Day 1 of the inaugural Crowne Plaza Open Shanghai 2004 golf tournament turned out to be record-breaking day – assuring themselves of a place in the history books were two players, who pulled off a hole-in-one each, and also Thailand's Somkiat Srisa-Nga, who smashed the course record of 66 to lead the 142-player field at the Tomson Shanghai Pudong Golf Club.

The Thai player scored an impressive 8-under-par round of 64 during the morning session to finish the day with a 2-shot lead over nearest challengers, Japan's Eiji Mizoguchi and Australia's Anthony Summers. Sharing fourth place are Alistair Pressnell (Australia), Craig Kamps (South Africa), Terry Pilkadaris (Australia), Gerald Rosales (Philippines) and Kyi Hla Han (Myanmar).

On a beautiful autumn morning, 30-year-old Somkiat – who has never finished higher than 24th in an Asian Tour event – took advantage of the clear skies, low humidity and gentle breeze to play his best golf of the season so far. My putting was very good today”, he said, ”I am very happy with this score.

Before play began, Louis Martin, CEO of the Asian Tour predicted some high-quality golf. Standing beside the first tee, as the sun broke through the early-morning mists, Martin said If the sun continues to shine, we should see a week of very low-scoring golf.

Day 1 proved him right, 41 players broke the course par, with scores of 71 or less.The players agreed that conditions on the first day were perfect for golf. The course was very good and there was much less wind than on the practice day, said Australian Alistair Pressnell, who is tied for fourth place after a round of 67. Myanmar's Kyi Hla Han agreed. The greens were in very good shape and the fairways were nice and firm. That's why the scores are so good today, he said.

Thursday's shot of the day was shared by Thailand's Prom Meesawat, who hit the morning's only hole-in-one, at the par-3 17th hole, and India's Digvijay Singh who repeated the feat in the afternoon, at the par-3 8th hole. For both players, it was the first time they had scored a hole-in-one at a professional tournament.

At the end of a breathless first day's play, two golfers had equalled the old course record, one had smashed it by two shots and two holes-in-one were scored. With the Crowne Plaza Open Shanghai 2004 featuring 132 of the leading players from the Asian Tour and China PGA League, who are all still in contention for top spot and the US$200,000 prize money, Day 2 at the picturesque course promises to be just as riveting.