JGTO member Justin De Los Santos almost did not make it for his tee time, but all's well that ends well.

The 26-year-old fired a brilliant four-under-par 67 to tie for third place after the opening round of the SMBC Singapore Open on Thursday.

De Los Santos marked his bogey-free card with birdies on holes fourth, sixth, 16 and 18 to lie just one shot behind Korea's Taehoon Ok and Thailand's Suradit Yongcharoenchai.

The Filipino golfer must have heaved a huge sigh of relief after he had almost paid the price for mixing up over his starting tee box.

It took a phone call from the tournament from the tournament office at the eleventh hour for him to realise that he was supposed to tee off from the 10th, instead of the first.

Fortunately, he pulled off probably the fastest sprint of his life and managed to arrive just a minute before his 8.50am tee time.

"I only arrived like one of two minutes before my tee time. I thought I was off from the first tee box," recalled De Los Santos of his anxious moment.

"I get a call from the office and they're like 'where are you', and I'm like what do you mean, I'm still on the putting green and they're like 'you're almost late for your tee time!'"

"So, I just made a full sprint from the putting green to the tee box. I hit that 10th tee shot a little bit out of breath, (took) a couple of deep breath and tried to slow the heart rate down and it turned out okay."

The Los Angeles-based De Los Santos was visibly delighted with how things panned out for him on the opening day.

"I was just kind of playing things hole by hole. This course is pretty demanding as it is, so you just have to really focus on each shot," he said.

"I played well and I made the putts that I needed to. The drive on sixth is the one that I was like pretty impressed with myself. I hit it pretty far, I was a little bit nervous on that tee short because they redesigned that hole so it's a lot tougher and demanding. So, I’m quite happy.”

De Los Santos is making his second appearance in the SMBC Singapore Open. He came in tied 48th in his debut in 2020.