The Southern Cape is home turf for Branden Grace and he made it count with a fine five-under-par 68 in the opening round of the Volvo Golf Champions at the Fancourt Links on Thursday.

“I’m feeling good, feeling great, it’s nice to play at Fancourt in front of a home crowd and I’m hitting the ball well,” a content Grace said after his round, which left him in a tie for second, four shots behind Belgium’s Nicolas Colsaerts.

Grace and Thomas Aiken are the leading South Africans after the first round, with Grace enjoying a purple patch after he finished in a tie for 14th at the Africa Open and then claimed the honours in last week’s Joburg Open.

It was the 23-year-old’s first European Tour victory, but Grace has not allowed the good fortune to go to his head or disturb his focus.

“I don’t think the win has settled in so far, I haven’t really had time to sit back and think about it or what happens in the next couple of weeks. But my concentration is still there, although I am a bit tired. I’m on a roll and I just need to keep my head down and run with it,” Grace said.

The George Golf Club representative obviously knows nearby Fancourt extremely well and he admitted that he never thought he’d be as many as four shots behind after shooting a 68.

“You don’t really expect to be four behind after shooting a 68. That’s one helluva score Colsaerts shot and it will be nice to see how he follows up. But he hits it a mile, which definitely helps around here. He’ll be getting close to a lot of the greens and then if he holes some putts, he can come off with that sort of score. It’s nice to know that sort of score is out there,” Grace said.

Life has changed immensely for Grace thanks to his Joburg Open triumph and his mere presence in this elite 35-man field is one of the benefits. He had the privilege of playing with Ryder Cup captain and two-time Masters champion Jose-Maria Olazabal on Thursday.

“I thoroughly enjoyed it, he’s one of my role-models. He’s a great gentleman and you can just see by the way he conducts himself on the course that he is all-class. He’s the Ryder Cup captain for a reason.

“He cracked the odd joke, he told me when I did something good, a good swing, good shot. It was awesome playing with him and nice to get off to a good start playing with somebody like that,” Grace said.

The former Fancourt Foundation member began with a birdie on the first hole, but the putter then misbehaved on the par-four third and fourth holes, leading to successive bogeys. But the highlight of his round came on the 568-yard ninth hole, which he eagled.

“I hit my drive over the trap and had 257 yards to the green. The green is really hard to hit and you’ve got to miss it in the right place. I hit a great three-wood and missed it right, from where I chipped in.”

Grace admitted that the eagle had “jump-started” his round and he birdied the next two holes as he cruised through the back nine in four-under-par 33.