This may be new territory for Davis, but there are some familiar names just beneath him on the leaderboard.

Darren Clarke and Luke Donald are joint second with American Brett Quigley after five-under-par rounds of 66 and Tiger Woods is only two strokes back - despite saying he “played like a fool”.

Davis was a picture of dejection in Munich five months ago after bogeying the par-five final hole to miss the halfway cut in the final qualifying event for the Ryder Cup.

He had set his heart on making his debut in Detroit and said: “I was pretty upset about it, but you have to move on. You’ve got to learn from your mistakes and mine was playing too much trying to make the team. It was quantity, not quality.”

The son-in-law of former England goalkeeper Ray Clemence – recently diagnosed with prostate cancer – kicked off with an eagle yesterday and reached six under after just 10 holes.

Wind and rain meant he was happy to par in for a 65 and he said: “It’s tough not knowing any of the golf courses, but this is more of a traditional one and I’ve seen it on television a few times. That helps.”

The Riviera Country Club is where Colin Montgomerie lost a play-off for the 1995 US PGA to Australian Steve Elkington, but the Scot is deep in the pack this time after a level par 71 and cannot afford to be worse than that today to survive the halfway cut.

Montgomerie said: “I hit the ball well tee-to-green, but the ball was not going in. I had a tap-in at the first and holed one putt in the other 17, which isn’t good enough.”

Highlight of Clarke’s round was a hole-in-one at the 199-yard sixth. The Ulsterman has lost count of how many he has now had in his life – he thinks roughly 25 – and this one he described as “a little bit of skill and a lot of luck”.

The seven-iron shot nearly found the bunker in the middle of the green, but started rolling, hit the flagstick and dropped.

“Overall I didn’t hit the ball the way I particularly wanted to, but I ground it out and it’s a good start,” said the world No 13, sixth in last week’s Pebble Beach Pro-am.

Donald was runner-up to Woods in the Buick Invitational three weeks ago and joined Davis on six under before driving into a divot on his final hole and bogeying.

Now England’s highest-ranked player in the world at 19th – Davis is 88th - Donald wants to be top 10 by the end of the season, win again on the US Tour and contend in at least two of the four majors.

“I don’t think it’s that ambitious,” he said. “But the majors might be tough because I don’t have that much experience in them.” He makes his Masters debut in April.

Lee Westwood opened with a 70, David Howell shot 72 and Justin Rose, Graeme McDowell, Paul Casey and Ian Poulter all had 74s. Greg Owen, £200,000 richer for finishing a fine third last week, bogeyed the last three holes in the gathering gloom for a 75.

Woods three-putted three times, but is still looking good at least for the top-four finish he needs to reclaim the world No 1 spot from Vijay Singh, who is not playing this week.