In a late-season flourish, Scottish professional golfers, who have rarely set the heather on fire at home or away this season, dazzled in the sunshine in the first round of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.

In a late-season flourish, Scottish professional golfers, who have rarely set the heather on fire at home or away this season, dazzled in the sunshine in the first round of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.

Pace of play in the pro-am format was tediously slow at around the six-hour mark, but that didn't prevent Marc Warren and Gary Orr from returning 66s at the Old Course and Kingsbarns respectively.

They were both placed joint-fourth, two behind joint leaders Ross Fisher and Soren Hansen, and with a welcome return to form Scott Drummond, the former PGA champion, followed Warren in at St Andrews with a 67.

On a day of low scoring with the links defences at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns down, former winners Stephen Gallacher and Colin Montgomerie along with Alastair Forsyth were all two under par and within the top 60 who will play the final round at St Andrews on Sunday.

Familiarity with links right back to amateur days is reckoned to be the reason why Scots have done so well at this tournament with victories by Paul Lawrie, Gallacher and Montgomerie since 2001, and Warren took pleasure yesterday in comparing his performance with his playing days of yore in the St Andrews Links Trophy.

In that respect, his 66 yesterday was a 26-shot improvement on the 92 he had a decade ago over the Jubilee Course, in much tougher conditions. "Conditions are always critical at St Andrews and there weren't many 66s to be had that week," said Warren, who might have to steel himself today at Carnoustie when the weather is expected to deteriorate.

Warren, 27, partnering entrepreneur Duncan Simpson-Craib, is bidding to make the cut in this tournament for the first time. He put together a round comprising six birdies and no dropped shots which he credited largely to enjoying the game again and not getting bogged down in technicalities.

"I'm having fun and not worrying about what's happening to my swing and just hitting the shots which have worked on the range," said Warren, who split with Bob Torrance this year and returned to former coach Ian Rae.

On the range at the Belfry last week in the British Masters, he worked on improving his turn and eliminating a damaging tilt. "I wasn't completing my backswing," he said, "so it was simple things like getting the left shoulder and left knee behind the ball at the top and then a lot of rhythm through the ball."

Warren has fallen outside the world top 200 and has lost his place in the two-man Scotland world cup team next month to Forsyth, and is so determined to return to the top that he has bought a property in Florida to enable him to practise meaningfully in winter and get his season off to a faster start.

Orr, 41, is on an upward spiral with three top-10 finishes in his last five tournaments, and he was partnering the oldest man in the field, 85-year-old Anthony Bryan, a World War II fighter pilot who knows a thing or two about accuracy and is still playing golf to a 15 handicap.

The Helensburgh-attached Orr is currently the third highest world-ranked Scottish player at No.190 and on the basis of his form at Kingsbarns, where his 66 comprised seven birdies and a single dropped shot, he looks set to rise further.

"I'm pleased with that," said the two-time winner on the European Tour, who needed a medical exemption for a back injury this year to regain his playing rights.

"I holed a good putt for a birdie at the first and I carried on from there. Hopefully, I can carry my good form on to the end of the season."

He has an incentive to do so. At No.68 in Europe, he needs a small improvement to make the field for the season-ending Volvo Masters at Valderrama that is limited to the top 60, and continues his quest today at St Andrews.

For Drummond, his 67 yesterday was a rare ray of sunshine.

Since his PGA win at Wentworth more than four years ago, he has slumped to world No.1087 making just nine cuts in the last two years, out of 53 starts.

He has one season's exemption from his big win left and he is so determined to use it to bounce back that, at the age of 34, he has switched coach for the first time in 20 years from Keith Williams to Clive Tucker, who also looks after Graeme McDowell, who made a strong Ryder Cup debut last month.

Tucker examined Drummond's swing at Loch Lomond during the Barclays Scottish Open and the Scot took a full month off to put the diagnosis into effect.

"Clive made a couple of suggestions to simplify my backswing and keep it on line," he said. "It has been hard coming back to play tournaments but I feel it is on the right track. I wanted it right for the start of the 2009 season but if it happens sooner then so much the better."

There were signs in an inward five-under-par 31 that it was happening sooner. He rated it as possibly the best round since his PGA win, but Drummond preferred to point to the relaxed nature of the tournament in which he is partnering former England cricketer Mark Nicholas.

"My concentration was good today," he said. "It was painfully slow when you look at the clock but I actually enjoyed it. You can take your time, there's no rushing about and I found it relaxing."

It was an up-and-down day for Montgomerie who partnered former British tennis No.1 Tim Henman, and at the 17th tee the Scot must have wished he had a second serve when he played a hideous duck-hook some 40 yards off line following its flight as if the course, the equipment, the crowds and the gods had all betrayed him.

From there - and he was lucky to have a decent lie - he played a glorious shot to the green only to take three putts, and he said afterwards with a sigh: "Bogey, birdie, bogey - that's been my trouble all season. Ah well, roll on 2009."