Kiwi golfer Ryan Fox continued his strong recent form to claim a share of the lead after the opening round of the DP World Tour's British Masters on Friday (NZ time).
Fox shot a six-under 66 in his first round to be tied with Denmark's Thorbjorn Olesen at The Belfry near England's Birmingham.
The 35-year-old set the tone with a birdie on his first hole, before picking up shots at both the third and ninth.
He turned up the heat on the back nine highlighted by a huge putt for a birdie on the 12th, then closed with three consecutive birdies.
"I feel like if you drive it well around here you get quite a lot of opportunities," Fox told the European Tour's website. "You can hit a lot of wedges in and there's probably four or five holes you've really got to play nice and safe - make your par.
"Six definitely, eight and nine can sneak up on you a little bit, 12 is hard and obviously 18 is a really strong hole, so if you can get through those holes without any damage you can kind of attack the rest of the golf course, and I managed to do that pretty well.
"I've missed most of my drives in the right place, which is a good thing to do. I didn't hit a lot of fairways but I was just off on a lot and the rough's a little patchy this week so you can kind of get away with it.
"It's a fun golf course to play. I grew up on this kind of grass as well so it fits quite nicely in my head. I kind of know what it's going to do and how it's going to react. Just go out and try and hit a couple of shots, and I did that pretty well."
The Aucklander's impressive outing comes on the back of his ninth placing at the Catalunya Championships and 15th and the ISPS Handa Championship, which were both held in Spain over the past fortnight.
Those were his first events since taking a two-month break, following his win at the Ras Al Khaimah Classic tournament in the United Arab Emirates in February.
