Smith put his lofty position down to “dumb luck”, but he made six birdies and just the one bogey at the par-three third hole where he missed a putt of less than a metre.

Smith, 38, found his way into the field by finishing in the top three of the PGA Professionals Championship of Victoria at Commonwealth last week. He leads by a shot from Portsea club pro Brad Kivimets, who also graduated to this field via last week’s event in Melbourne, and veteran Peter Lonard, both of whom shot 68s in winds that gusted to 50 km/h.

“Just luck. I’ll put it down to luck,” Smith said after his five-under par round on the Legends course in the morning.

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was just luck. It was windy. But the course is awesome. You see it pretty early on and as long as you get the ball rolling on line it’s not going to miss. The greens are so good.

“So it was just dumb luck. It could be the absolute opposite tomorrow. I finished fourth to last or something here last year, so if I improve on that, I’m happy. I know that sounds ridiculous.”

Smith, who hails from Waverley Golf Club in Melbourne, turned professional in 2012 but lost his playing card after a year and turned to teaching. He completed a greenkeeping apprenticeship at his home club, and more recently worked as the manager at Warburton Golf Club outside Melbourne and now teaching and in the shop at Drummond Golf in Dandenong.

He has no illusions about his ability to stay on top of the leaderboard, though. “I’m just happy to play,” he said. “Someone will go lower, someone will shoot nine under today, one of these guys who’s a decent player. You can tell. Someone will go crazy.”