Adam Scott edged an epic encounter with Séamus Power to get a point on the board at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.
Scott was delighted to get off to a winning start at Austin Country Club but there was no such joy for Tommy Fleetwood as he fell to an unexpected opening defeat late on Wednesday.
Playing in Group 13 proved unlucky for Power. He stood on the 14th tee with a two-hole lead but a birdie from Scott halved the deficit and another at 16 wiped it out.
They went down the last with nothing between them after sharing pars at the short 17th and it was advantage Power when Scott left himself a 26-footer down the hill. But he rolled it in and the Irishman, from about half that distance, could not follow him.
Scott said: "It's good to get a win. When you win two of the last three, you're squeaking out of a match. Not much was going for either of us. A couple errors by both of us on the back nine. Some good stuff at the end of the match to win. It always feels good to get a win, even if it's the first round of the Match Play, it feels like a win.
"I've got tough matches the next couple days, but it's a good spot to be going in with a win and feeling like the tournament is all in front of me still."
Sam Burns took down Adam Hadwin to join Scott on one point.
Fleetwood, the 24th seed, was up against JT Poston and it was the American 43rd seed who came out on top, 3&2.
Poston said: "It feels great. Obviously Tommy has got a great resume, match play and stroke play, so I knew it wasn't going to be easy and I was going to have to play well. I felt like I played pretty steady, solid golf. Just tried not to give him too many of them, and fortunately came out on top on 16."
In the other Group 16 encounter, Sungjae Im posted the biggest win of the day, 8&6 against Maverick McNealy.
In Group 8 Viktor Hovland lost 3&1 to Matt Kuchar and the American admitted he got a bit lucky.
He said: "I knew I had my hands full. Viktor was nice to me on the greens - he had a couple of putts horseshoe out.
"Sometimes you need things like that to go your way and they went my way today."
Si Woo Kim joined Kuchar on a point after taking down Chris Kirk.
Shane Lowry lost to 2&1 to Taylor Montgomery in Group 12 while Jordan Spieth won the other match in that section 4&3 against Mackenzie Hughes.
Victor Perez was undone 2&1 by Collin Morikawa in Group 9 where Jason Day, a two-time winner of this event, looked good in a 4&2 victory over Adam Svensson.
Group 1 brought up the rear and the last two matches on the course saw Scottie Scheffler make a winning start to the defence of his title, 1UP over Davis Riley, and Tom Kim beat Alex Noren.
Scheffler said: "I didn't have my best stuff today. Made too many mistakes throughout the round and had some chances to kind of put it away, made a few mistakes, but fortunately made a really nice putt there on 18."
He faces Noren next and when asked what he needs to do, said: "Just a few of those mistakes, maybe a few mental errors. And I felt like I hit some good putts and some bad ones today, and the good ones didn't go in, and the bad ones certainly didn't go in. I'm going to remember that putt on the last hole and take that energy with me. "
