign and an eagle at the last helped him on his way.

"I have five or six events left and I still believe I can do it," he said, "but it would be frustrating if I couldn't play because I don't have enough money."

McKechnie is playing the Tartan Tour after four seasons on the Challenge Tour but the dream is still alive and has been taking coaching from Alan White at Lanark to help build towards qualifying school at the end of the season.

For Scott-Smith, a one-time aspiring tour player who now runs the Palacerigg Golf Centre, it was a performance reminiscent of his full-time days in the 1990s, and he made his score with birdies at each of the five par-5s.

Thomson, another who had an eagle 3 at the last by chipping in, kept out of the thick rough all day, and after missing the cut in three Challenge Tour events played yesterday with words of wisdom from coach Bob Torrance ringing in his ears: "Keep believing."