Park takes opening day honours with 64

David Park continued his rich vein of form with a six-under-par 64 in the Canaries Spanish Open first round to earn a one-stroke lead over fellow Briton Jamie Donaldson on Thursday.

Park, who closed with a 65 in last week's Seville Open, collected six birdies, one with a 30-yard chip-in, on a faultless card, making light of strong winds on the volcanic Canary island.

The 29-year-old leader is trying to make a comeback after a fast start to his professional career, when he equalled Greg Norman's record by winning his second tournament before enduring a slump.

He lost a playoff for the 1999 Moroccan Open to Miguel Angel Martin on his debut then won the European Grand Prix the following week.

Park feels success possibly came too early but after his best season for four years in 2003 he is hoping for an improvement in fortunes.

"You'd like to win again as soon as possible but it hasn't really worked out that way and golf is a difficult game to forecast," Park said.

"For a couple of years I stagnated while everyone else improved, so I guess winning was difficult to deal with."

Donaldson's career has been just the opposite as he has improved every year since qualifying from seven invitation events in 2001.

Also aged 29, his best result last season was second in the Algarve Portuguese Open, helping him to 58th place on the European money-list.

Donaldson played with veteran Briton Roger Chapman, who shot a 66 despite not managing a practice round to lie in third place, level with Frenchman Christian Cevaer.

Ricardo Gonzalez of Argentina, winner of last week's Seville Open, was in large group three shots off the pace.

The top four players parred the formidable 472-yard par-four second hole with an extremely narrow landing area, but the majority of the 155-field struggled at a hole described by Jose Maria Olazabal's manager Sergio Gomez as "the most anxious in Spain".

Olazabal, playing in Europe for the first time this year, struggled on the greens on the way to a round of 71 that left him seven shots behind the leader.

"I missed a bunch of makable putts and that doesn't help the cause," said Olazabal, who is trying to move up from 34th on the European Ryder Cup list.

"Two of them were only three feet and none of the misses was more than eight feet," he added. "That's the difference in making a score because I didn't hit the ball to badly some of the time. It puts a lot of pressure on your game."

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