A level-par 72 sees Cormac Sharvin tied for 38th after day one of the DP World Tour First Qualifying Stage at Golf de Moliets in South-West France, one ahead of Niall Kearney and Stuart Grehan.
Back-to-back opening bogeys on 10 and 11 were not the start the Ardglass man was looking for, but birdies at 15 and 17 saw him claw his way back to level-par at the turn. Another bogey at the fourth was offset by a closing birdie, but he lies well off the pace in the 72-hole event.
Niall Kearney and Stuart Grehan, both of whom also began on the back nine, also have considerable work to do if they are to advance. Kearney bogeyed the 13th and 15th, with a solitary birdie coming at the fifth, while Grehan recorded one more of each, with bogeys coming at 13, 18 and six, and birdies at 15 and nine.
Michael Young lies one shot further back at +2 with a disappointing final nine holes undoing the good work that had seen him make the turn at -1. Three bogeys in four holes on 14, 16 and 17, will have seemed like four with a five on the par-5 15th, and he lies tied for 60th.
French amateur Maxime Legros leads the way at -8, finishing his opening round in style with four birdies and an eagle to cover the closing six in six-under. He enjoys a two-stroke lead, with -3 currently occupying a tie for 10th and -2 rounding out the provisional qualifying spots.
But there is still a long way to go, with cuts coming after 36 holes and then a further cut after 54, and two rounds in the sixties with another in red figures would go a long way to seeing all four of the Irish advance to stage two.
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