SHANGHAI, Oct 18: Canada’s Rick Gibson and in-form American Andrew Pitts set the first round pace in the $400,000 dollar China Open Thursday, two strokes clear of current Asian number one Charlie Wi.

Gibson, who has not played regular tour golf since 1999, produced an impeccable bogey-free 66 at Shanghai Silport Golf Club to tie with Pitts at the top of the leaderboard.

Korea’s Wi, who heads the Davidoff Tour Order of Merit, kept up his hopes for a third title this season with a solid four-under-par 68 to be in third place.

Sushi Ishigaki of Japan and Aaron Meeks of the United States both fired 69s, while four closing birdies for Thai star Thongchai Jaidee brought him up to sixth equal Taiwan’s Hong Chia-yuh and Chung Joon of South Korea.

The 39-year-old Gibson, who won the old Asian Tour Order of Merit in 1991, has been in hiatus after losing his card in Japan three years ago.

However, he showed some of his former magic to conjure six birdies on his card.

Pitts, currently fourth on the Davidoff Tour Order of Merit, hopes that his decision to pull out from a big-money event in Europe will reap rich rewards at the China Open, where the winner will bank 72,000 dollars and earn an invitation to next month’s Volvo Masters in Spain and the 2002 NEC Invitational in Washington.

He set the mark in the morning, knocking in seven birdies against a bogey.

Starting at the 10th, the American got off to a roaring start when he rolled in putts from 35 feet and 18 feet in his opening two holes on the 10th and 11th. He made the turn at five-under with three more birdies at 13, 17 and 18.

With the wind picking up on his return journey, Pitts manage two more birdies against a lone bogey at the seventh when his ball plugged in the greenside bunker.

Wi, in the same group as Pitts, played steadily all day until a mistake on 18 when he found water with an errant second shot.

Leading first round scores:

66 - Andrew Pitts (USA), Rick Gibson (Can)

68 - Charlie Wi (Kor)

69 - Aaron Meeks (USA), Sushi Ishigaki (Jpn)

70 - Thongchai Jaidee (Tha), Chung Joon (Kor), Hong Chia-yuh (Tpe)

71 - Lien Yung-Sheng (Tpe), Danny Zarate (Phi), Boonchu Ruangkit (Tha),

Rafael Ponce (Ecu), Chawalit Plaphol (Tha), Amandeep Johl (Ind), Simon Yates (Sco), Mardan Mamat (Sin), Arjun Singh (Ind), Brad Kennedy (Aus), Anthony Kang (Kor), Chen Liang-hsi (Tpe), Derek Fung (Hkg)

72 - Amritinder Singh (Ind), Zheng Wen-gen (Chn), Park Do-kyu (Kor), Holden Kim (Kor), Sun Peng (Chn), Chang Tse-peng (Tpe), Richard Best (Nzl), Soe Kyaw Naing (Myn), Harmeet Kahlon (Ind).—AFP