Kiwi golfer Ryan Fox has revealed his relief after battling through sickness to card another sub-par round in his US Masters debut to extend his stay at Augusta.
Fox woke up on day two to the flu, but not even that could keep the Kiwi down, as he showed his resilience to finish with a one-under 71.
He had hoped to just not undo all his hard work on the opening day, and he did just that, as he found his grove at Georgia.
Fox hopes the worst is behind him, and he can find more consistency as the weekend progresses at Augusta.
"I'm pretty relieved, to be honest," he told Sky Sport. "I woke up this morning feeling pretty awful, fluey with a cough, achy joints, and stuff like that.
"To not do too much damage was nice and hopefully, get some time to rest now and feel a bit better tomorrow.
"I got lucky a couple of times, where I did hit it in the crowd but managed to actually hit some really good shots from trouble.
"I definitely started to play a bit better. I had a couple of scrappy ones on the back nine, but probably had a couple more that I could have made birdie on.
"But as I said, I was fighting it a little bit, the energy levels and everything like that, so I was just trying to get in without doing too much damage."
The highlight for Fox on the 16th hole, with his tee shot on the par-three landing within a couple of feet of the pin for a third birdie.
He admits the shot couldn't have gone better to plan, and helped him calm down heading into the final stages of the day.
"It looked really, really good," he told Sky Sport. "We had a really good number I think, we had 156 metres straight down, maybe a little bit out of the right.
"[I] figured if I could draw wedge in and pitch it 150, it should be pretty good and it was literally the exact shot I drew up, which is nice.
"I don't think I had too many of those today, so that settled the nerves a little bit coming down the last couple of holes."
