Argentina’s Ricardo Gonzalez, winner of the Seville Open on Sunday, continued his good form with a 67 but pre-tournament favourite Jose Maria Olazabal could only manage a one over par 71.

Park made an amazing start to his European Tour career, leading from the start of his first event in the Moroccan Open in 1999 only to lose to Miguel Angel Martin on the sixth hole of a play-off.

The following week he went one better by winning the Compaq European Grand Prix and finished 40th in the Order of Merit from just 15 starts, but struggled to recapture that form the following year and had to return to the qualifying school to keep his playing rights in 2001.

“It was a little difficult to deal with because it was a goal of mine and it came a bit quicker than I had envisaged so it was a bit of a shock to the system,” explained the 29-year-old from Hereford, who carded a final round 65 in Seville on Sunday to finish joint 10th.

“It was sort of ’where do I go from here?’ and it took me a while to figure it out.

“There were a couple of years where I stagnated a bit in all aspects of my game while everyone else improved.

“But I have improved over the last few years and apart from the first round last week I have been playing nicely.”

Donaldson is seeking his first tour victory and was delighted to card 65 on a course playing much tougher than its 6,638 yards would suggest.

The 472-yard second hole, which features a water hazard to the left and out of bounds right, was particularly fearsome, with 50 bogeys, 18 double bogeys and eight triple bogeys or worse meaning it played to an average of 4.684.

Donaldson said: “In that wind the second is probably one of the hardest holes we will play all year.

“Anything left is in the hazard and anything right is out of bounds so there is no bail out at all.

“The second shot is just as hard because the hazard is in play all the way down the left, there is no let-up.

“I hit a really good drive today and then a good two-iron into the green.”

The rest of the course is not up to the usual standards either, and Chapman therefore decided to take a different approach to his preparation, only arriving at 9pm on Wednesday evening.

“I had heard so many ’good’ reports about the place that I thought if I come on Tuesday as usual, the head will be off by Thursday morning so I thought it best to try and keep it on as long as possible,” said Chapman, who is playing his 577th tour event.

“That was the plan and it seems to have worked. My caddie walked the course a couple of times so I knew where I was supposed to go."