Nick Dougherty described his opening 68 at the Volvo China Open as a 'ray of sunshine' as the Liverpudlian looks forward to the future with renewed optimism following the darkest period of his young life.

Long tipped as a future golfing star, the 26-year-old seemed on the verge of fulfilling that promise in 2007 as a seventh-placed finish at the US Open in Oakmont proved the highlight of a year that saw him claim his second European Tour victory at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship alongside a string of top-10 finishes.

He finished 11th on the Order of Merit and looked set to enjoy a prolific 2008 only to be devastated by the sudden death of his mother in April of that year.

Understandably, form and motivation slipped and it is a credit to Dougherty's character and resilience that he still managed four subsequent top-10 finishes.

This year has so far proved equally tough but Dougherty has seen signs of recovery at both the recent Malaysian Open and Johnnie Walker Classic in Perth.

He lies one shot behind leader Markus Brier after shooting a four-under-par round at Beijing CBD International GC today and for Dougherty, it is further confirmation he is slowly but surely returning to something like his previous form.

"I'm delighted with what I'm doing, I've just got to keep doing the same stuff," he said.

"There's no guarantees of anything but at the same time, I'm really proud of where I've come from and how well I'm playing,

"I think that's as good a golf as I've ever played in my career today. It was phenomenal, it really was, I'm so delighted, a ray of sunshine in what has been quite a bleak year.

"It's sad when tidy results are not even top-10s, it shows you how far I've fallen from grace since 2007. But these things happen in golf and life and I'm just happy that I'm starting to make some really good progress coming into the meat of the season."

Dougherty admitted there have been times over the past year where he has had to call on all his mental reserve just to keep playing.

"I have experience, it's one of the things that's allowed me to come back," he added.

"It's my eighth year on tour but you know, I've played bad before but I've never had quite the stuff that's happened to me that has happened and quite the depth of where I was going and how I felt about the game and myself and life in general.

"It's proven quite a challenge and I'm definitely making great progress.

"I'm chuffed, I've just got to keep doing the same stuff and confidence will build from playing more rounds of golf like that.

"Whether or not I play great for the rest of this week, I don't know and I'm not going to put that pressure on myself, but I'm just pleased with the bits I'm seeing.

"The team of guys I have around me are phenomenal. It's a real testament to my caddy. He's had huge success and a lot of people would've walked away seeing how bad I was struggling but he's stood by me.

"I've been playing quite well recently but just finding my way out from where I've been over the last year has taken a bit longer than I thought, confidence is one of the last things to come back."

Dougherty began with eight consecutive pars before three straight birdies at the 18th, first and second saw him climb the leaderboard.

Another birdie at the par-three sixth drew him within one of Brier and while he felt he could have gone even lower, he was nevertheless pleased with a good start.

"I capitalised on some nice calm weather and it's not an easy golf course, if you miss fairways then you are going to struggle," he underlined.

"It's quite long in places and the greens are tricky, quite undulating. I'm delighted with that score, albeit I felt it should've been better. I could have feasibly birdied every hole on the back nine."

Collated first-round scores (Gbr & Irl unless stated, par 72):

67 Markus Brier (Aut)

68 David McKenzie (Aus), Nick Dougherty

69 Chapchai Nirat (Tha), Simon Dyson

70 Ho-sung Choi (Kor), Matthew Millar (Aus), Scott Strange (Aus), Chinnarat Phadungsil (Tha), Thongchai Jaidee (Tha)

71 Jean-Baptiste Gonnet (Fra), Ki joon Song (Aus), Craig Scott (Aus), Richard Finch, Maarten Lafeber (Ned), Gonzalo Fdez-Castano (Spa), Mark Brown (USA), Peter O'Malley (Aus)

72 Carlos Del Moral (Spa), Chris Wood, Damien McGrane, Won-Kyoung Heo (Kor), Paul Waring, Francois Delamontagne (Fra), Branden Grace (Rsa), Rafael Echenique (Arg), Klas Eriksson (Swe), Peter Lawrie, Graeme Storm, Wil Besseling (Ned), David Dixon, Jian Hou (Chn), Wen-chong Liang (Chn), Brad Kennedy (Aus)

73 Mikael Lundberg (Swe), James Kingston (Rsa), Kyong-jun Moon (Kor), Felipe Aguilar (Chi), Joel Sjoholm (Swe), Wei-Huang Wu (Tpe), Michael Long (Nzl), Bernd Wiesberger (Aut), Rafael Cabrera Bello (Spa), Aaron Townsend (Aus), Michael Lorenzo-Vera (Fra), Magnus A Carlsson (Swe), Colin Montgomerie, Lian-Wei Zhang (Chn), Alexandre Rocha (Bra), Dong Su (Chn)

74 Chris Gaunt (Aus), Shin-Ching Chan (Tpe), Robert Dinwiddie, Jean Van de Velde (Fra), Johan Edfors (Swe), Eirik Tage Johansen (Nor), Stephen Dodd, A-Shun Wu (Chn), Wade Ormsby (Aus), Miles Tunnicliff, Marcus Fraser (Aus), David Gleeson (Aus), Andrew Coltart, Guo-Jie Liu (Tpe), Brett Rumford (Aus), Xiao Xuan Xing (Chn), Inder Van Weerelt (Ned), Gregory Bourdy (Fra), Zhi-peng Fan (Chn), Paul McGinley, Barry Lane

75 Ake Nilsson (Rsa), Pelle Edberg (Swe), Stuart Bouvier (Aus), Anthony Snobeck (Fra), Tae hee Lee (Kor), Oskar Henningsson (Swe), Jae Hoon Jung (Kor), Pablo Martin (Spa), Qin Xu (Chn), Ashley Hall (Aus), Anton Haig (Rsa), Jason King (Aus), Wi-joong Kim (Kor), Scott Drummond, Shiv Shankar Prasad Chowrasia (Ind), Ji-Ho Jung (Kor), Anthony Brown (Aus), Chao Li (Chn)

76 An-lin Liu (Chn), Robert Jan Derksen (Ned), Martin Erlandsson (Swe), Anthony Summers (Aus), Jun Zhou (Chn), Peter Hedblom (Swe), Kyung-nam Kang (Kor), David Frost (Rsa), Simon Wakefield, Alessandro Tadini (Ita), Kurt Barnes (Aus), Peter Wilson (Aus), Seung Ho Lee (Kor), Richard Bland, Gareth Maybin, Tim Wood (Aus), Adam Crawford (Aus), Zhi-Jin Xiao (Tpe), Gary Murphy, Fabrizio Zanotti (Par), Hao Yuan (Chn), Wook-Soon Kang (Kor)

77 Scott Laycock (Aus), Zane Scotland, Qing Liu (Chn), Ryan Haller (Aus), Kyung-sool Kang (Kor), Mads Vibe-Hastrup (Den), Pablo Larrazabal (Spa), Myung-ho Kwon (Kor), Sung-hoon Kang (Kor)

78 Mikko Ilonen (Fin), Shiv Kapur (Ind), Jae-woong Eom (Kor), Xin Liu (Chn), Michael Moore (Aus), Seve Benson, Gui Ming Liao (Chn), Wen-yi Huang (Chn), Kang-Chun Wu (Chn)

79 Jeppe Huldahl (Den), Ming-chuan Chen (Tpe), Tae-hyun Jun (Kor), Cui-Lin Gu (Chn), Wen-xu Lu (Chn), Lei Shang (Tpe)

80 Wei-Tze Yeh (Tai), Tristan Lambert (Aus), Xin-jun Zhang (Chn), Michael Curtain (Aus), Xiao-ma Chen (Chn), Yu-xiang Liu (Chn)

81 Justin Evans, Ming Jie Huang (Chn), Gareth Paddison (Nzl), Shu Tao Gu (Chn), Ji-man Kang (Kor)

82 Terry Price (Aus), Wei Huo (Chn), An-Da Liu (Chn)

83 Yong-liang Shao (Chn), Shao-cai He (Chn), Taco Remkes (Ned)

85 Tian Yuan (Chn), Shu-xin Chen (Chn), Wei-hai Kong (Chn)