There was disappointment for Callum Shinkwin who missed out on the match play stages of the inaugural Belgian Knockout as the experimental format delivered plenty of drama.

Spain’s Jorge Campillo carded a second consecutive 67 at Rinkven International Golf Club to finish eight under par, a shot ahead of England's James Heath at the top of the leaderboard.

Local favourite Thomas Detry was part of a five-strong group on six under as fellow Belgian and tournament host Thomas Pieters also advanced on two under, with 11 players on one over par eventually left to battle it out for the remaining eight places in the top 64 – including Bushey golfer Shinkwin.

Australia's Jordan Zunic and New Zealand's Ryan Fox were eliminated on the first play-off hole after wild drives led to a triple bogey and double bogey respectively, while Zimbabwe's Scott Vincent made the only birdie to secure his place in the knockout stages.

Laurie Canter and Jens Fahrbring then birdied the second extra hole to go through and leave six players competing for the last five places, with a double bogey on the third hole for Moor Park professional Shinkwin allowing Romain Wattel, Jinho Choi, Felipe Aguilar, Ryan Evans and Tom Lewis to advance.

Vincent told Sky Sports: "I was really nervous, especially being the first to play. It adds a lot of excitement and drama to golf.

"I think the spectators will appreciate it, it gives us golfers a bit of a heart attack now and then but all in all I think it's going to be great."

The remaining players 64 will contest nine-hole strokeplay matches over the weekend, with three rounds of matches taking place today and the quarter-finals, semi-final and final tomorrow.

To give some advantage to the leading players after 36 holes, if any of the first knockout round matches involving the top 16 seeds are tied, the seeds will go through to the second round. In all other tied matches a tie will be resolved by a play-off.

"It's man to man, you don't need to worry about the rest now, you just need to worry about your opponent," said Holland's Joost Luiten, who qualified for the knockout stages thanks to playing his last three holes in three under par.

"It's nine holes so you have to be on top of the ball from the beginning, try to put pressure on him and I think it will be a lot of fun."

The Belgian Knockout is the first European Tour event to be staged in the country since 2000 and former Ryder Cup star Nicolas Colsaerts added: "It's amazing. You can see the amount of people that have turned up yesterday and today.

"I see faces in the crowd I haven't seen in 15 years, friends, people that I played against in junior competitions, members from here.

"It's great to see the enthusiasm of everyone in Belgium for this event."