Day one digest: 2022 Ras Al Khaimah Classic

Everything you need to know from day one of our second week at Al Hamra Golf Club.

Ryan rose to the top and many of the field put on an absolute short-game masterclass in round one of the 2022 Ras Al Khaimah Classic.

Here is everything you need to know from Thursday in the desert.

Fantastic Mr Fox makes himself the story

Ryan Fox matched the lowest round of his DP World Tour career to establish a two-shot lead after day one. The big-hitting Kiwi carded a 63 to equal the course record from last week at Al Hamra Golf Club and sign for his lowest ever DP World Tour round to par at nine under. "It was nice to get in the zone, I just felt like I had control of the golf ball," he said. “I hit it in the greenside trap a couple of times and got up and down. It is the kind of golf course where you feel like you’ve got a lot of opportunities and it was nice to take advantage of those today and then hole a couple of longer putts on some of the tougher holes to keep the round going." Portuguese Ricardo Gouveia was his nearest challenger, with nine players then at six under.

Stone sinks one

Brandon Stone has shown glimpses of some very encouraging form throughout the Desert Swing and he continued that on Thursday as he made a beautiful chip-in in a 67. "That was a little bit of something special there," he said. "I got actually a pretty decent lie on the downslope in the rough just outside the bunker. I hit the wedge shot exactly like I wanted to and my eyes were glued to it the entire journey and she just disappeared."

Bunker brilliance from Laporta

The hole-outs weren't just coming from the grass - Francesco Laporta was making them from the sand.

So close to perfection from Detry

We're yet to have a hole-in-one over our two weeks at Al Hamra Golf Club but you're not going to get much closer than Thomas Detry did on Thursday.

Bland is anything but

There are few players in the game with more confidence than Richard Bland at the minute and it seems even the roller-coaster of golf can't knock him off track. From the seventh he went: birdie-birdie-birdie-stunning par-bogey-birdie. And just look at his face after chipping in at the 12th. It's good to be Richard at the moment.