Gary Hurley and Conor Purcell face an uphill battle to make it to the weekend at AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open.
Hurley, making his third appearance of the 2025 DP World Tour campaign sits on two-over-par after an opening round of 74.
The West Waterford man mixed the good with the bad as he rolled in five birdies but blotted his copy book with a double bogey on the par-3 11th and a triple bogey six on the 15th and two further bogeys.
Meanwhile, Purcell’s difficult start to life as a fully fledged DP World Tour member continued with a six-over 78 that included five successive bogeys on a back nine of 42.
England’s Eddie Pepperell produced a big finish to lead by one shot.
With windy conditions at Mont Choisy Le Golf making life difficult for the afternoon starters, Jacob Skov Olesen’s five-under-par total saw him lead for much of the day.
But Pepperell saved his best until last, closing his 66 with a hat-trick of birdies to reach six under and overtake Dane Olesen at the top of the leaderboard.
The two-time DP World Tour winner suffered the disappointment of missing out on his card by one shot at Qualifying School last month but he looked back to his best on Thursday.
Olesen, who became the first Danish winner of The Amateur Championship at Ballyliffin in the summer before securing his DP World Tour card at Qualifying School, fired an eagle and three birdies in his spotless 67 to sit alone in second place.
Italian Renato Paratore, Norway’s Andreas Halvorsen, Dane Hamish Brown and South Africans Jayden Schaper, Jacques Blaauw and Wilco Nienaber were tied for third on four under.
Englishman Pepperell bounced straight back from a bogey at the second with his first birdie of the day at the third before picking up another shot from six feet on the fifth.
He closed the front nine with a birdie after sending his approach at the ninth to tap-in range.
And after a quiet start to the back nine, Pepperell’s round burst into life in the closing stages, as he took advantage of the long 14th before chipping in for an unlikely birdie on the 16th.
A stunning tee-shot at the par-three 17th led to a birdie there before he took the solo lead with a third successive gain from around four feet on the 18th.
Pepperell, who has his wife Jen on the bag this week, said: “I am pleased with that. I wasn’t expecting it, I wouldn’t have said.
“After bogeying the second hole I was worried it was going to be one of those Thursdays again, a bit like last week in the windy conditions.
“But I turned it around really nicely and played very well, to be honest, on the whole. So I’m very pleased.
“Good finish. I told myself on the 15th ‘just keep your head down, let it happen’. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a position where you’re three, four, five under par at the top of the leaderboard – even on a Thursday.
“So sometimes it can get in your head and it could have done but I just tried to keep my head down, focus and keep doing what I’ve been doing on the range yesterday and today, and it seemed to work.”
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