His long-range eagle attempt slipped past the hole, but the birdie was enough to give him a five-shot lead over former Ryder Cup players Ronan Rafferty of Ireland and David Gilford, local favourite Chris Van Der Velde and Scotland’s Raymond Russell.

"I’m still not on earth, I’m somewhere in orbit," said the 25-year-old from Nuremberg, who had missed the cut in 12 of his last 15 events.

"It will feel great in a few minutes.

"I’ve never had a score like this, 60 is a number everybody dreams of."

Dier had also fired an albatross on the 18th in yesterday’s pro-am, a repeat of which would have seen him round in 58 this afternoon.

"I thought about it when I hit my second shot," added Dier. "It was straight at the pin (with a 4-iron) but just a bit too long. When I holed my 3-wood yesterday I thought 'why I am doing it in the pro-am and not the tournament?'"

Dier’s longest birdie putt was from 25 feet on the 17th, and he missed from just eight feet on the 15th and 16th as he took advantage of the perfect playing conditions.

It was his lowest ever round by five shots and came completely out of the blue, as did his first tournament win in Ireland last year, the only time he made the cut in 13 events.

"Don’t ask me what happened then, it’s still a mystery," he added. "I missed seven cuts in a row and then won, and then missed the next five in a row as well. The last few months have also been a struggle, I was playing all right but I could not get a score on the board.

"The 60 has come out of the blue and I have no idea what will happen the next three days."

It has been a similar tale of woe for Rafferty, the former European number one who has made just two cuts in his last 29 events, one in 19 starts last year and one in 10 so far this season.

"I’ve been driving very badly for the last couple of seasons so the last three months have been about finding a method to get myself on the golf course," said the 38-year-old from Newry in Co Down, who missed two seasons with a serious thumb injury.

"It might not be the prettiest thing but if I aim left and cut it I can find the fairway. I’ve never had the greatest swing but it gets the job done and today that’s the emphasis more than ever."

Rafferty finished 243rd on the Order of Merit last year and is only exempt for this season due to his position in the top 40 on the career money list, but has never thought of hanging up his spikes.

"I’m in the very lucky position that I love to play golf and I know that a lot of my fellow professionals don’t," Rafferty added.

"I know they wouldn’t play any social golf and hate pro-ams but I don’t have any problem going out to play golf.

"It has been a struggle but as long as we occasionally play the odd decent golf course in a tournament I will probably come out and play.

"I haven’t been playing well enough to fight myself out of a paper bag and getting to play the weekends now is a big deal."

Van Der Velde is a former tour professional who won the qualifying school in 1997 and has 19 tournament wins to his name, but is happy with his position as coach to the Dutch national team and prefers to spend his time rock climbing, despite Holland being a notoriously flat country.

"Holland is a very industrious country, when they find something they like, they build something like it," said the 38-year-old.

"They have a couple of indoor skiing centres and underneath several of them they have climbing walls.

"The highest I have climbed was when I was at the US Open qualifying and that was about 160m high on a rock face. You being to think ’what am I doing?’ but the reason I like it is the adrenaline.

"When you get on the leaderboard you get it, but when you do it for 12 or 13 years you need an alternative. It’s a lot safer than people think and it’s not like up Mount Everest with snow and ice."

Russell, in the second-last group on the course, picked up five birdies and made an adventurous par-five at the 18th, finding rough oth left and right of the fairway, before holing from 25 feet for par.

The 29-year-old from Edinburgh said: "That was a nice way to finish.

"I did not hit any destructive shots and that is what has been costing me this season.

"I took a seven and a five on two par-threes in The Open last week to miss the cut and that has been the story of the season."

Pre-tournament favourite Padraig Harrington, who bogeyed the last to miss out by one shot on a play-off for the Open on Sunday, carded an opening 66, Lee Westwood a battling 70, and Ian Poulter and Justin Rose matching 67s.

Worthing’s Gary Evans, also one shot out of the play-off after his dramatic closing round at Muirfield, birdied the last three holes to lie one under.