Sergio Garcia may have been looking down on the field on day one of the BMW Masters in China as he equalled his lowest round of the season but Richie Ramsay was happy to simply have a clear vision of those above him as he made a purposeful start to his challenge at Lake Malaren.
While Garcia surged to the head of the leaderboard with an eight-under 64, Ramsay carded a neatly assembled 68 to sit in a share of ninth.
The latter part of the Scot’s season has been hampered by a bout of anterior uveitis, an inflammation of the eye which has led to him playing only one event since September.
“It basically stops the eye from focusing so everything you see is blurred,” said Ramsay, after a tidy four-under round that was illuminated by an eagle and two birdies. “Reading and driving was hard, focusing on the golf ball was tough and focusing on the target was nigh on impossible. I’ve had steroids and it’s fine now. I’m just happy to be back. There are two events left and I just want a big finish. There’s nothing to lose.”
With Ramsay a contented man, frontrunner Garcia had plenty of reasons to be cheerful as he eased into a one shot lead over Victor Dubuisson and Byeong-hun An.
Garcia, who is not playing the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai next week, has won 11 times on tour but back-to-back sixth place finishes in the Open and European Masters are his best results of the campaign.
He set about improving that record with four birdies on his first five holes over a damp course that was playing every bit of its 7594 yards. “It's the kind of round that you are looking for,” he said. “Hopefully I keep improving as the week goes on and we'll be out there on Sunday having a chance."
With Rory McIlroy not competing this week, his rivals in the Race to Dubai have the chance to overtake the four-time major winner in the standings. England's Danny Willett, who opened with a 72, just needs to finish 28th or better in the 78-man field while Justin Rose (67), Shane Lowry (70) and Louis Oosthuizen (70) must finish second or better. Branden Grace (71) requires a win.
Rose, who bogeyed the 72nd hole 12 months ago to miss out on the play-off by a single shot, birdied four of his last seven holes in his five-under score.
"I was only one under through 11 and I could see a lot of the other guys were going low today and tried to urge myself to get it to three or four under,” he said. “I actually beat my own expectations and finished five-under.”
Elsewhere in the field, Stephen Gallacher posted a level-par 72 despite racking up a triple-bogey eight on the 13th while Marc Warren, who stumbled to the turn in 40, mounted a spirited salvage operation with a four-under back-nine to get back to level-par.
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