LUISITA – A handful of home bets put themselves right in the $100,000 BingoPlus Philippine ADT Open mix on Wednesday, as the talented field practically put the age-old Luisita layout to its knees with a torrid opening day of scoring that saw an Englishman take a one-shot lead after firing a bogey-less eight-under-par 64.

Thomas Plumb had five of his eight birdies coming home and leapfrogged a packed leaderboard to be a shot ahead of Su Ching-Hung of Chinese Taipei, two ahead of a quartet of Asians and four-up on a seven-man group that returned 68s, counting five Filipinos led by Sean Ramos and the amateur ace Shinichi Suzuki.

Preferred lies rules were in play, and the 132-strong field had a field day with 58 players breaking par and 10 more shooting 72s, which will make for a real low cut-off mark after the second round on Thursday.

“It was a good day right from the start really,” Plumb said after hitting every green in regulation. “It kind of made the day a little easier. I actually got off to a slow start, but the birdies just kept coming in after (pars on Nos. 1 and 2).”

The 27-year-old Plumb, who has had a handful of starts on the DP World Tour, gunned down four straight birdies from the ninth and after his seventh birdie that came on the 14th, was tied with Su before he picked up a shot on the par-5 16th.

“It just kind of kicked out there and all of a sudden, I was at six-under,” Plumb continued.

Su, the 24-year-old Taiwanese, drained his eight birdies in three bunches for a start which he said he really expected even on a course that is playing long because of its rain-softened fairways.

“Yes,” the 24-year-old Su told reporters when asked if he expected to come out of the gates the way he did. “The course is very long, but (the preferred lies rule) helped me a lot.”

Ramos, the highest-ranked Filipino in the ADT Order of Merit race at No. 10, had an eagle-spiked round which he actually started in a mediocre way after playing his first eight holes at one-over.

Jeff Lumbo, James Ryan Lam and Fidel Concepcion, who broke through as a pro at Apo Golf–a layout very similar to the tree-lined Robert Trent Jones-created gem here–all shot 68s like Franco Scorzato of Argentina and Nicklaus Chiam of Singapore.

“I was hitting OK to mediocre shots,” Ramos, who lost in a three-man playoff in Malaysia last month, said. “And then I started to get hot after I made bogey on (No.) 8. I made a 15-footer (for birdie) and then gained a little more confidence and momentum.”