Tom McKibbin and John Murphy off early pace at British Masters

The Irish duo of Tom McKibbin and John Murphy both made slow starts to their opening rounds at the British Masters with England's Justin Rose living up to his billing as pre-tournament favourite by setting the pace on day one.

Northern Ireland's McKibbin, who was grouped with Rose and South Africa's Thriston Lawrence for round one, and Cork's Murphy each carded three-over 75s to sit well outside the top 100, leaving themselves plenty of work to do in Friday's second round.

But at the top of the leaderboard, world number 31 Rose, the top-ranked player in the field, carded eight birdies and a solitary bogey to record a seven-under-par 65 and enjoy a one-shot lead over former Ryder Cup team-mate Jamie Donaldson.

LEADERBOARD

Donaldson, who secured the winning point at Gleneagles in 2014, birdied five of the last six holes in his 66, with Germany's Yannik Paul, English amateur John Gough, James Morrison and Spain's Sebastian Garcia all on four under.

"I felt very comfortable with my game from the first shot," said Rose, who won the British Masters in 2002 and hosted the event in 2018.

"I hit a beautiful little wedge into the 10th hole, made a nice birdie there and I think that's the cleanest round of golf I've played in a long, long time.

"I really drove the ball well, the irons were being struck pretty cleanly and I actually hadn't made many putts through the front nine to be four under so it was great to manage to make a few coming in.

"It all amounted to a very good day's work."

Asked about being a short-priced favourite to win the £2.7 million (€3.13m) event, Rose added: "I haven't really paid any attention to that, even though I played with the Betfred lads (in the pro-am) and they were telling me about the pricing of the