Pilkington class

Mark Pilkington is a name for the future. The little known Welsh youngster, part of the ISM stable with Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood, carded a first round 63 to tie for the lead in this weeks Qatar Masters at the Doha course.

Pilkington recorded his finest round of his career with eagle and seven birdies in a flawless round to equal Sweden's Robert Karlsson at nine under par.

Pilkington, former Welsh and Spanish Amateur champion knew he had what it takes to make it on tour and after a couple of seasons struggling to find his former amateur form, he finally broke through the ice today to head his first European Tour event.

"I made the cut in my last two events without doing anything special but I felt I was playing well, putting quite nicely and I was quietly confident. It was just one of those things, a matter of time.

"It was a very early start, up at 4.45 and it was still dark when we got to the course but you have to get used to it and we certainly had the best of the conditions."

In benign conditions, scoring was ripe with many low scores, especially those players who began in the morning.

France's Olivier Edmond has recovered from a long layoff with injury to sit comfortably in third place with a first round 65 and Austrian Markus Brier, South African Roger Wessels and Italy's Marco Bernadini all carded 66's.

Last weeks winner Thomas Bjorn added a reasonable 69 while former Open champion and winner here and 1999 Paul Lawrie added a 68 alongside compatriot Dean Robertson.