Sergio Garcia and surprise package Marc Leishman seized joint control in Thursday's opening round at the Masters, though tournament favourite Tiger Woods was lurking just four shots off the pace.
Indian tennis ace Leander Paes and his German partner Andre Begemann squandered as many as five match points in the second set to eventually lose the summit clash against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Henri Kontinen in a three-setter at the ATP Winston-Salem Open.
Rose, the 2013 US Open champion, conjured up seven birdies, including two at the last two holes, in a day's best round of 67.
Olympiakos coach taken to hospital, match abandoned after crowd trouble
Ramkumar Ramanathan's good run at the Chennai Open continued as he combined with compatriot N Sriram Balaji to knock out fourth seeded Kiwi pair of Artem Sitak and Marcus Daniel on Wednesday and storm into the doubles quarter-finals.