Lee Westwood is hoping to put his good start at the Alfred Dunhill Championship to better use as he bids to improve on his third-placed finish at the tournament in 2006.
The world number 10 carded an opening round 66 on Thursday to sit on six-under-par overnight, one shot behind joint-leaders Len Mattiace and Michael Jonzon.
He shares second spot with three other players in Robert Rock, Rafael Cabrera Bello and Johan Edfors, but casting his mind back two seasons ago, the Englishman recalled how a poor start let him down.
"I enjoy the golf course, I played here two years ago and I enjoyed it," he said after his bogey-free round. "It looked like it suited me the first time I set foot on it then, although at the time I obviously got off to a poor start.
"I think I was five-over through 10 holes of the tournament two years ago. So it's a significantly better start."
Westwood looked calm and collected at the Leopard Creek Golf Club in round one of the co-sanction European and Sunshine Tour event, starting out with five pars, before four birdies in five holes at the turn set him on his way to a 66.
And he feels he could have done even better had a few more putts gone his way early on.
He continued: "I played very solidly. I could have got off to a faster start, I missed a couple of good chances at my first two holes.
"But I drove the ball well, distance control with the irons was good, rolled quite a few decent putts in and my short game was good. I chipped well.
"The course played pretty good today, there wasn't a massive amount of wind. Towards the end there was a little bit of wind suddenly and nine played hard, a little tricky.
"But I thought all-in-all if you played well today on the golf course, you got what you deserved. There were no tricks to it and what you did was what you got.
"It's a course for scoring if you play well. But it can bite you if you play some wild shots, there's plenty of trouble out there."
There are plenty other big names in this week's tournament, including South African favourites Rory Sabbatini, the world number 30, last year's SA Open champion James Kingston, Charl Schwartzel, the 2004 winner and Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy, but Westwood admits that he will be focusing all his efforts on his own game.
He added: "No I haven't had a look at anybody else that is here. With this heat, I need to concentrate on my own game, so it's pointless paying any attention to anybody else."
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