There’s no point dwelling on the past but you can always learn from what’s gone before.

While Richie Ramsay was leading the Scottish contingent after day one of the BMW PGA Championship with a three-under 69, Blairgowrie’s European Tour rookie Bradley Neil was happy enough to get his campaign underway with a steady 71.

Amid the fearsome cut-and-thrust of the main circuit, you don’t get much time to find your feet. Neil’s time may be coming soon, though.

The young Scot has made just five cuts from his first 13 starts at the top table but the 22-year-old is confident his earlier experiences will continue to stand him in good stead while a peek back 12 months ago is giving him positive vibes.

This time last year, Neil wasn’t quite setting the heather on fire on the second-tier Challenge Tour. A second round 67 in the Scottish Hydro Challenge at Aviemore didn’t save him from missing the cut on home soil but it gave him something to build on. Within a couple of weeks he had reeled off two successive second place finishes to kickstart a year which would ultimately lead to promotion to the European Tour.

“This year is not too dissimilar to what I was going through on the Challenge Tour a year ago,” said Neil, who illuminated his round yesterday with a putt of some 20-feet on the fourth for an eagle.

“I keep thinking back to that. This time last season I was inconsistent and my best finish at this point was 11th. There were missed cuts and 30th-placed finishes and then suddenly I went second, second.

“All of a sudden I was in a completely different position. I can’t look back in disappointment on this season. With my coach, I can only look back and analyse what went wrong and we have done that really well.

“We both know I tend to peak in the summer time. You have to take confidence from the good stuff and forget about the bad scores. There have been a few bad scores and those can be tough to forget sometimes but you just have to.”

As Neil made a positive start, Ramsay produced a telling late thrust to hoist himself into the upper echelons.

One-under at the turn, the 34-year-old looked like he would be held prisoner by par as he scribbled down a stream of regulation figures on the back nine.

That was until the 17th and 18th where he conjured a brace of birdies to finish with a flourish and put a much better complexion on his card

“I just tried to stay patient and when you finish like that, then it just makes your day,” said the three-time European Tour winner.

The West Course has had its critics in recent years but the old Burma Road, as it was originally known, is very much up Ramsay’s street and the tweaks, overhauls and renovations that have been part of a considerable investment suit him to a tee.

“ I know they spent a lot of money on it but it’s totally validated, the greens are some of the best we’ll putt on in the UK,” he cooed.

Paul O’Hara, the Tartan Tour No.1 who won on the PGA EuroPro Tour last Friday, opened with a solid 71 and finished alongside Marc Warren, who was tootling along quite nicely until a double-bogey and a bogey at the 15th and 16th.

Stephen Gallacher joined his compatriots on a one-under score with a birdie on the final hole .