Ryan Fox has made an impressive debut at this year's Masters, sitting in a tie for 16th after going two-under at Augusta National in his opening round this morning.
Fox teed off shortly after 4am this morning and nerves appeared toto be present with his tee shot on the par-four first ending up in amongst trees.
However the Kiwi recovered to make par and continued that parity until the par-three fifth, where another loose tee shot left him needing to make a long putt but resulted in a bogey.
Fox said he felt he "probably should have birdied two and three" in hindsight but it didn't take him long to erase the error with an impressive approach on the par-five eighth allowing him to sink his first Augusta birdie.
Fox then added two more birdies to his tally on back-to-back holes on the 12th and 13th, including an impressive long-range putt on the 12th.
“I hit it exactly where you're supposed to on 12 and finally made a putt, which was nice," he said.
“[The back-to-back birdies] sort of got the round going, and I probably could have had a couple more there, but if you would have given me 70 at the start of the day, I would have taken it.”
Another missed fairway - a bit of a problem he had in his opening round with just eight of 14 made - on the 14th proved costly though as he bogeyed the par-four 14th to fall back to one-under.
Fox put a stamp on his debut with his final hole of the round though, sinking another birdie putt at length on the 18th green to finish with a two-under 70.
"I was a lot more calm and a lot less nervous than I expected to be," he said.
“I just enjoyed the whole experience out there, to be honest.
“I sort of said to myself, regardless of what happens, I get to play the Masters, so I can live with whatever the outcome is and it was kind of a nice way to play today.”
It wasn't as nice a day for returning great Tiger Woods though, who was unable to take advantage of the favourable conditions at Augusta National, fighting with his irons and putter on his way to a pedestrian two-over-par 74 on the first day of the Masters.
His opening day was three shots worse than his first round a year ago.
"Most of the guys are going low today," Woods said after his round.
"This was the day to do it. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be a little bit better, a little bit sharper, and kind of inch my way through it."
Woods carded five bogeys, although he birdied two of the par 5s.
The five-times Masters champion sank a left-to-right 27-foot putt for birdie on the 15th and followed it up with an eight-footer on the par-3 16th.
However, he could not get up-and-down on 18, posting another bogey to cap the fifth competitive round of golf Woods has played this year.
"I didn't have very good speed early," Woods said.
"I had two three-putts, and consequently I'm a couple over par. I didn't hit my irons close enough today.
"I didn't give myself very good looks. Need to do a better job of that going forward to hopefully get myself back in this tournament."
Viktor Hovland, Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka currently lead the field at seven-under after finishing their first rounds.
- Additional reporting by the Associated Press
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