In one of those wildlife territorial disputes that crop up on golf courses from time to time, Sweden's Joakim Haeggman insisted yesterday that he was justified in taking the unusual action of slapping a goose across the face.

The 37-year-old had seven birdies of the golfing variety in a five-under-par 67 in the first round of the inaugural Valle Romano Andalucia Open, but this close encounter with a feathered one was far more memorable.

The 18th fairway at the Aloha club is patrolled by three geese, one of whom thought Haeggman had overstepped his mark. What happened next was not so much a face-to-face confrontation as nose-to-beak, and before he is reported to the RSPCA, allow the Swede to explain. "I thought all he was going to do was come up to me and give a hiss," Haeggman said. "But when I put my hand out, he wanted to have a go at it. He was inches away from me and just would not leave me alone. So I slapped him straight across his face. It's the first time I've done anything like that and I felt I had no choice."

The goose waddled off disconsolately, but there was no such humiliating retreat for Haeggman, who showed he was boss on the course as well. He parred that hole, his ninth, for an outward 34 before returning in one better to leave him two behind leader Matthew Zions.

For Haeggman, whose pre-goose claim to fame is being the first Swede to play in the Ryder Cup, it was a welcome return to form after six missed cuts that followed a shoulder injury from which he is now recovered.

Zions, meanwhile, is a man of the world. The 28-year-old is Australian, lives in the US where he attended the University of Colorado, and earned his ticket to the European Tour by coming through all three stages of the qualifying school last year.

His name, which places him last alphabetically in the tour handbook, has a distant Jewish background, but to add further diversity to his background he pointed out that his family is now Catholic.

"I tried three times for my PGA Tour card and never got past the second stage, so I tried Europe," he said. "I'm thinking about having a base over here, but for the time being I'm playing three or four weeks at a time and travelling back and forward from Denver."

Yesterday, in temperatures approaching 90F, he credited his putting for the 65 over the 6881-yard course which requires good course-management rather than brute strength. On the advice of Bob Rotella, his sports psychologist, he said he was thinking less about his method and more about simply knocking the putts in.

He led by one from Alejandro Canizares with another Spaniard, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, winner of last week's Italian Open and who is hosting this week's event jointly with Miguel Angel Jimenez, alongside Haeggman on 67.

Euan Little was best of the four Scots with a 72 that included an out-of-bounds at the short 17th, his eighth, the result of an errant backswing that he feels he is close to eliminating with the help of coach Bob Torrance.

For the other three - David Drysdale (74), Scott Drummond (77) and Andrew Oldcorn (76) - it will need a big improvement just to make the cut. Otherwise, you might say, their goose will be cooked.