Ryan Fox was delighted to be finding his feet at Augusta National Golf Club as he carded his first sub-70 round over the storied layout on day one of the 2024 Masters Tournament.
Augusta is renowned as a course where familiarity is usually needed to bring success, with Fuzzy Zoeller the last player to win this event on their debut 45 years ago.
With that in mind, Fox's maiden appearance last season could very much be considered a success, the Kiwi playing his 72 holes in level par for a tie for 26th.
He started the opening round of his second appearance with a hat-trick of birdies before an eagle on the eighth had him two clear at the top of the leaderboard.
He dropped two shots on the back nine but after signing for a 69, the man who has finished in the top five on the Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex for the past two seasons revealed he was starting to feel at home down Magnolia Lane.
"On 12, you've just got to feel like you flight one low in there, just try to take the wind as much as possible out of that, and I did that," he said.
"I think also I figured out last year that the breeze switches around a lot, and you've just got to wait for your time to hit, and I thought I did a good job of that, but I still got a couple wrong out there today.
"But when it's blowing this hard and it's gusty, especially through all the tall pines, it's going to be hard to get everything right, but for the most part, we did a really good job of that today."
A stunning approach to four feet on the first set the tone and he got up and down from just short of the green on the second and from the sand on the third for that fast start.
.@ryanfoxgolfer leads at Augusta National 💪#themasters pic.twitter.com/RdceVHFBBW
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) April 11, 2024
A 23-footer for eagle on the eighth then had him in control before he hit a poor tee-shot and then found the water on the 13th, with a three-putt from distance on the 16th seeing him end the day at three under.
"Everything worked really well today," said Fox. "I drove it great, which is pretty important around here. Had a lot of decent iron shots and holed some putts. Made a couple of nice up-and-downs towards the end of the round.
"I felt like it got really hard to pick the wind the last few holes and I did pretty well to hang on to three under when I didn't really feel like I did a whole lot wrong.
"But I was pretty happy with the round. If you'd have given me three under without teeing off today, I certainly would have taken it."
