NICK Dougherty claims he will do everything in his power to become "the best player in Europe".

The 20-year-old from Chorley's Shaw Hill club - a protege of Nick Faldo - showed how far he has come in his short career at the Murphy's Irish Open yesterday, sharing the lead after a five-under-par 66.

The youngster has already secured his tour card after a promising start to his rookie season and has been working with coach Pete Cowen as he bids to take the next step forward.

"It's a rookie's dream to have his card so early and much as I want to do well for the rest of the season, Pete more or less said to me if we want to be a world beater there are things we have to change.

"After my second place at Qatar I asked Pete what I had to do to go and sit in the seat next to the trophy rather than second place.

"I was so pleased with it but said what do we need to do that is going to make me the best player in Europe and hopefully the best player in the world eventually.

"We are doing it at a nice steady rate. Our goals within four years will be to try to achieve that first goal which would be Europe's number one."

Dougherty was not even born when Seve Ballesteros won his first major championship.

The Spaniard returned to action yesterday after a two-month break but he must have wished he had stayed at home as he slumped to an embarrassing 89.

Ballesteros had played down suggestions he was poised to retire because of poor form but cut a sad figure as he left the 18th green having taken a 12, finding the water four times.

The three-times Irish Open champion had already taken a quadruple bogey nine at the 10th as he ran up an incredible total of 21 shots for the two par fives on the inward nine.

To compound his problems, he then incorrectly signed for a 10 at the last and was duly disqualified for signing an incorrect card.

At the head of affairs, Dougherty was joined by Fred Funk, Eduardo Romero, Joakim Haeggman and Peter O'Malley of Australia as the leaderboard took on a distinctly international look.